“So my dad says Take it. Take the shot. Now we were loaded up with four shot and a two to kill anything we winged. We weren’t planning on seeing any geese. So … Bam!. I opened up with a four and she jumped up and Bam! I hit her again—I could see my spread go right around her—and she settled back down. She tried to fly again but I could tell I broke one of her wings because she sat down again and just paddled out farther away from us. By now she was a good sixty yards out and even with 2-shot we wouldn’t have been able to bring her in. So Dad starts down to the boat and me and my brother shucked our waders and we can see her still paddling away through the dark. Dad finally gets the boat in the water and we jump in and motor out toward her. Only, with the motor on we can’t get up on her cause she starts diving so we kill it and my dad posts the oars and he and my brother started rowing. We saw her, still paddling out, her neck pumping, she was about forty yards away so I shoot again, with 2-shot, cause she’s on the water and she dives. I think I got her and I say so to my dad. But she just surfaces fifteen yards farther on and he keeps rowing. I loaded up, and when we got to where she was we see her pop up thirty yards to our left.

“You wouldn’t think a twenty-pound goose could dive, but let me tell you. I swing left and shoot and she goes under again. We rowed up … and there she was to our right this time. I shot again and she went down again. This time she didn’t dive so we rowed in and got real close, maybe fifteen yards, and I raised up and click. I was out of shells. Totally out. Dad and my brother had left their guns in the blind and all the boxes too.