OLIVE BRANCH, Ill. -- Shooting matches, an Indian artifacts display, horseshoe pitching tournament and a number of children's games are on schedule for the second day of the annual Alexander-Pulaski County Sportsman Club's Goose Festival today.
The sportsman's club at Roth's Crossing near the Horseshoe Lake Wildlife Refuge's public shooting area, will open at 9:30 a.m. Food and refreshments will be available throughout the day. Today's horseshoe pitching contest will start about 1 p.m.
The two-day festival started Saturday, featuring hunting seminars, a washer pitching contest and championship goose and duck calling contests.
"We had a fair crowd here for the first day's events," said Bill Beasley, president of the club. "People would come and go. We have another big schedule of events today."
Although the festival is only the fourth at this site, a Goose Festival has been held in the Horseshoe Lake area for 13 years. The Horseshoe Lake Area Chamber of Commerce sponsored the festival at the lake's spillway for 10 years through 1991.
The sportsman's club started sponsoring the festival in 1992. The festival is open to sportsmen, women and children throughout the tri-state area, Beasley said.
Geese are flocking into the Horseshoe Lake area daily.
More than 10,000 of the big birds came into the area between Nov. 20 and 27. The latest aerial count of geese on Nov. 27 revealed more than 17,500 geese in the Horseshoe Lake area compared to 7,500 the week before.
The Southern Illinois Quota Zone hunting season has been under way more than a month. The quota zone -- Alexander, Union, Jackson and Williamson counties -- opened the first week of November, with an 89-day season, or harvest quota of 62,691 birds.
Fewer than 2,000 birds were harvested during the first 24 days of the season, with the lion's share of them, 1,610, bagged in the Crab Orchard Lake area of Jackson and Williamson counties. Fewer than 300 geese were harvested in Alexander County and fewer than 100 in Union County. Many clubs in the latter two counties remained closed throughout most of the first three weeks of the season.
A total of 57,000 geese were found in Southern Illinois during the latest count, up more than 20,000 from the Nov. 20 count. About 19,000 geese were found in the Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge area;' 9,000 were counted near the Union County Wildlife Refuge, and about 8,500 were found in the Rend Lake area. A total of 2,500 were found at the Ballard County Wildlife Refuge in Western Kentucky.
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