Today, Zack and I went back out to the canals, this time with less then spectacular results.

I got there maybe 20 minutes before Zack, and baited up well, plenty of corn, set up two rods, one on the float, and one my traditional bottom set up.

For about 20 minutes, I had nothing at all. But Zack's goose followed me down the bank. I was in a long-sleeve shirt today, the new Lone Star Carp Brigade shirt, and I think the goose mistook me for Zack!

It waddled up to me real fast, then when it got close it suddenly stopped. The goose stared at me...blinked...then lowered it's head, and did the waddle-charge, clearly angered by the fact that I was not Zack!

So I prodded it back with my shoe, getting a few beak-marks in the process, then sat on the little wall waiting for a fish, or Zack.

I waited for awhile, then Zack showed up carrying nothing at all but his single float rod. I told him where I'd baited. He got his float out, and then set about trying to wrangle back the goose.

He walked down shore a little ways, and I said, you know you're going to get a fish while you walk off, right? It was half joking, of course, but soon I was following him.

The goose spotted Zack, and Zack spotted the goose. Zack sat down to see if he could coax it over for pictures, since I had my camera this time. As soon as the goose came over to him, it started biting his sleeve again...

And then someone's drag started screaming. I yelled, FISH! Then I ran back to our gear, trying to figure out who's drag was yelling at us. A quick glance told me it wasn't my rods, so I yelled for Zack.

He was already on his way back, Goose pattering after him. Zack grabbed his rod and yanked up on it, and was into a fish.

In Typical Zack fashion, I'd been fishing almost half an hour with nothing, and Zack shows up and gets into a fish in 5 minutes.

Nice.

We could tell right away this was not the nice, hefty fish we'd been getting last time. It Zack only a short while to get the fish near shore, and it made a few quick runs but nothing too spectacular. I brought Zack the net, and he tried to net it...

...Only to find that his float rod was a little too long for my short-handled net. He tried in vain to scoop up the fish, but the net was never quite long enough, and the fish just kept swimming away just beyond his range.

After laughing at him for a little while, I took over netting duties, and Zack walked back a bit, easing the fish closer to shore where I quickly scooped him up.

Once out of the water we could see he was dissapointingly small. Yeah, a carp is a carp, but after twn near 10's, and a 14.5 of spectacular beauty, we had hoped for more.

Oh well. Here's Zack with his un-weighed fish. You can tell it's not quite what we expected by his goofy look...Ok, so Zack always looks goofy.


That fish turned out to be our only carp of the day. So the lower swim wasn't quite as great as we'd hoped, but we will be back to fish a longer session when we get a chance.

Anyway, after we let Zack's fish go, Zack got his line back out, then set about the art of Goose Wrangling.

To our idiotic glee, we found the goose was more then willing to repeat it's antics, so this time, we were able to get photos of it!

The rest of the day was mostly spent playing with the goose, since the fish didn't cooperate, so from now on, I'll mostly just be posting pictures, and captions.


The Approach! The Goose eyeballs Zack...


...And decides to give him some love bites!


Zack, perhaps fearing my teasing about the Bird Flu, pulls his sleeve over his hand and lets the goose bite that instead.


The Goose decides to get serious, and jumps back up on Zack's back.


Most of the time it just stood calmly on Zack's back, apparently in a trance of Zack-Love. Yes, it's as wrong as it sounds.


Now and then it would move around, or decide to flap it's wings like a crazy bird.


...Or hump Zack's arm.

Actually, I think it was just preparing to attack Zack's hair. I'm out of picture room, so this will be continued in the next post!

Attack! Attack!


Zack protects his ears in between hair-biting frenzies.


Most of the time the bird just chilled on his back.

Later in the day, as it was starting to get dark, the Goose jumped up on Zack's back once more. By this time Jeff had shown up to collect his shirt, and hang out for a while.

At this point, Zack had the "bright idea" to try and stand up, without losing the bird!


Much to our surprise, it worked!


Zack eventually stood up totally straight, and the Goose perched on his shoulder like a Pirate's parrot!


Zack's Pirate impression.

To be continued.

That may be the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

Only Zack could seduce a goose.

Zack seems to check out the Goose's butt...


Zack, Master of Geese.


"There, there, Goosey Goosey!" ...Actually, those were Zack's exact words at this point.

That's probably enough Goose shots at this point.

Oh! I'll throw up this one for fun.


Zack lovingly strokes the Goose's chest. Not pictured: Jeff and I laughing each time Zack had to soothe the goose by saying "Goosey Goosey Goosey" each time I got to close to him!

And Zack ended the day by catching his all time favorite fish, the Catfish!

You can just feel Zack's love for this species emanting from this photo....He holds it in such a loving manner!

And that was pretty much our afternoon.

The idiocy never ends.

Yeah, no kidding Bret! I think it was even a little weirder last time, cause it actually got on his head, and this time it didn't get quite that far up lol. But then again, standing up and keeping the Goose on his shoulder pretty much equals or surpases that!

Zach, I always thought you were and odd duck...rrr...goose!

Next challenge. Weigh the goose so Zach has a new PB.

That's a classic.

Lord of the Fowl

Yep, thats an idea and a conversation starter

My daughter loved the picks, (I did as well) She keeps asking who is that silly goose??

That is hysterical! Looks like Zack made a new friend for life.

That looks like a great place to fish too! Does anyone want to share the location or is it top secret? Anything in it besides carp?

Glad you all liked the pictures! At least now you believe us about the goose! Lol.

Hopefully soon we can get some pictures of the ultra-beautiful carp in there too.

It's sort of a not-so-secret, secret. Lol. It has plenty of bass and catfish, but we hit it for the carp of course. Apparently the canals upstream are actually better carp fishing based on the one fish we caught at that spot last time.

Plus it's nearby for some of us, I wouldn't drive a great distance to get to it lol.

It's in the area of the Reading Swim, which we've given away in this forum plenty of times lol. In the Carrolton area.

It's already fished quite a bit, and it's a VERY small swim, so we dont want it too get too pressured or fished cause it could be ruined pretty easy. You can pretty much jump across it lol.

The next time you guys head out there I'd be interested in going in hopes of learning a little something. I did read your post on the float fishing and bought some of the small pencil type floats. I really want to see the hooks you guys are using as I'm still unsure I'm using the right thing. I looked at those size 6 octopus circles and they look like perch hooks to me so I passed. lol Anyway, there's still a lot that I'd like to learn on carp fishing and it would help to see you guys in action.
I'm pretty sure I could get the boyfriend to go sometime.

Really a strange but true story.

Have any of you boys ever spent any time on a farm? FYI Fowl males mount, hold on with their beaks (bite) and flap their wings while lowering their butts into position when breeding.

Not sure if that's what was going on as I didn't whitness it but is sounds it could have been. So Zach, how does it feel to be a birds mate. Oh FYI, Geese mate for life.

The size 6 Gamakatsu Octopus circles are just about the perfect carp hook for small waters! Those are the hooks I almost always use for carp fishing, and the same hooks I gave to Zack to use with his float. Next time, pick 'em up!

Scott - Yes! That is exactly what I thought the bird was doing the first time it happened! I tried to tell Zack but he wouldn't listen lol.

No, er, "stains", on his shirt though lol.