2022-2023 Waterfowl Reports

[jkern]

Nobody has hunted our spread in a week, life has alot to do with it. For instance I'm heading the oklahoma this week for my youngest boys graduation from basic training. Mini is also getting hit with life, getting the new house ready for archer and his future bride.

Can't lie though, out of all the spring migrations life can interrupt I'm glad it's this one. Staged and stale snow geese suck worse than stale mallards. The difference is killing 2-3 stale mallards per day per person is great, but if it isn't 10+ snows per day per person...it's not worth mentioning. Unfortunately...there's going to be huntable numbers of snows here for quite awhile yet.

At least the up coming duck hatch should be unreal!!!

 

[816]

Got a Tactacam this year and got out for snows a couple times- this was my favorite clip, got 4 out of this bunch. And a pic with the hound…was sometime late Feb.

I bought one and haven't used it yet. Did you just turn it on when they started working? Linked to your phone?

 

[nebgoosehunter]

With the way my snow goose season has gone I thought I would try a new area of the state yesterday for an evening hunt. The landowner said he had seen some birds around so I had a good idea of where I wanted to set up. I came down the county road and came over the hill and this is what I saw right where I wanted to set up!

Needless to say we were pretty excited. We didn't really want to push them off but they ended up getting up on their own. However they landed on the wetland directly across the road and proceeded to stay there while we started setting up. If you look behind the trucks and over the road you can see them there just taunting us.

The group did end up getting up and going to another wetland about 1/2 mile away. The whole time setting up we had birds trying to come back in, but it was taking forever to get decoys in as the ground refroze from the lows in the teens all last week. We finally had to go get our guns and one of the e-callers and turn it on while setting up. Sure enough a dumb juvie came and worked us and I got it to get us on the board early. We got set up and literally had snows and ducks flying around for the five hours we hunted. We only had out about 60% of the spread due to the frozen ground and the fact we just wanted to start hunting, so during a slight down time I went back to the truck to grab another tote of decoys to throw out. While walking back I heard a shot and look up and see a snow falling. I figured Matt shot it, but it ended up being my son who made a terrific shot on another juvie. I don't know if the extra decoys helped or not because we couldn't compete with the real birds off on the other wetland. They walked out of the water and fed right there so they pulled pretty much everything to them. We got several to work us and some we needed to shoot but didn't. There were two or three times we had birds work down perfectly to 40 yards and I figured I'd just let them keep coming since they weren't pumping only for them to just slide right off and go to the big flock. We held out hope that after sundown we might finally get some to come roost where we were. That did not happen but once again we had about three singles come down close only to let them go thinking the flock behind them might come in. I don't know what it is about this season but I feel completely inept as a snow goose hunter and I've been doing this for 16 years. It was honestly probably the most fun I've ever had on a hunt where we only shot two birds. I've never been to Canada, but this surely was a taste with all the water and open fields and small grains and the amount of birds. I'm betting we saw over 100k ducks yesterday, mostly pintails and redheads, but good numbers of mallards still as well. Snow goose numbers were pretty good as well as canada's and specks. Once we turned off the callers and while picking up we could hear snows roosted on three different wetlands all within a half mile from us. One of these days I'm going to catch up with the snows!

 

[BCLA]

Made the most of the opportunities given this spring, ended with about 20 birds on the year from 4-5 hunts. The highlight for sure was this sweet 7 year old bird from Nunavut

 

[nebgoosehunter]

I have been out of state on a trip since Friday and just got back today. From the sounds of it there are good pockets of birds here and there throughout the state. We had a good snow this past Thursday, it melted, then had another good snow Saturday, it melted for the most part, and then another good snow today. I'm not sure what the birds out here are going to do as temps do look to warm up back into the 40s tomorrow, but then 30s Wednesday, and the around 60 Thursday, only for another potential snow storm on Friday, and then warm again over the weekend. With the uncertainty in the weather I think I am going to take off a morning from work Wednesday or Thursday and hunt and then hopefully hunt on Saturday. Odds are there will be geese to hunt after the season this year.

 

[nebgoosehunter]

I am sick of the cold and snow! I took the morning off because it looked promising weather wise. It was supposed to be in the upper 50's with a really good wind and fairly clear. This morning was about the worst conditions you could have for snow goose hunting. It was butt cold, heavy frost, snow cover, dead calm, mostly cloudy, and very hazy, being able to see about three miles is all. We actually worked some birds shortly after shooting light, but they held up at about 70-80 yards and rejoined the groups they broke out of. After that it was follow the leader every direction you looked as they headed out to feed. This is by far the most snows I've seen all season and I'm thinking we got a reverse migration back out of the north because we are loaded to the brim with darks around home here and just a day or two ago there were virtually no darks, except locals. Needless to say I got a big skunk. It seemed like it was the middle of February instead of the end of March with the conditions and loads of adult snows. Looking at this storm system tomorrow and next week we may get more birds from the north as well. It's neat to see this many this time of year but I'd rather not see them as I'm sick of these adults.

