ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A dozen Canada geese flew silently in the foggy, frigid morning air toward us, enticed by 300 decoys scattered on our snowy ridgetop field.
"Here they come, boys," said Jeff Bruns, one of 16 hunters and guides hunkering in pit blinds -- wooden boxes sunk into the frozen earth.
Two of the big geese locked their wings and glided in, while the rest, perhaps sensing something was amiss, banked to the south. Just then, a buzzer went off in the blinds, signaling shooting time. Flipping open camouflaged lids covering their blinds, the hunters stood and fired.
Two geese folded, the others flew off unscathed.
Bruns 48, was as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning.
"All right we're on the board," he shouted. "Man, they came in nice."
Bruns, a longtime Rochester goose guide, still gets a thrill out of trying to tempt flocks of Canada geese into shotgun range. Last week, he led a group of 12 hunters, two other guides and me on a late-season goose hunt near Rochester.
For three hours, flock after flock of geese winged over the frozen countryside, most ignoring or skirting our massive decoy spread. But occasionally, geese were lured by the decoys, the calls of Bruns and his two guides and "flagging" decoys, which simulate flapping goose wings.
"Here come some!" was a common refrain, and those buzzers sounded several times -- though most of the flocks of geese couldn't be fooled.
"They're tough to fool. They've seen decoys before," Bruns said after eight birds approached the ridge, then veered left.
Said guide Steve Heston: "They've been shot at for three months."
When new migrating birds arrive in the area, hunter success improves dramatically, Bruns said.
He took his previous successes and failures in stride. "It's beautiful out here," he said as a few snowflakes fell and another wave of geese flew past.
Bruns, a gregarious guy with a quick laugh, was born and raised in Rochester and has been guiding for more than 20 years. He runs Broken Wing Hunting Club, one of several goose hunting guide services in the Rochester area. In the "real world," he sells real estate. But from October until nearly the end of December, he's often chasing geese.
"It's kind of a hobby that went haywire," he quipped.
He leases several plots of land around the area, has 10 or 12 guides who work with him and is constantly afield.
"I love this," he said after the group bagged two more geese. "Every day is a new adventure. You never know what you're going to get."
While the guide service is a business -- he charges $90 apiece for a late-season hunt -- Bruns' expectations have become tempered through the years. After he pays for land leases and advertising, hires guides and covers other expenses, there's not a lot of green left, he said. "It's not a huge money-maker. After I realized I wasn't going to make a million dollars, my attitude changed," he said.
When the geese are scarce or aren't flying, Bruns said he'll let potential customers know: "I'll tell them if it's not worth coming."
There were no complaints. It was a fine December day, and with little wind and temperatures in the mid-20s, gloves were optional. Most in the group knew each other and had hunted with Bruns before. They knew there are no guarantees with hunting. Still, they were all smiles while bagging 17 geese.
And they witnessed wildlife. Skeins of geese filled the sky all morning. At midmorning, one flock of perhaps 100 flew high overhead in "V" formation, well out of shotgun range, honking loudly.
Bruns looked up in awe.
"Wow, that's exciting," he said with a grin. "I don't even care if I shoot 'em -- I just like playing the game with 'em."
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