First Time Snow Goose Hunting
As many of you know, I recently got hooked on waterfowl hunting. I have the fortune of having four friends who are all big into it, good at it, and seem to have accepted me into the fold. This means they have all the gear and have deep roots with the locals in the area allowing them permission on a lot of land. For me, this results in a pretty cushy ride, and to top it all off, I’m so slow getting out of the blind that usually someone else runs out to grab the birds. Now that I think about it, I realize I’m a little late on this year’s case of beer payment.
Historically, we have primarily hunted Canada Geese. In fact, on my first outing this year we managed to hit our daily limit of 8 geese per person. I also got my first double (meaning that I managed to get two birds in one pass). Another exciting side note, we had a lot of birds come in just before legal light, we left them and allowed them to land. As we sat and waited for the clock to strike, a stinkin’ coyote came by and scared them all off.
On my most recent trip, and the main event of this story, we decided to try our hand at snow geese. Historically, the area we hunt does not see a lot of them, we just aren’t in their travel corridor, is my guess. That said, Tyler made some calls and landed us permission on a field where he had seen a whole mess of those big white birds. It was farther east than we usually hunt, but I was more than happy to go a little farther to give it a try. Tyler, Kendra, and I went out that afternoon to give it a shot. We set laydown blinds along the edge of the field and set out a little over a dozen decoys, some were the sock type, which is essentially white windsocks, and others were some older Canada goose decoys that had been painted to look like snows. We also had the luxury of being able to use an electronic call for snow geese, something that is prohibited for other waterfowl species.
We got squared away… and then stood around and waited… and waited… turns out we were there a touch earlier than we needed to be. I didn’t mind, you all know how chatty I am. Halfway through my home invasion story, we started to hear geese in the distance, I scrambled to my blind and got geared up. My companions were already ready, they even had their earplugs in… probably just the type who like to be prepared. As we were watching geese on the horizon rise over the trees, I looked down and saw a coyote only a few feet from our decoys and maybe 30 yards from our blinds. I saw him about the time he pieced together something wasn’t right. He cut a trail straight away from us across the field.
If memory serves, the first few birds were actually Canada Geese, Tyler was quick to flip off the electronic call and call them in the traditional way. This first pass was a great opportunity for me to fire a warning shot at the geese coming in, at least that’s the story I’m sticking to. We were there for snows, it would be rude to shoot Canada’s right? So I just shot behind them a bit. My companions, on the other hand, must have skipped lunch because they were dropping birds like they were hungrier than that coyote.. who, coincidentally circled back for another look. The gunfire convinced him this wasn’t a party he wanted to stay for.
We had another pass or two of Canadas, and I decided I better get at least one. After that, there was a bit of a lull in the action. After just enough time for us to wonder if any snows were coming, we were surprised on the right by a group of about twelve coming in to have a look at our spread. I was shocked at how they fly. Canada Geese fly with purpose, in a very proper dignified way. Almost like a commercial liner does, very stead and straight to where they are going, all business. Snows fly with reckless abandon, like small songbirds, as they flew passed I saw stalls, dips, dives, and sharp turns. This made me immediately think about my questionable shotgun skills. Little did I know, today would hold the best shotgun shooting I’ve ever done, so far. After those birds did their initial flyby they did a few slow circles overhead, descending ever so slightly each time. With each pass, they would lower and raise their landing gear, almost like a practice run. Eventually, they came low enough that someone gave the signal to shoot. Two birds hit the dirt, neither of them mine.
After those first few were collected, we sat and waited. Suddenly, in the distance, we heard it… the sound of a large flock slowly working towards us. Within minutes the sky was full of beautiful white birds, the air filled with their raspy honks, the feeling of wind pushing down from their wings against our faces. We laid back, hidden in our blinds, watching what could only be described as a tornado of birds. All slowly circling above us, losing a bit of altitude with each pass. After a few minutes of being in shock and awe, I heard Tyler say “get ready…. ready… NOW!” and the three of us popped up and opened fire. My first shot was a clean miss, but my second, almost vertical shot connected, and my third, slightly past vertical and on the left also connected. The two birds fell out of the sky hard, both crashing just to my left, one into a small patch of trees, I could hear the branches break as they fell. We retrieved our birds as fast as we could and were able to get in shots at a few more passes before the flock dispersed, netting us a few more birds. I was quite proud of myself for that double.
I am unsure if some of the same flock came back, or another smaller one came in, but either way, we got another front-row seat to a vortex of birds. Unfortunately, this time, I got selfish. Snows tend to circle a lot and do almost mock landings, Canadas don’t do this. On one of the lower passes, I yelled shoot and surprised everyone. I thought they were low enough for us, and I was getting bucky and worried they’d get away. As I came out of the blind, it took me an extra second to get lined up and only fired a single shot… which knocked two birds out of the sky, no one else fired. They had been perfectly aligned and I am counting it as good shooting even though a case could be made for lucky coincidence. Unfortunately, this spooked the flock off and threw a wrench into my companions’ plans. They were forgiving but I was embarrassed. I jumped the gun.
Several times after that, we agreed to pack up and head out, but each time we started to get out of our blinds another small group would come in. We got shots at a few and gained a few more birds for the pile. Eventually, the writing was on the wall, they were headed back to water and it was time to head back and start cleaning birds.
Tyler and I started walking back to his truck and my car. Around the time we got there we heard two shots in the distance, we looked at each other and I said “That is either a good thing or a bad thing.” As we drove back, Tyler heard the third shot but I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my car’s suspension clunking across the field. We got there to find Kendra with an extra goose. It turns out it had come by, she called it in close, missed two shots, called it back, and got it on the third try.
We drove back to town and cleaned the birds, all that was left was my long drive back to the city.
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