 

[nebgoosehunter]

We were absolutely loaded in my area of Nebraska, like peak numbers type of loaded. I think just a combination of adult birds not wanting to go north still because of continued snow and cold in March here, juvies coming up from the south to join them, and a reverse from the north out of SD. We were on a huge X that we found Friday that the birds had been in all day for three days straight. There were another two giant feeds within 2-4 miles of us as well. Needless to say expectations were fairly high. The breeze kicked up right at shooting light and the first flock of the morning came in low right in front of us, only to flare like crazy 100 yards out. I knew right then it was going to be one of those morning haha. We had some big wads come right up to the edge of the decoys only to flare again at 100 yards. They came in only 20-60 yards off the deck so we got excited every time. We figured out that the frost on the decoys was probably the culprit. Once the frost melted off the birds stopped flaring, but instead they would just slide off. Every time we got a big flock we would break some off and work them down to 40-60 yards but we kept hoping the whole group would come so we passed on quite a few. There were about 50k that came off one feed and came right at us in two waves. They came right over us within shooting range from the side but we could not get one single one to turn and come in. It was quite a show but so frustrating at the same time. We did decoy one single right to our feet early on and got it, but that was it. We all couldn't believe it, but that is snow goose hunting. We'll work harder next year and get back after them again.

 

[nebgoosehunter]

I saw a nice group of snows with a pile of darks on a pond I have permission on this afternoon. Too bad the season is closed or I would try and figure out where they are feeding and have a leisurely evening shoot.

 

[nebgoosehunter]

It was a successful morning in northwest Nebraska! We went to a ranch my dad had permission on and I couldn't believe the amount of birds it had. The group we set up on was well over 100 birds with what sounded like two more big groups roosted north of us. With that many birds, needless to say it was very difficult to draw any our way. About a half hour after fly down a random gobbler came from a different direction that any of the other roosts. We never heard anything the direction he came but he was fired up and came to about 80 yards but held up behind a fence. He debated for awhile on what to do and eventually made his way over to the main flock. Four different coyotes were chasing the birds around which was pretty entertaining to watch as quite a few just flew up into trees to escape. It seemed like they would chase several birds our way just for them to turn around and get back into the flock. I'm guessing they were young yotes as they came up empty handed. With absolutely no way to break these birds up we elected to put a sneak on them. We were able to get up on a smaller portion of the flock off to the side and snuck plenty close within shooting range to each bag a nice tom. It will be nice once birds start breaking up and spreading out for some good decoying action.

 

[nebgoosehunter]

What another beautiful morning chasing turkeys! My second oldest Joshua was up to bat first after striking out last season. My oldest got his first bird three years ago, but he was still ok letting his brother try and get one before he tried to get one this season. We were set up in between two roosts, both about 3/10ths of a mile away. The north roost was quite big and they just went up on a hill and strutted around and hung out. I couldn't see the south group but it sounded like a few gobblers but they shut up right after fly down. My eyes were peeled on the north group for quite some time as a pair of males (I couldn't tell what they were from so far away) were starting to slowly make their way our direction. I happened to look behind us and there in the wheat about 150 yards was a gorgeous tom lit up in the sun and three hens feeding our way quite quickly. Joshua started shaking instantly when he saw them walking our way. He never gobbled but followed all three hens from behind, strutting about the whole way. He was absolutely beautiful as he was coming in, that will always be burned in my mind. They made their way through the cedar rows we were set up in only about 5 yards away. The hens went right to the decoys but the tom strayed out wide by himself and strutted, way close still though at a mere 12 yards. He was able to rest his gun on the blind window so he wouldn't get tired and as soon as he turned away I had him ready the gun with safety off. He turned back our way and I tried to get him to stick his head up by calling but Joshua just went ahead and blasted him haha. He was so happy and excited and his brother was so happy for him which was neat. We did go and execute a perfect sneak on the north group and had a single tom at 15 yards but Benjamin didn't pull the trigger for some reason and he ran off. There were another two toms at 25-30 yards that I told him to pick one out and shoot but his window to shoot was so small due the the flock being alerted. We backed out and we will try again another day with him.