Now that the June is here, I’m sure many of you are thinking about the coming 2024-25 hunting season. But before we look into the future, let’s review our 2023-24 season. Last year was the first time Run-N-Gun Arkansas ran hunts from October through March rather than splitting its season between Texas and Arkansas for some weeks of the season as it has in years past.
The hunting in November and December was phenomenal – some of the best goose hunting I’ve seen. The birds were more than plentiful and the site of so many fields covered with geese was awe inspiring. January also was good hunting, but a bought of near zero-degree temperatures and very icy conditions around mid-month challenged even our most seasoned guides. Once the weather leveled out, the hunting picked up and the season was topped off with an excellent conservation season.
The 2024-25 season opens Oct. 26. We see mostly speckle bellied geese early in the season, and we are running special pricing for groups wanting to book from Oct. 26 – Nov. 3. Arkansas is in the mid-continent flyway and winters huge groups of the Greater White Fronted geese, aka speckled bellies. With the generous 3-bird limit, early speckle bellied season can be great fun. But you must know how to call specks, which is an art into itself.
It just so happens that Run-N-Gun Arkansas has one of the best – if not the best – speckle bellied goose callers in the country, Nick Stillwell. In fact, he is so good at calling in specks I’ve named him the Master Mother Clucker.
You can revisit my blog from last year about Nick’s skills at the end of this blog.
Meanwhile, the coming 2024-25 goose season is filling up fast – many of our customers from the last few seasons have already booked their hunts. So, if you are thinking of a goose hunt this year, now’s the time to get on the calendar! We still have dates available – especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas – and we are running special pricing for the early speckled bellied season.
To book a hunt, call Patrick or Nick at 979 240-1639 or Judy at 870-573-3002. They will be happy to go over available dates and pricing for your hunt of a lifetime! What are you waiting for? Let’s go hunting!!
The Legend of the Senior Master Mother Clucker
(originally published Sept. 6, 2023)
The greater white front goose (Anser Albifrons), also known as a speckle belly goose, is the bread-and-butter goose for goose hunters. Speckled bellied geese can be called in like a duck; it readily decoys and it is actually good to eat. All in all, speckle bellies are just a fun bird.
In Texas, where I was born and raised, we were allowed only one speckle belly and then in the 1990s we were allowed two. When I bought Third Coast in 2001, I inherited some exceptional guides, one of which was named Ben Gregory. Ben’s expertise was calling and decoying speckle bellies. He said he made the same observation that I had – while specs are on the ground they make a clucking sound. He learned to mimic and then mastered the clucking sound, and it literally hypnotized the geese.
I named him the Third Coast Mother Clucker.
When a young Nick joined Third Coast, Ben mentored Nick in speckle belly calling. He and Nick spent hours in Nick’s apartment, which was situated over our garage, and blew their speck calls over and over and over – Ben demonstrating and Nick imitating his clucking technique.
Low and behold, after a few weeks of this intense practice, our elderly neighbor complained about the noise. I explained to her that Nick was practicing his goose call and that he was in his own apartment and should be able to practice this important skill that he needed to become a professional goose guide. But she didn’t like the noise. She finally had enough and called the police.
The police came to the house and spoke to Nick and me about the noise complaint. I told the policeman that Nick should be able to practice his goose call – it was his own apartment, and it was his livelihood! But it turned out there was a noise ordinance in the city, and the policeman wanted to use it to shut down Nick’s calling practice.
I realized that the neighbor could win this dispute, but I really didn’t want to dampen Nick’s enthusiasm for learning how to call speckle bellies or his opportunity to learn such an esoteric skill. There had to be a way out of this predicament.
I queried the policeman about the particulars of the noise ordinance, and it turned out that there was a distance limitation. A person could make noise in his or her home or business and the noise was allowed if the person was at least 150 feet away from the complaining neighbor.
I marched into our house and got a measuring tape and asked the policeman to measure out the distance from the upstairs garage apartment to our next-door neighbor’s house. Sure enough, Nick was more than 150 feet away – at 170 feet he had 20 feet to spare.
To Ben’s, Nick’s and my delight, the policeman informed my neighbor that there was nothing he could do, that Nick was well within his right to practice his speckle belly calling to his heart’s content. So, the calling lessons continued.
Thank goodness for that small victory because Nick perfected the speckle belly clucking sound. The student matched the master. Today, he is a GREAT speck caller – or the Master Mother Clucker. And now Nick has mentored the Run-N-Gun Arkansas guides to cluck just as well.