Cousin looking forward to second split in West Zone
GUEYDAN – A New Iberia goose hunting guide never tires of seeing the formations of the majestic migratory birds in flight, which he expects to see more of over the next several weeks.
The melodic honk and hink of geese are matched by Jack Cousin’s world-class goose calling each time he steps into a pit blind in the rice country around Gueydan. Cousin, who is in his fifth year with Gueydan-based Sportsman Charters LLC, recently finished a successful first split of duck hunting in the West Zone.
“Numbers-wise, we have 150 more specks than this time last year and we’ve almost surpassed the season totals of snows and blues,” Cousin said Monday night. “It’s been good, man. We’re taking advantage of good weather days.”
The second split for snows, blues, speckle-bellies and Canada geese got under way in the West Zone on Saturday and extends through Jan. 1, then reopens for the third split on Jan. 9 and ends Feb. 5. Cousin foresees successful goose hunts ahead.
Why?
For one thing, he said, “We definitely retained the numbers of birds we had.”
There are other reasons for his optimism going into the second split. His contacts up and down the Mississippi Flyway have provided updates going into mid-December, according to Cousin.
“Well, I think from hearing reports today, there are tons of geese in Arkansas. A friend was telling me it’s the most specks they’ve had in the area in a long time. I still think we have a few more pushes of birds ahead of us. It doesn’t need to be cold to kill them but we need cold to get them here,” he said, adding with a chuckle that goose hunting in shorts and short sleeves is his favorite kind of goose hunting.
Cousin, 28, and other goose hunting guides talked about the second split this past week and agreed migration developments in the Midwest bode well for southwest Louisiana. For example, he said, contacts in Kansas said geese that usually stop in that state bypassed it this year because of dry conditions.
Just because they might get this far doesn’t mean they’re dead meat when they reach the Gueydan area in southwest Louisiana. They’re smarter and extra wary.
“I mean, honestly, they’re as tough as they’ve ever been to kill. On the right weather days, we’ve been able to capitalize,” he said.
“It looks good. If you can kill them here you can kill them anywhere. There’s no tougher geese than southwest Louisiana. What makes them fun to shoot is how tough they are.”
How’s that?
“All these geese, they have degrees. They’re smart,” he said with a chuckle. “When they want to make you look good they will. When they want to make you look like a fool, if you will, they’ll flare and everything.”
As Cousin has said several times in the past, a “good weather day” is a clear day with south winds.
No matter the weather, it’s his job to call the geese to within shotgun range. Not far removed from his award-winning goose calling days, he’s up to that but after five years as a full-time guide he is well aware of the business side of the sport.
“It’s a lot more than hunting every day, I tell you,” he said.
Don’t get him wrong. It’s a labor of love. Making memories for people from different walks of life is fulfilling for him and other goose hunting guides.
“We’re lucky. We’ve got a good group of guys who come over here and a good group of guys that work here,” Cousin said.
Then he laughed and said, “It’s a lot more than hunting every day, I promise you.”
Results early in the first split Nov. 4-Dec. 5 were nothing to write home about.
“So, I would say, like last year, we got off to a pretty slow start for about 10 days but around that time we caught a couple cold fronts back-to-back, a pretty cool November, you know? They brought a lot of birds down quickly. That really kicked things off for us. From then on it was really good, as good as it gets, for sure, down here,” he said.
“Overall, we’ve got a lot more geese than usual this time of year, specks and blues and snows. We’re seeing more bigger bodies – blues and snows – seeing more of those early.”
Sportsman Charters LLC has been taking a break during the West Zone’s Conservation Order for Light Geese that started Dec. 5 and ended Friday. Only snows, blues and Ross’s can be harvested during the Conservation Order for Light Geese, which allows the use of electronic calls and unplugged shotguns and eliminate the daily bag and possession limits.
“We’ve done it before but this split we haven’t done it,” the goose hunting guide said.
Cousin, who graduated from Catholic High School and the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, took home multiple world championship goose calling contest titles when he was younger. That knack for calling in the geese remains, perhaps, his biggest plus.
His goose calls are music to the ears of geese and goose hunters. One New Iberia outdoorsman said in a story published a few years ago on the Outdoors page in The Daily Iberian, “it sounds like five different people calling at the same time.”
The New Iberia native enjoyed those waterfowl calling contests. However, he said, “I’m done with that. I’m over it. It was a fun run. I met a lot of great people.”
One of the people he befriended during the run was John Saucier, who owns Sportsman Charters LLC. They started guiding together many years ago.