Snowgoose Hunt

[Snowgoose1]

Some times you get lucky and today was our day. My son said he had the field where the birds are working. We had ten hunters and made a spread over 100 yards by 100 yards. I am not sure exactly how many decoys it was, but it was over 700 mostly rags. In total we ended up with 32 Snows, 5 Canadas. We lost two cripples so we thought we would call it a day. Only one white Snow which is pretty typical. Being home by noon with birds cleaned, priceless! A big thank you to some of the guys who are members here. Good luck to all who went elk hunting.

[spur_ride]

sounds like a great day

[h2ofowlr]

Fir Island hunt or Stanwood area?

[upwind]

Good job snow goose.They all must of flew your way my field i got one snow goose but most geese that flew over were high. Allot of large flocks of ducks were flying over looks  like we have more duck to shoot.

[ICEMAN]

And where are the pictures?

[ducksdoom12]

Fir Island hunt or Stanwood area?

[Dustin07]

post some pics of the carnage buddy~

only one white snow, are you saying they are still mostly juvies, or blues? I thought the pacific flyway had a much larger portion of white to blue snows (like 80/20) where as the midwest was closer to 60/40.

[Snowgoose1]

Sorry no pictures as I don't take camera out and about. I tend to lose them out of my pockets. The only pictures I would get are from a cell phone. Stanwood was area for Wednesday and today for three guys with a limit was Fir Island. Today there are way more geese on Fir Island than Stanwood. Birds are starting to spread out.  I saw several flocks yesterday out along Norman Rd on the way home. Last Sunday we got 15 into the spread and 6 were white birds which I thought was pretty good short evening hunt. Lately we have been spreading out our decoys to make the spread look bigger. Later in the winter during the cold weather our group puts them closer together. I have done this over the past years, especially during the years of numerous young birds. I spend a lot of time glassing the birds to match how they are sitting and how additional birds arrive in the air to join a flock on the ground. This is where I put my specialty movement decoys to try and match what is happening on other fields. Trust me we get several days that get nothing and those are the days I think we are going to do our best. White geese are strange sometimes.

[Dustin07]

If I remember right, a healthy snow goose can live to be 20+ years old? which is probably why the majority of birds taken the easiest seem to be juvies. After a couple years of flying south over shotguns, and then back north over shot guns, in huge flocks, you end up with a lot of combined experience leading to very wary birds.

[Skyhigh]

post some pics of the carnage buddy~

only one white snow, are you saying they are still mostly juvies, or blues? I thought the pacific flyway had a much larger portion of white to blue snows (like 80/20) where as the midwest was closer to 60/40.

I would say the pacific flyway/wrangle island snowgeese are 99.9999% all white...There are very few blue phase geese in our population...

[h2ofowlr]

Correct.  Mostly snows, with a few specs mixed in early season.  They usually pass by November and are on there way to Kalamath Falls or California.

[Dustin07]

Correct.  Mostly snows, with a few specs mixed in early season.  They usually pass by November and are on there way to Kalamath Falls or California.

but a spec and a snow are two different birds, whereas a white phase and blue phase snow are the same, but different color mutuations, right? I was just asking because of this quote:

In total we ended up with 32 Snows, 5 Canadas. We lost two cripples so we thought we would call it a day. Only one white Snow which is pretty typical.

I was shocked by the "32 snows" but "only one white snow". seems like winning the lottery 31 times to hit 32 birds and only have one of them be white, unless it was basically an all juvie flock.

[h2ofowlr]

Lots of juvies is what is ment by the above phrase.  The mature birds loose the grey feathers.  They will be pure white with 6-12" black wing tips.  Feet and bill also turn a redish pink color.  Juvies have grey bills.  They are the same birds.  Blues and specs are different subspecies of white geese.  As Westerns "Greaters", Vancouvers, Duskies, Lessers, Taverner's, Aleutians and Cacklers are sub species of dark geese.

[Dustin07]

Lots of juvies is what is ment by the above phrase.  The mature birds loose the grey feathers.  They will be pure white with 6-12" black wing tips.  Feet and bill also turn a redish pink color.  Juvies have grey bills.  They are the same birds.  Blues and specs are different subspecies of white geese.  As Westerns "Greaters", Vancouvers, Duskies, Lessers, Taverner's, Aleutians and Cacklers are sub species of dark geese.

I think there is one more on the dark geese but can't think of what it is. I thought there were 8 sub species now, down from 11...?

yeah I figured he meant juvies. I have a real nice mature blue and white at the taxidermist hopefully getting back within the next couple weeks.

[Snowgoose1]

Sorry about that, I did mean Juvies.  To let you know this morning was a Fir Island hunt. We don't hunt the dikes and I will leave it that. 16 birds for four hunters by 9:15am, 3 White Birds and 13 Juvies. Didn't use many coys either. It is really happening this week. I think each of these storms is bringing new birds with it. We did see three Blue Phase Geese the other day.  One was a real nice fully developed Blue Goose. Don't see too many of them here usually. I think now is the time to get out, I find it harder to get birds close later in the season.