2015 Saskatchewan Waterfowl Hunt

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stubblejumper

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I just returned from a three day waterfowl hunt near Saskatoon. The weather was cloudy, with a bit of drizzle one day, but overal, it was warm. The first day only one flock of Canadas came in, but we had a good duck shoot, with plenty of mallards. Day two, brought two flocks of Canadas, not as many ducks, but some pintails and teals were still around. Yesterday we set up in a field where the snows were feeding, and we had flock after flock of snows, several flocks of small Canadas, and a few mallards. The snows were not finishing properly, but we managed 24 anyways, and 20 Canadas. We would have done better , but the snows that escaped from our shooting landed a mile away in two other fields and soon there were thousands of them , which drew the geese to them, instead of to our 500 decoys. The geese would fly over us for a quick look, with only a few, if any, low enough to shoot. When we were packing up, we saw the snows lift out of both fields, and there were several thousand in each field. Overall we took around 100 birds, and everyone had a great time.


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Looks like you had fun. Now which one in the pic is you? I don't see a SxS in any hands or I am sure that would be the give away.

If you want snows to finish you better wave a magic wand. On the rare occasion when they do it's like dying and going to heaven but the majority of decent snow shooting is getting where they want to be, setting out a massive spread, getting well hidden with a good wind blowing on your back and hammering them 40 - 50 yards up as they hover in the wind surveying your spread heads weaving side to side trying to pick out anything wrong. And you need a field with 20,000+ in order to get any amount of shooting in has been our findings on it. I have a friend who guides in Outlook and he looks for flocks of 50,000 to 100,000 birds for his clients in order to try to get enough birds to work in close enough for a 6 man SK limit.
 
I am the one without a gun, but this is the one situation where I hunt with a 12 gauge semi auto. We did pass up shooting at birds that were on the limits of our effective range, hoping for them to come in lower, but only a few geese from every flock seemed to get as low as we prefer. Most of the snows were likely shot in that 40-50 yard range. The later flocks stayed higher, and just gave us a quick look as they headed for the fields with thousands of birds in them. We would likely have done better if we had sent someone to scare those geese off of the fields, to eliminate the competition. I would estimate that we had well over 10,000 geese come over us that morning, quite likely 20,000, possibly more. We shot at more than a half dozen flocks of snows, as well as at four flocks of Canadas, and the long shots at the snows definitely limited our success. The Canadas were more cooperative, and we did much better with them.
 
You did well, even the outfitters didn't have the greatest luck on snows this year… Poor conditions, delayed migration, delayed harvest, and a bit of a killing off of the snow's brood during an unfavourable nesting season didn't help things.
 
Sounds about right for Snows. Shooting at 1/2 dozen flocks in the 40-50 range out of 10,000 -20,000 birds checking you out. We bumped our spread up to just over 400 white decoys this fall. It gets their attention and draws them in for a look if you can put a big white mass on the ground which is really about all one can hope for with them. We are hoping to add another 500 if we can continue to find good sale prices on wind socks like we did this past season.

This was just under the 300 mark, 270 if memory serves. We have since added another 10 dozen socks, 2 dozen silos, 5 flappers and a rotator with plans for another 400 or 500 socks.
 
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Thats awesome. I dream of waterfowl hunts of that nature. One day I'll have to make it out to Saskatchewan to experience it myself. Until then, I'll have to settle for the handful of birds and two handful of shots i'll see on any given hunt.

How do the snows taste in comparison to the Canada's? I've been eating Canada's as long as i've been alive and have always loved the meat. I recently turned 20lbs of Canada goose meat into sausages and burgers for the first time and its is freaking delicious! I've heard a few people say the snows are not as good as the Canada's. Any truth to that?
 
1963beretta said:
Thats awesome. I dream of waterfowl hunts of that nature. One day I'll have to make it out to Saskatchewan to experience it myself. Until then, I'll have to settle for the handful of birds and two handful of shots i'll see on any given hunt.

How do the snows taste in comparison to the Canada's? I've been eating Canada's as long as i've been alive and have always loved the meat. I recently turned 20lbs of Canada goose meat into sausages and burgers for the first time and its is freaking delicious! I've heard a few people say the snows are not as good as the Canada's. Any truth to that?
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To be honest I had heard those rumors too long before moving out here but the Snows IMO are a better eating bird than a Canada at least comparing adults to adults. Spring Snows taste even better IMO. Once they have spent a winter in the rice and corn they get very tasty. Juvies straight off the Tundra can be a bit strong. They are also a much softer bird and much easier to kill. It doesn't take much to anchor a Snow.
 
chisholm said:
You did well, even the outfitters didn't have the greatest luck on snows this year… Poor conditions, delayed migration, delayed harvest, and a bit of a killing off of the snow's brood during an unfavourable nesting season didn't help things.
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the snows were just crazy were i live this year(NE sask)
i havent seen this many for years.
lads were limiting out in 20mins or less.
 
the spank said:
To be honest I had heard those rumors too long before moving out here but the Snows IMO are a better eating bird than a Canada at least comparing adults to adults. Spring Snows taste even better IMO. Once they have spent a winter in the rice and corn they get very tasty. Juvies straight off the Tundra can be a bit strong. They are also a much softer bird and much easier to kill. It doesn't take much to anchor a Snow.
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Interesting info. I'd love to try the meat for myself. I have to start looking into investing some time and cash into a snow hunt. What an experience that would be!
 
A prairie waterfowl hunting vacation is something you won't forget. My first was in the early 80's and ranged from Wadena ( E. of the Quill Lakes) to the area down around Sceptre.
Geese, ducks, huns & sharpies.

Just my opinion, but as table fare, once the geese have been on grain for a while, I find the immature Whitefronts to be the tastiest ... and in order, Whitefronts (or Specklebellies) first, Canada's next and Snows last. All are pretty good. James Bay Snows in early in the fall that are on the salt flats ... pass. :)
 
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