Snow Geese?

[creepworm]

I have never seen a snow goose migration before but wow. There has to be ten thousand or better that arrived in Brookings this afternoon. They are just thick coming in waves from the south.

[IceHawk]

Spring snow goose hunting should be a must do to every serious waterfowler. Even if the hunting turns out bad which is rarely, The migration alone is worth the trip. You will see thousands of light geese tons of canadas and specks. And last but not least you see thousands of ducks in full plumage it's like a work of art!

[Finlander]

I agree with Icehawk! Any serious waterfowler who hasn't seen this spring migration is really missing a great event. The first year (2001) I went to South Dakota I never dropped a snow, but was in such awe of what I saw that I have retuned every year since. Bring your camera!

[carpshooterdeluxe]

I have never seen a snow goose migration before but wow. There has to be ten thousand or better that arrived in Brookings this afternoon. They are just thick coming in waves from the south.

There are an estimated 100 thousand birds in the brookings area using the sheet water from the big sioux river right now. they have been moving back and forth with the weather from sioux falls to brookings, but they are keying in big time on that water.

[creepworm]

Ya, I finally had some time to do a little driving during the daylight yesterday. 10 thousand birds was not at all close to the number I saw yesterday. They are just thick.

The skies were filled with birds like this for the hour or so I was driving around.

[cbrooks]

Push those geese up here

[DonBo]

Leaving Sunday for Clark, SoDak, 40 miles west of Watertown. Any recent reports from that area?

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Leaving Sunday for Clark, SoDak, 40 miles west of Watertown. Any recent reports from that area?

birds and hunters everywhere.

[IceHawk]

There will be birds there if hunting pressure is to high slip over to the Tulare Redfield area. Hunted this area alot in the past and have done well!

[carpshooterdeluxe]

There will be birds there if hunting pressure is to high slip over to the Tulare Redfield area. Hunted this area alot in the past and have done well!

I have a crew working on a project in Redfield. The guys just got back to the office. Hotels are nearly full up there too. So is one of the hunting lodges we use from time to time in the off season.

The only areas not getting pounded are further north, further west, or further south of the main wads of birds. Especially now that the guides are basically done in MO.

[Andy Loos1431189100]

Just thought I would give a quick report. We shot 36 birds today and the two other groups shot 40 and 55. Lots of birds moving through SD. We are hunting with our sponsor Jon Neu.

Good Luck guys!

[DonBo]

Glad you're having some luck. I was a little dissapointed with our outfitter. He had us set up in some fields that were very good last week. They were not good this week. The birds had moved 50-75 miles farther north. With not enough help to move the spreads (till today), we were stuck.

If we had paid full price for this hunt I would probably have been upset, but one day was free (because of a poor shoot last year) and one day we bought, cheap, at a fundraiser.

Our field shot three birds on Monday, and 5 on Tuesday. We were about 75 miles west of Watertown, SD.

I'm sticking with turkeys from now on for my springtime enjoyment.

[Andy Loos1431189100]

Hey Don,

Sorry to hear about the bad shooting. I think you need to give it another try just with a different outfitter. Our guide has been averaging 36 birds per field per day. They had one day this season that all 6 fields shot over a 100 birds each. Wow that would have been fun!

We ended up shooting 71 birds for our two days. The wind died for us on tuesday evening and we had 1000's of birds circling our decoys all night constantly and if we would of had wind we would of crushed them.

[Roosterslayer05]

I agree with andy. Don you should give it another try but with a different guide. That sounds like lazyness on the guides part to me. A friend of mine was offered a job with a guide service that shot around 400 birds this year and he only runs 1 spread with no more than 4 clients. He also only hunts SD and doesent hunt everyday...so he had a good year. I think my friend is going to start taking guys out himself next year when he gets more decoys. Very knowledgable guy and im sure the rates would be reasonable. If he's not in the right area he moves...NOW!

[cbrooks]

Went after snows today. Got 29 between three of us. Shot most of them down south of Valley City about 30 miles or so.

[WallyGader]

We did great last week with 3 guys, we hunted 3 days. Our first 16 birds our first day and we had 4 bands with a $20 reward band, including a double band white belly blue that I am getting mounted, and we got our 60 that day. Same field next morning we scratched out 42 before the mass moved 5 miles north on us in which we moved for the following morning and hooked up with 3 other guys that where down from ND. That morning we had 93 on the ground before 10 and took us until 6 to get the rest of our birds. Our first day we shot all adults with some ross mixed in. Our last day we shot 90% juvies with a few rossi's. Donbo sorry to hear about your bad experience, unfortunately there are LAZY guides services out there, but there are some good ones to that try to keep there spreads in "fresh feed fields" that work very hard to make sure you have a good time.

