Quite often less is more and thursday's final hunt with my buddies visiting from NE Ontario was proof of that.
It ended up being one of those 1 in 100 days when it all comes together and the heavens and stars align for a Snow Goose hunter. A good hide, the winds we wish for, sun on our backs, the ability to get on the birds flight line from the roost to the field they are feeding in, the birds liking what they see in front of them, working into good shooting range and some good shooting on the part of the hunters resluting in what I can only describe as EPIC!
At my subtle yet persistent insistence and after running spreads of 15-25 dozen decoys for most of our outings with limited results and birds being chased morning and afternoons day in and day out by outfitters putting out spreads of up to 1000+ decoys, having their clients skybusting at distances of 100 yards and more with large groups of up to 15 guns creating high flying stale birds the guys finally agreed to try my tiny spreads I prefer to run when the birds are pressured.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result so we were well overdue to switch tactics and hopefully achieve a better result!
As the Ontario boys set up the blinds and gear Ben and I (local buddy) set out a tiny spread of no more than 24-25 Big Al Silos along with 4 White Rock fliers & two lucky ducks. We placed the decoys in three separate lines( Ben's idea instead of the two I was going to run with) with each line made up of small spaced out family groups of 4-6 decoys with lines spaced about 7-8 yards or so apart and a starting point 15 yards distant out from the fenceline with the head of the flock, about a dozen decoys along with the 4 fliers set to look like they were trying to land at the head of the flock 50 yards upwind of the blind and the longest tail end, he middle line ending 30-32 yds upwind and the shortest tail on the farthest outside line about 45 yds upwind and 32 yards distance from the fenceline.
By setting the three lines in this way it created two runways to the head of the small flock the birds would hopefully line up on, instead of just one and with the spread 32-50+ yards upwind of our blinds position it would hopefully place the birds in front of us at good shootable range as they slid past our position into the decoys upwind.
The Ontario boys went about setting up one of my A- frame style blinds along with a solo blind overlapping one end to accommodate the four hunters and two dogs comfortably. Besides the grass the blinds were already stubbled with the boys added a few handfuls of leafy willow branches they had cut along a treeline at the back of the field with a cordless hedge trimmer turning the blind(s) into what resembled some of the other brush clumps growing along the fenceline in the long grass.
Well it all combined to work like a charm and flock after flock worked the wind beautifully lining themselves up sliding into the runways focused on the fliers which were dancing and darting like hopping Snows in the 20-25 mph west winds paralleling the fence line the boys had set the blinds in.
At times we could barely load our guns fast enough and the empty hulls began piling up as did the geese. After a couple small family groups of Specks were taken out the first flock of Snows piled in like Kamikazes right on the Specks tails dipping and darting and with the call to take them four guns fired almost in unison and the entire front of the flock barely 25 yards distant folded as a whole. All four of us said afterward through laughter the flock disappeared from our line of sight and we were all searching frantically to find a second bird to shoot at which we did, and a third as well as the entire flock of a dozen lead birds got taken out hitting the ground one after the other.
Flocks poured in one behind the other, some pushing out a bit far, others a bit too high and others willing to commit suicide. At the first break in the action we scrambled from the blind(s) to get all the dead birds lying in a 360 degree circle around us picked up fast as my two buddies from Ontario sent their dogs on a couple wounded birds 150-200 yds away.
Early on either myself or my buddy Jeff seated next to me folded a bird in a flurry of 5 killed on our end with one coming down hitting the barbed wire fence separating the two farm fields we were set up on, tearing a wing off completely at the root, bird laying dead in the long grass and it's wing stuck to the wire of the fence blowing around in the wind. What a sight to see and what are the odds of such happening?!
When the last of the mornings' flights had finally ceased we laid our birds out for a picture after a good sweep of the field with the two dogs and collected two wounded birds we had seen go down and marked earlier as well as two we had not.
The hunt marked the end of 10 straight days of hunting with my visiting buddies, a father & son team from NE Ontario and an occasional fourth in the form of my local buddy who would join us when possible on the drive home from working night shift and jump into the blind with us to partake in some hunting.
We collected 85 geese, 72 Snows and 13 Specks on the Ontario boys final hunt. The boys packed their truck last night and are headed back to Ontario this morning stopping in NW Ontario for another 7-10 days hoping to fill some of the moose and deer tags their group has available to them before continuing the rest of their journey home but they are already planning their return for next season and even looking for property to put a mobile home on or purchase a small home to have as a hunting base here to spend the fall as retirement approaches.
All in all it was a tiring and at times hectic pace between scouting, hunting, cleaning birds and house, cooking, locating landowners during their busiest time of year etc. but overall it was a fantastic week and a half of hunting!
As a final note the boys reminded me we finished up their last and first visit in 2022 with a Snow hunt with an identical setup collecting 66 Snows. They said "now we have a new record to break next visit".
You can be assured we will try!
Ok stay posted. From here on out I'm going at the rest of the season focused primarily on Greenheads with my old classic SxS's!!
