A New Kind of Harvest at Eucott Bay


September 15th (Sunday)
It was the first day of the migratory game-bird hunting season. Since we first arrived in Eucott Bay we had been paying attention to where the different groups of geese were hanging out, and how they reacted to our presence when we went kayaking. Although we could also hunt ducks, geese offered us a lot more meat per life, and there were also a lot more of them, so for now at least, our focus was on geese. 
We had observed that when approached, the geese in a particular area consistently seemed to take off and fly through a certain corridor over the grassy area. So, we decided to try to take advantage of this pattern. 
Jason paddled ashore, and got out with the shotgun. I then towed his kayak back to the boat so as not to leave a foreign object ashore for them to avoid. Once J was well hidden I paddled along the shore, and we watched as group after group of geese took off and flew down to our chosen end. Jason then repositioned to a concealed area within the corridor. Once everything was ready I slowly paddled my way into the marshy area, the geese took off, group after group, and as predicted flew right through the corridor, right past Jason; they didn't even see him.  Jason waited for the perfect shot, pulled the trigger, and the poor goose fell from the sky. 


It is amazing how big a Canada goose is, and even more amazing how much meat is on the breast. It is a red meat, it looks more like beef than farm-raised duck or chicken, and the drumstick is a big ball of meat.

As we were cleaning the bird we heard a bear growling in the forest across the stream. At the time we thought it odd as bears do not usually make such noises, unless they were mad, but later when I had gone back home to fetch the tender to pick up J, he saw a mom bear and two cubs come out on the far shore. It must have been the cubs playing that made the noise we heard.
Dinner that night was special; it was food that we had gathered, and yet it was not seafood. Jason had roasted the drumsticks, sliced the breast meat into steaks and fried them, made gravy from the drippings, and we had them with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. It was delicious. 

The meat was a bit tough, so it was probably an older goose, but the flavour was delicious.  There was quite a lot of meat, and we froze one of the breasts.

Comments

  1. JanSeptember 30, 2019 at 6:31 PM

    I have never eaten a goose. Sounds like a good feed.

    ReplyDelete

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