[bustumup]

Nice work Wallygader! What kind and how many in your spread? When we hunted SD. a week ago, we only put out 150 socks and had a tough time getting anything to decoy and we were on or around tons of birds. We hid our blinds real well with corn stalks and had an e-caller??? Hopefully by next spring I'll have 500 socks.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Nice work Wallygader! What kind and how many in your spread? When we hunted SD. a week ago, we only put out 150 socks and had a tough time getting anything to decoy and we were on or around tons of birds. We hid our blinds real well with corn stalks and had an e-caller??? Hopefully by next spring I'll have 500 socks.

thats snow goose hunting for you. even with 1000 decoys out, there are days that just make you scratch your head. I lost a lot of hair in the 6 days I hunted this spring. Just could not find a pattern that worked.

[ChuckN]

Awesome blue, Wallygator! It will make a sweet mount.

I returned from southern/central North Dakota after hunting a few days. Our trip was cut short with injuries and nasty weather forecasts. The rain moved in and we bailed knowing it was going to be a mess.

We ended our hunt with a total tally of 76, with a fair amount of juvies. 2 other guys in the group hunted a day longer with 35 additional birds before the rest arrived.

Thursday and Friday were some of the best migrations (and hunts) I've ever experienced, and every day the weather really played with our hunts. Strong south winds all day long with migrating birds everywhere we looked, but the magical hour of 6pm the wind died and it was really tough to convince birds to work close thereafter. We would have tornados of birds overhead but they would hover for minutes at a time without commitment.

Saturday was extreme fog, and a couple groups had an absolute slaughter fest with a barrage of shots in the morning. A hunt I wish I could have experienced. Birds didn't cooperate at all for us and flew silent through the fog and wouldn't respond to anything.

I shot the largest snow I've ever seen.

We witnessed an incredible migration of the leading edge birds with juvies mixed in, but I still hear lots of juvies are south

[carpshooterdeluxe]

I'd guess thats a greater snow goose. See 1 or 2 of them every spring. Pretty cool!

[Maxxed Out]

That thing is a hog!

Need some advice. We are heading out this weekend again. We are thinking of heading to the nodak/sodak border. One of the guys that's coming was in clarke this last weekend and shot just under 200 in 2 1/2 days. We're only gonna have about 300-500 decoys so I want to stay away from the large numbers and competition in Nodak. What do you suggest?

[johnsd16]

I'd still go to ND. We hunted north of 94 and shot 122 in two mornings and a midday hunt over less than 500 decoys every time. On the way out on sunday there were several huge feeds right along 94. Friday was a big migration day with south winds and we watched lines of birds head north all day. Lots more juvies seen on saturay but basically only one flock decoyed. Sunday we shot 76 for 5 guys over all home made sillosocks, about 20% juvies, maybe less and the same for rossies, the rest were big adults. Land access is such a non issue in ND. Every day we had about three or more good options on fields all of which were unposted. I personally never saw another spread of guys set up, but a couple of our guys did saw one out scouting. Some other family were seeing lots of birds well north of Hwy 2 as well, so I'd think ND is going to give you more birds to work with.

[bustumup]

Might be some around, but thought everything was in ND. or Candada. If I could, I would hook up with you guys but I'll be lucky to make it to Nebraska turkey tipp'n next week. I originally planned on hunting that area (border,just east of Hecla) two weeks ago, but there was too much snow and no birds yet so we went to plan B. Now I see why you just go and find the birds instead of trying to time them being in a specific area. Atleast now I have more connection for this fall/next spring. Good luck if you go and let us know how it pans out.

P.S. I have 10 doz. socks and 10 doz.homemade shells that worked pretty good and a couple e-callers if you need them.

[Maxxed Out]

I'll absolutely take you up on that if you're offering. How about we do a trade, if you let me use your E-callers I'll take you out on a guided hunt with us next fall on Lac qui parle. How's that sound

email me at Graham @ maxxed out guides . com

[bustumup]

Sounds like a plan.

[BowTech03]

We didnt have a good camera, so we had to put up the binos up to the real small lens on a cell phone, turned out kinda cool though

[carpshooterdeluxe]

I'll absolutely take you up on that if you're offering. How about we do a trade, if you let me use your E-callers I'll take you out on a guided hunt with us next fall on Lac qui parle. How's that sound

email me at Graham @ maxxed out guides . com

garanteed birds right?

Saw a flock of snows fly over sioux falls last night while on my 12 mile loop on the bike paths. Has to be one of the last flocks of stragglers...

[jeff127]

A buddy of mine texted me this morning and they(5 guys) have shot over 200 in the last 2 days in SD----100% juvies----not sure where though. I will be heading to northern ND this weekend.

[cbrooks]

Went after Snows yeaterday. Between three of us we got 10 geese total...nothing great. Saw alot.We were north of Devils Lake about 20 or 30 miles from Canada. Large contentration of birds there. Had a heck of a time trying to navigate with all the flooded rounds. If your in that area be careful of roads collapsing from water washing out culverts(the county does a good job of marking the flooded roads with red tags). there is still large pockets of birds flying around the Devils lake area starting south of Larimore. Good luck to anyone hunting this weekend.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Got word of a 6 or 7 man limit of snows in SD yesterday, and a LOT farther south than I thought they would be hunting. Makes me even more frustrated.