Midwest Snow Goose Hunt

KID CREOLE · Mar-27-2007, 12:13 PM

Hey guys!

We made it back today from 5 and a half days of hunting in South Dakota.

Stuart, Gary and myself were very surprised to see how many birds had already pushed in from Nebraska and Missouri when we got there. We drove across souther Nebraska and sorry little to NO birds, as we headed north across Nebraska we saw absolutely nothing sunday afternoon

So we kept charging north and we finally started seeing lots of frozen ponds and some snows in souther South Dakota! We got our room and got up to do some scouting, we found a flooded corner of a corn field so thats where we started, the birds were spooked off by a graded so we set up while they were gone.

We put out 600 Sillo socks and 10 dozen full bodies and we were set up for the afternoon. Unfotunately the geese had a different plan, we ended the first day with 5 snows

Day two, same field, more windsocks and for our extra effort we got 5 geese , this is not going as planned, not good!

Day three starts a little better, today it's just Stuart and I in the field and we get 25 snow plus a banded snow, things are looking up!

At the same time Brian S and Mike R are getting started 90 miles south of us and they have a copy cat day 25 snows!

So we need to find the mother lode and we ran north about 50 miles and we found them along with tons of mud, hunting is going to get really tough.

Thursday morning we get set up back where we started for a short morning shoot and we get 2,

It's now time to head over to pick up Gregg at the airport and to do more scouting, we find a filed full of snows, short walk and we're at it again, and once again the birds don't want to come closer than 50 yds, they day ends with 4, now I'm totally lost, but after talking to Brian and Mike we all agree we need to go big.

We are all going to meet up and put out the big spread!

I knew about a field that a bunch of snows had been using, the bummer was the birds were up next to a farm house, so once we got over to find them they weren't there, they had gone a miles south to feed. We watched them come back into the roost pond and then went looking for the owner who gave us permisssion

By now it's really late and we don't get a chance to find out where we're going to set up, shooting a roost is not a good idea.

So friday morning we all meet up and head over to the field and now there is a chit pod of snow on it and another pond to the south has a bunch, what do we do now?

In the dark we stumble onto the diamond, a corn field right between the two roost anf the fiels has a small hill in the center, and a brush line on the edge, the down side is the birds have not been in the field so it's gamble time!

We've had slow shooting the first four days and now we're going to set up in a field that the birds have not been using!

So now we've blown a lot of time and we get started putting out the dekes and we see the glow of a rising sun, we bust our butts and we get set up just in time and here they come!

Finally were on the spot they're coming to us and we're putting the wood to them, we start off by shooting 52 in the morning, 52 birds is nothin to really brag about but we had lots of birds we passed on trying to land the grind in the field, best part of this morning is most of these birds were pulling in are migrators, which is a good thing!

Greg and I decide to go scout for the next day and we make a 150 or so mile trip and fisn one bird, one single bird, we are now officially in trouble!

We spread the bad news with the guys but we may have just seen the last push of birds so we decide to add more decoys to the spread for the next day.

We get into the blind for the afternoon and get another 25 birds for a total of 77 for the day!

The last day of our hunt we jug the field with well over 1200 sillo socks, fire up the called and climb into the blind.

It toook just a few minutes and the first group of a dozen snow roll in and two leave, we dumped 10

A few minutes later 9 ross come in 7 hit the deck, one with some bling bling! For the rest of the morning it's two and threes coming into the dekes! For the last morning we end up with 47

It was a great end to the trip that started slow but we ended up with bang and ending up with just under 200 snows, about 70% adults, the first banded snow was banded 9.5 years ago in Manitoba, Brian has the banded Ross and when I get the info I'll let you know

A really good trip over all, a lot more learned about these weary birds