The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Lincoln School Bus passes by a field of grazing snow geese as more geese fly overhead.
Students try their hand at fishing the deep pools below the dam.
Lincoln High School students watch snow geese take off from Freezout Lake at dawn Thursday March 24.
Miyah Davis uses her cell phone and a spotting scope to take a photo of geese feeding on a field above Freezout Lake
Thousands of snow Geese darken the horizon as they land in a field
Geese come in for a landing on a field near Freezout Lake.
Damion Birkholz helps Alle Russ cross some rocks on the Sun River .
George Pierce lends a hand in setting up a fly rod.
March 24 was a school day "on the bus" for Lincoln High School students.
A field trip to Freezout Lake, between Fairfield and Choteau, was originally scheduled only for Nancy Schwalm's Wildlife Biology class, but when word leaked out about the adventure, the administration decided that all students in grades 9-12 would go.
Have you ever tried to get a teenager out of bed at 4 a.m.? Everyone had to be present at the school at 5 a.m. for a bus departure that would get the group to Freezout Lake before dawn to watch the thousands of snow geese as they took off from the lake to feed on the grain in the surrounding barley fields. This incredible sight is a once-in-a-lifetime experience never to be forgotten.
About forty sleepy students, packing lunches, water bottles, pillows and blankets boarded the big yellow bus for takeoff. The five additional adult chaperones rode together in their own cars, and everyone met up at the wildlife information center at Freezout Lake to pick up a waiting wildlife specialist who would be answering questions and explaining the history and bird activity at the lake.
The thousands of geese and swans, who are on their spring migration in the western United States flyway, started their journey on the southern west coast and many will go all the way to northern Canada and the artic regions.
The students had many questions for the specialist, some very technical queries that showed they had been studying the migration class and, since Lincoln is a hunting and fishing mecca, some of the inquiries were about the exact dates of the hunting season!
The students finished their excursion with a stop up at Gibson Reservoir on the Sun River for lunch and an hour or so of fly fishing, trying out the flies they had tied in class. The wind was howling that day, so it was difficult to get the flies down on the water, but everyone enjoyed the challenge. No students fell in the river and all the fish escaped to live another day.
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