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Snow Goose 2013


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CS- As adults have the highest priority to get to the tundra and start breeding, you see a lot of adults and young adults mixed in with each other. Seeing as the migration has literally halted due to the weather, some juvies have migrated as far as the adults. Last weekend we shot younger adults (typically 2+ years old) but we did see some young birds mixed in with the adults at times. We'll be going back this weekend, and with this storm coming through, one can only hope that it will really push the juvies north and keep the adults from moving too much further.(at least in my case) Last weekend we did what we could. Some bad shooting, and less than favorable conditions, we eeked out roughly 35 birds in two days.(one banded) hopefully this weekend is less harsh on us. full-40309-31976-goose1.jpg

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  • Bryce

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Canopy, the juvies arnt in a hurry to get up north because they do not lay eggs. With that being said the mature and often the oldest birds are the ones that push up north as fast as they can to get to the best spot to produce young. An adult snow goose is BY FAR the smartest migrating bird that I know off. They can be over 30 years old and have seen every decoy spread there is. I shot a snow a few years back that was banded 28 years before I shot it and it was mature when they banded it.

Snow geese are nothing like canadians. I really don't see how they can fly in family groups cause some flocks can have over 20, 000 birds in it but I could be wrong. In the fall I could see family groups but not in the spring.

If you haven't hunted or even watched the main migration in the spring it is unbelieveable and everyone should experience it...

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Bryce, you're saying that you've been seeing numbers like that in nd?

Full disclaimer. Video is in sodak on my way back from dumping garbage. Could easily duplicate this many times over north of the border. Was just on my mind as I was thinking about youtubing some retreives to get to my wife. Every picture I have posted is of birds that have dropped on nodak soil. Everything since Sunday evening over a small spread. 250 sillos and 1 e-caller.full-283-31999-2013_04_1021.08.53.jpg

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Cool guys! Thanks for the info. And thanks too for the great reports. It's fun to see how you guys are doing. Makes me wish I was out there!

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Beat up by the snow this morning. Gonna pull the spread in a bit, take a warm shower and go have some surprisingly tasty ribs in Fullerton. Sillos and speakers all stuffed full of snow. Not worth fighting. Gonna be a fight just picking up. At least I can drive out. Betting I will find a couple more drifted over. Shot like dog poo. Decent shooting would have doubled the take and 1 man 50 not out of the question with great shooting.

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Are there any Guides that have openings for two this weekend. the guy i had lined up is wavering on hunting due to the weather. this is the only weekend I can take my nephew out.

if you are a guide and are hunting SD or ND this weekend please give me a shout.

call or text 651-two6three-77nine8

Thanks,

Brad

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Nice Bryce! Looks like a bunch of adults! Hardest birds to decoy in the waterfowl world. You're a diehard, dude. Congrats!

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Pretty amped up for tomorrow morning, got the report I was hoping for, whether we get into them or not this will be a memory I'll never forget, seeing that for the 1st time, video camera is fully charged like me, can't wait. What's kinda cool is here in East central MN about every 4 years or so a few large flocks of snows come through here and rest in the huge fields near my place, so I get to see it here and there minus about a million birds lol.

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Hang on what's the weather report for late Sunday night into Monday, hearing 14+ in places of snow, 7-14" likely, when are we breaking free from all this mess ?

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Think that forecast is north of you. Didn't see near as many birds this morning while cleaning camp and virtually nothing travelling east. You'll see lots of birds. I have a constant arr, arr ringing in my ears. Going to Wolves tomorrow night. Hope it gets loud enough to drown it out. You free lancing, hooking up with free lancers, or guided? Looked like a guide set up shop by Ludden. Heard Randy Bartz was holding court out of Ellendale. Got an idea he was set up only a few miles from me. Lot of gimmicks in the spread. Final pic of the trip. 3 hours to pack up. Probably 2 days to thaw everything out. full-283-32045-2013_04_1116.12.07.jpg

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lol may not be going at all if I can't get past the hunter safety thing on the ap lol. We're hitting a friends farm near Oakes but we are adding options and have several guys out there giving us reports etc.

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Good to go HIP certified and got past that by drivers license number and the state it was issued in.

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There are some birds to be had in ND. Here is Sat. morning with two of us. The fog helped out a lot but i still cant find the juvies.full-19983-32068-december2011_november20

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Ditto Ray. Pass shot some birds today. Got 4, shot terrible. Birds had a 35+ mph wind on their back though so they were MOVIN!! Felt great to be back in the field though!!!!

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Yup. Didn't drive around much and found 2 good feeds, 1 with about 10k & one with about 3k & a roost with about 2k. COmbibe that with all the birds flying high & I bet we saw over 20,000 snows. Double that of honkers malls & pins

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I'm guessing nobody is hunting Nodak for the foreseeable future. 8 inches of snow here in Fargo. Lots worse west of us. I-94 is closed from the Minnesota border to Montana. Hope nobody got stuck in it...

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Just saw on fb from the local grandson we hunt with. Foot of snow on the fields I was hunting.

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Still lots of birds in NoDak. Been seeing em flying all day. Left the shop at 10 am & got to location in Mandaree at 12:30, saw fair amounts of birds the whole way. No feeds but birds were flying low & in all directions. Had to keep my eyes on the road for the most part since I am driving a $750,000 truck on bad roads so I probably missed some feeds. Not a ton of birds in the sky, maybe 75?k in the 90 miles down here

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Managed to shoot a few snows before the storm hit. 12"+ in aberdeen this weekend. Barely could pull all the decoys out of the field yesterday morning. If we could have hunted yesterday morning, there was no doubt we would have had a 100+ bird day. Snows flying only 30 yrds high as we were picking up. Shot another band this weekend which was always a bonus! There are still lots and lots of birds to be had but this wet sticky snow is going to make a lot the fields a nightmare. ]

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I'll just say Saturday was quite an experience, learned a ton, biggest issue was 2 of 3 fields they were using were posted tight and no 1 hunting them so the birds just kept piling into those 2. The 1 unposted field was completely surrounded by guys, the fog was kinda cool, even with that many were just out of range, lots of 70 yard high flyers. Of course we found a great place, but 1 mile into SD not north lol, had plenty of specklebellies in range, glad I knew enough even in the fog not to shoot them. Maybe this weekend will go better who knows.

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Saturday was a blast with the fog early and we had a good shoot till noon and the afternoon was very slow. the weather rolled in sunday and we spent hours collecting snow filled dekes 53 total for sat and 16 sunday morning while we collected dekes.

Big thanks to Brian, Terry and the gang for letting us join them.

We got snowed in and had to spend an extra night.

The vented rib separated from the barrel on my new Stoeger 3000 after 30 shots. I was not happy! zip tied it to the barrel and kept shooting. Took it back to Scheels in St. Cloud and they replaced the whole gun without hassle. They had never seen that before.

B-

URL=http://s327.photobucket.com/user/BWESKE/media/Geese/snows_zps3d9e2aa9.jpg.html]snows_zps3d9e2aa9.jpg

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