2011 ND freelance trip

[johnsd16]

Went to ND this past weekend to try and decoy some snow geese with a few friends. I started out snow goose hunting just jumping and sneaking in NE. That was sure effective down there, but in ND the birds are so much more spread out and everything is so wet with sheet water sneaking isn't practical. I always thought decoying was just too much work and not effective enought. Over the last three years we've kept working, learning how to set up better and building and buying our decoys.

We left MN at 10:30pm on thursday, and rolled into an area we wanted to hunt at 4am. With no place to set up or knowing if there were birds in the area we took a nap in the truck and waited for the light. At first light we started scouting and after a few hours and a lot of miles we found a few geese and then found some birds in a spot we felt we could set up.

It was wet, but we set up basically our whole spread in the shallow water and small grain field the geese were feeding in.

The geese wanted back in while we were setting up and after we were all set we had steady action for a few hours and knocked down 37 between 11am and about 6:15. The dog was the star of the day especially with all that water for the birds to glide into. Breakdown from the day showed mostly Ross's about 20+ out of the 37 and only a few Juvies.

One band on the first day was a Ross's with a white neck band to match. It was banded in August of 2004 in Nunavat.

We were tired so we decided to stay set up in the same spot for the next morning which brought thick fog and light shifting winds. We had to move some of the decoys and the rotary machines several times that morning. I found myself without a gun moving decoys twice with birds at less than 20yds that morning. With some sub par shooting as a group we had only 10 down by 10am or so. Highlights were a group of 30-40 mixed adults and juvies that broke off from a flock of 200+ that came tumble rolling into the decoys and the other four guns brought down several. Then half way through picking up we still had the machines on and I again had no gun when three Ross's (one of which was blue) came blowing through the decoys like teal about 10' off the ground and not 20' from me(with no gun). All of those escaped with their lives.

Two day total at 47.

We finished picking up and scouted for the last morning and found a huge corn field that had thousands of geese spread out all over it feeding and loafing on numerous pieces of sheet water. The morning brought rain, north wind, cold and a field too muddy to get the wheeler and trailer into. We set up only our home made sillosocks and rotary machines and waited for light. 20min into shooting and it was still too dark to positively ID snows, there were tons of specks around. We had large flocks trying to sit down in the decoys but couldn't shoot. By close to 7am we started taking whites down. The action was steady for the next two hours with many large and small flocks decoying. Mostly snows. 76 total on the morning with about 20 Ross's and about 15 or so juvies and the rest nice big adult snows/blues. No more bands but a great trip for us, and rewarding with the last and best hunt any of us have ever been on being over our home made tyvek sillosocks and e-caller, plus two rotaries and a couple other flyers.

Trip total of 122

The trip saw a Beretta Extrema II break, a benelli and a remington 870 malfunction and turn into single shots. The conditions were wet and dirty/muddy in a big way. Sounds like lots of big shoots in ND and SD this year by other groups with much bigger piles than us, especially the last two weeks.

[nate larson]

Nice job! I have always wanted to give snow goose hunting a try but it seems like a guy needs so many decoys to give it a go. Congrats on your success!

[Gordie]

congrats and great post I will have to do this someday maybe with Nate

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Nice writeup. I enjoy the detail as much as the pictures!

[nate larson]

Sounds good to me Elwood!

John, tell us more about these "home-made tyvek sillosocks"

[johnsd16]

Sounds good to me Elwood!

John, tell us more about these "home-made tyvek sillosocks"

We cut the one piece heads/back supports out of chloroplast. Cut out two piece tyvek bags, sew them together, paint wing crosses on one side and staple to the heads. We buy the steel rods for the stake, heat them up and run them up the head. Some of the stakes have a hook in the top so they don't stay in the ground when you pull the decoy. The guys I go with were much more involved in the planning and design of these. They look/work pretty good for what we figured is about $5/dz in materials, labor not included. Kind of cool our best shoot was over all home made socks (about 400) plus two sillosock rotaries and some home made flags and flyers. Like a lot of groups one of our guys also made an e-caller.

[Sifty]

Sounds like a great trip.

Sifty

[bustumup]

Nice job! Wish we got shot half as many on our trip. I always wondered if it is okay to not dress your birds for a few days. I thought you are supposed to clean them right away, just wondering? If your'e grinding them into sausage, maybe it doesn't matter???

[Scott M]

Awesome Post! Thanks for sharing! Great trip.

[johnsd16]

Nice job! Wish we got shot half as many on our trip. I always wondered if it is okay to not dress your birds for a few days. I thought you are supposed to clean them right away, just wondering? If your'e grinding them into sausage, maybe it doesn't matter???

We put them breast down into a snowbank while we were out hunting every day, meat was very cold when we cleaned them. Overnight lows were in the 30s each night besides. I wouldn't do it with ducks I was going to pluck and keep the body cavity, but the meat of the breast isn't contacting the body cavity. Piliing them in the trailer at killed temperature probably wouldn't be good, I think the snowbank helps.