Snow and Late Goose

[wallter]

What do you think? I'm guessing that if the snow is deep enough the geese will leave.

[WollMan]

if they can keep water open they will not leave until it gets too cold and they are unable to keep it open. geese will find food in fields since they will be wind-blown and in most cases not much more than a few inches. some of the best goose hunting comes when the snow is flying and starting to pile up.

[Eric Wettschreck]

The geese arn't going anywhere for a while. There is food availiable and they will keep water on the lakes open.

The best honker hunting is right around the corner if you can take the cold.

[LABS4ME]

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The best honker hunting is right around the corner if you can take the cold.

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That's what those Camo Arctic Armor suits are for!

Good Luck!

Ken

[Dean Schellinger]

Oh yea, really looking forward to the weekend. We are hoping to have to use snowmobiles to bring the dekes out into the field!!

[fishingguy]

hunting after a snow can be very productive. We will take lawn rakes out with us and rake the snow away to expose the corn stubble. To make it look like our decoys have been rummaging thru the snow to get at the good stuff below.

[fish4cats]

would like to know where you guys are seeing birds? I have seen nothing in the last 2-3 days around here or hutchinson area. I am talking big #'s not 100-200 birds. There are maybe 1000 birds left in Hutch and hardly any here on the river. Anybody seeing any by Monti?

[WollMan]

they were flying in maple grove over the noon hour!!!

[icehousebob]

Two of us were out at Lac qui Parle last tuesday for the last day of the West Central Zone season. The lake above the dam was completely frozen over and the geese were all sitting on the ice and refused to fly that day. On the way home, every pond and lake we saw was frozen over. Some geese were flying by Hutch but I don't know where you would find public land there to hunt. I think I oil up my goose gun and move on to varmints and ice fishing.

[Eric Wettschreck]

There is about a zillion of them in SM MN.

[HDRIDER02]

We hunt down at Rochester for the late season and on a average do real well when there is snow on the ground. Hope its follows suit this year. Happy Holidays to everyone.

[g'eye pilot]

It was an absolute "cut fest" down here in Roch with the snow today. There are a ton of birds around, with less than a week to go in the regular season. Late season is looking good!

[french_lake_kid]

Wow, thanx 2 a tip from lucckycrank 2day, I witnessed 3-4000 mallards, & probly equal 2 that in honkers! With unbeatable friendly land-owners (about the only thing they didnt do was bake us cookies), this day should turn out great! We arrived about 2:00pm in a cut corn field S.W. of Faribault, & there were probly 500 mallards, & 300 geese on the ground, all in seperate flocks. We spooked 1 flock of geese, & about half the mallys when we were setting up, 2-dozen fullbodys(just enough, we figured, 2 control the birds). Which didnt matter much cuz they circled til we were set up, the set back down. Well as soon as we got settled, I realized i 4got my calls & flag in our long gone ride. Then as soon as that thought crossed my mind some $#@%$*&*&*(&@#$@!# came out in2 the field with his WAY-2-COOL truck & spooked all the birds, which wouldnt have been much of a problem, cuz of how bad they wanted 2 be there, but the worst possible thing happened...all the 40-50 bird flocks all added 2gether, 2 create a "super flock" about 100 yards downwind of us! So 4 the next 3 hours we watched the "super flock" become a "MEGA FLOCK" containing 3-4000 geese! Which ended our day, w/ out even taking off the safety! Every single bird that came in sucked right in with the "MEGA FLOCK" and made us go from a "cant screw up" type of day, 2 a "stay at home & look out the window" type of day. But it was fun 2 get out, just wish things woulda turned out better

[luckycrank]

seeing all tose mallards was cool i had fun just watching from the road, better luck next time kid....

[wallter]

Anybody ever here of guys setting up decoys on Frozen Ponds?

[Eric Wettschreck]

I've done that.

[Sartell Angler]

already posted this on another forum but you guys might get a kick out of it.

Well the weatherman came through for us and we finally got some snow before January to make building that pit in the corn-free dirt field (with a few stalks) worthwhile!

I hunted the snowstorm on Saturday a.m. solo and shot just one bird, then Flowage Tamer joined me for the evening and we shot two more despite only seeing a couple flocks.

Sunday was the day to be out there. We got a late start and by the time we got set up the birds were already flying. It didn't matter though because they kept on coming for the next hour and a half or so. The ducks finally trickled into the area as well, and we had flocks of 200+ working us. We took turns and only shot into 3 groups--Tealtime took down a pair that bombed in, Dom Wooganowski (nickname) took out two from a group of four, and I doubled on a trio that came in and we were done. Too bad the limit wasn't 5 because the birds kept coming and we landed a flock of 50 birds on the edge of our dekes and another three right in front of the pit amongst our Flambeau shell decoys! They all sat there for probably 5 minutes before taking off. We did have about 30 'Foots out there as well as a few silos but not a great spread by any means. Unfortunately the camera was in the truck at that point or we'd have gotten some pretty cool pictures.

Went stomping for roosters after that for a couple hours and managed to kick up two. Overall a great weekend of hunting (by our standards anyways). Looking forward to more pit action next Saturday...going to make sure all 5 spots are filled and plan to put out a lot more dekes.

Here is the pic from Sun. night with our birds for the weekend.

[IceHawk]

Birds definately are still here and I hope they stick around for a while!!! Me and some of my friends have really been putting the smack on them lately! As stated you have to do your homework but if you look for open water,roosting areas and feeding fields you can throw together a game plan and enjoy some great hunting. I will admit it's cold but if you make proper preperations and dress for the weather late season hunting is possible.Our group is fortunate in the we have big heated blinds that are nize and cozy! So don't let the cold stop you, late season hunting can be fantastic!

[commander019]

I have done it. It really works well when there are good numbers of birds in the area. If your hunting small numbers of birds, it will be tough to get them to commit to anywhere other than the roost they have been using consistantly.

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Anybody ever here of guys setting up decoys on Frozen Ponds?

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[commander019]

Couldn't agree more!

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if they can keep water open they will not leave until it gets too cold and they are unable to keep it open. geese will find food in fields since they will be wind-blown and in most cases not much more than a few inches. some of the best goose hunting comes when the snow is flying and starting to pile up.

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[HDRIDER02]

We went on the 15th to Rochester .There were 6 of us. Birds started flying at 9am and by 3pm we were on our way home with 12 big geese.Great time,went to fast.