Canada geese in Texas no match for Courville, 6 others from S.M.
Published 12:45 pm Tuesday, December 17, 2024
- Landon Courville, left, and his father, Jason Courville, smile after the two hunters plus 10 other hunters shot down their five-bird per person bag limit of Canada geese Dec. 12 on a Longneck Outfitters hunt in a cotton field near Lubbock, Texas. The Courvilles and five other outdoorsmen from St. Martinville also got their limits of geese on Dec. 13 in a nearby area and went out for sandhill cranes Dec. 14. SUBMITTED
A St. Martinville outdoorsman lay on his back on the frozen ground, nearly indistinguishable from above while wearing camo clothing, further concealed from the critical bird’s-eye views of countless Canada geese by decoys practically as far as the eye could see.
Fifty-year-old Jason Courville, a lifelong hunter and fisherman, sat up when the time was right, cradled his shotgun and pulled the trigger to shoot goose after goose, just like six other waterfowlers did at each time of reckoning on Dec. 12. The big, beautiful birds passed by so close sometimes it seemed they could stand and swat ‘em with the barrel of their shotgun.
Courville was on Longneck Outfitters ground near Lubbock, Texas, where he traveled with his son, Landon Courville, Chad Latiolais, Scott Horton, Tommy Beslin, Ernie Boutte and Brannon Boggs, all of St. Martinville. Twenty-five to 100 Canada geese often descended at one time to join the decoys.
St. Martinville outdoorsmen, from left, top row, who hunted Canada geese with Longneck Outfitters and limited out Dec. 13 by a lake close to Lubbock, Texas, are Chad Latiolais, Ernie Boutte, Landon Courville and Jason Courville, and, left to right, bottom row, Scott Horton, Brannon Boggs and Tommy Beslin. The retriever that did such a good job was waterfowl hunting guide Kaleb Richeson’s Bazie from North Carolina.
SUBMITTED
“You actually have to be there. It’s awesome. I had, like, birds 5 feet from me. You just have to kind of, like, enjoy the moment. I love hunting and fishing … just being in the outdoors,” he said, emphasizing the second word of the last sentence.
Courville lives for days like that. The GOM Energy Services welder works hard at his job, saves money and plans vacation days for each succeeding trip of a lifetime.
Jason Courville holds the horns of an 8-point, 230-pound buck he shot the first week of November while hunting with friends at the Double Deuce Ranch near Powersville in northern Missouri. The 50-year-old St. Martinville all-around outdoorsman took another memorable trip with his son, Landon Courville, and waterfowl hunting buddies 1 1/2 months later for some outstanding Canada goose hunting in Lubbock, Texas.
SUBMITTED
Another annual getaway is a deer hunt with friends to northern Missouri at the Double Deuce Ranch near Powersville. On this year’s Missouri outing during the first week of November he shot and killed a big-bodied 8-point, 230-pound buck while bowhunting on Nov. 4.
However, the recent Canada goose hunt in Texas proved extra special for Courville. His 18-year-old son shouldered a shotgun to knock down Canada geese with the older outdoorsmen for the first time because usually he’s in school this time of year. However, after graduating in May from Catholic High School in New Iberia, Landon was on fall break from Southeast Arkansas College, where he decided to continue his education and baseball career.
Landon definitely wants to go back and keep going back to Lubbock.
Landon Courville, a Catholic High School graduate (Class of 2024) who has continued his baseball career at Southeast Arkansas College in Pine Bluff, took advantage of fall break to hunt Canada geese with his father and five of his buddies Dec. 12-14 in Lubbock, Texas. They all got a five-bird limit while hunting with Longneck Outfitters guide Kaleb Richeson on that second day, Dec. 13, near a pond (above).
SUBMITTED
“He said, ‘Daddy, you ain’t ever coming back here without me,’ ” the young man’s father said.
Due to changing migration patterns, plus experiencing mostly warmer winters in the region, waterfowl patterns apparently have changed for the worst across this lower part of the Mississippi Flyway, specifically the Atchafalaya Basin, where Courville has enjoyed duck hunting since he was very young. Simply, he said, many ducks just don’t frequent their old haunts here as much, if at all.
Courville and his friends started looking for alternatives several years ago. They gave Longneck Outfitters a try, then enjoyed a good trip after their first 11 ½-hour ride to Lubbock, and had an even better hunt the following year in Texas.
The Longneck Outfitters appreciate the visit from the heart of Cajun Country. Why? Courville & Co. bring shrimp, alligator, sac-a-lait, catfish, etc., for their hosts.
“We’re friends,” Courville said, simply.
The Louisianians appetite for the latest return visit was whetted the evening they arrived.
Stephen Deib, Longneck Outfitters owner, told the Louisianians on Wednesday night, Dec. 11, to “get ready. We’ve been watching a field of 10-15,000 geese. That’s all Canada geese.”
“They (Longneck Outfitters owner and personnel) work hard to find the birds for us to hunt on the next morning,” Courville said.
The seven Louisiana hunters were joined on the first day by five hunters from Texas and veteran guide Kaleb Richeson, a North Carolina outdoorsman who lives in Lubbock during the 90-day hunting season. His expert goose calling matched the mesmerizing honking of the geese in the air and on the ground.
The hunters distributed goose decoys in the predawn darkness with temperatures in the low 30s. They covered the plowed cotton field with “sock” decoys that opened up in dramatic fashion in the 15-mph southeast wind.
With 1,300 “sock” decoys at the ready to tempt Canada geese to join them on land, the sun rises in the east as a dozen waterfowl hunters, seven of them from St. Martinville, wait for the hunting guide’s call to “shoot” on Dec. 12. They were hunting a plowed cotton field with Longneck Outfitters guide Kaleb Richeson.
SUBMITTED
“We got to the field at 5 o’clock. You have to get there early to set out 1,300 decoys. We all helped because the faster we can get them out the faster you can wait for them (Canada geese) to come in,” Courville said.
Richeson called. The Canada geese dropped in. At the guide’s verbal OK, the shooting commenced as hunters sat upright with shotguns at the ready from their prone position in a layout goose hunting chair, similar to a beach cot that folds horizontal to the ground.
It took just an hour to limit out.
“It was 7:45 a.m. when we started shooting” on Day 1, Courville said. The 60-bird limit – five Canada geese per hunter – was reached by the 1 dozen hunters at 8:45 a.m.
The Cajun Country contingent hit the targets more consistently, he said, proudly.
“Oh, yeah, definitely. We’re hunters. We know how to hunt birds,” Courville said.
Day 2 found the seven Louisiana hunters near the shoreline of a 4- to 5-acre shallow pond and the decoy setup was much the same. Canada geese would visit to get a drink of water, then, after 5 to 10 minutes, fly back to the fields to eat some more.
The goose hunt was over earlier that Friday morning.
“That went fast, almost faster than the first day. We only had seven guys,” Courville said about his group from the Sportsman’s Paradise.
A sandhill crane hunt, the group’s last outing of the three-day trip, didn’t go as well as it has in previous seasons, Courville said from experience (the hunting party bagged in 2023). This season the hunters showed up but the tall, gangly migratory birds known as the “Ribeye in the Sky” avoided them.
“They (Longneck Outfitters) actually found where they had some landing,” he said, noting confidence was high for limits before the hunt in the southern Texas Panhandle, a major wintering area for the species known for its bugling calls.
However, Courville said about the Saturday morning hunt, “They came by us. Landed one-quarter mile away.”
