Snow goose Pod casts..

[ganderblaster]

I think the Delta podcastAbout arctic geese" mentions snow geese as well. Regardless any podcast featuring Chris Nicolai is fascinating

 

[Juvie Juke Box]

Here is the latest podcast I did. It's a little over an hour.

Alberta limiting NR hunters I could go both ways on. The economic impact of US hunters coming into the country in AB/SK I'm sure is pretty significant. However, we have a limited draw system here in SD that continually gets chipped away at by our GF&P commision who only cares about money. Over the past 5 years the amount of guiding that goes on in the fall has exploded and their reasoning behind adding and restructuring our NR licenses is due to loss of resident sales with the argument added NR opportunity "won't effect the current resident hunters". There certainly is less licenses being sold but I can assure you the hunting pressure hasn't decreased. The remaining license holders are hunters who hunt hard the entire season. I wouldn't blame the residents of Canada for wanting to control some of that if that is the reasoning behind it. I'm sure if you asked hunters in other high pressure states whether or not they'd like to limit NR hunters majority of the people who aren't earning an income would say yes.

 

[IowaWaterfowler10]

Here is the latest podcast I did. It's a little over an hour.

Alberta limiting NR hunters I could go both ways on. The economic impact of US hunters coming into the country in AB/SK I'm sure is pretty significant. However, we have a limited draw system here in SD that continually gets chipped away at by our GF&P commision who only cares about money. Over the past 5 years the amount of guiding that goes on in the fall has exploded and their reasoning behind adding and restructuring our NR licenses is due to loss of resident sales with the argument added NR opportunity "won't effect the current resident hunters". There certainly is less licenses being sold but I can assure you the hunting pressure hasn't decreased. The remaining license holders are hunters who hunt hard the entire season. I wouldn't blame the residents of Canada for wanting to control some of that if that is the reasoning behind it. I'm sure if you asked hunters in other high pressure states whether or not they'd like to limit NR hunters majority of the people who aren't earning an income would say yes.

Juvie I can’t wait to listen to that podcast. This is a great post as well. License numbers are down, sure. But so are the areas where hunters have opportunities. Between urban expansion and wetlands being rolled under and drained for crop ground these birds are being concentrated. Now start adding in how much easier it is to find birds with things like OnX, social media, and everything else. Todays birds see an insane amount of pressure. Even if you aren’t shooting at them they are seeing spreads, hearing calling, bad hides, etc. And at least where I hunt, if you aren’t shooting those birds someone else will be the next day.

 

[swampstomper]

Just got through The Outdoor Life Podcast: What We Got Wrong About Snow Geese 25 June 21. The information in it was fantastic. Only 26 minutes long and they touch on how the wintering grounds changed, hunting is keeping the population at a stable level, and Texas "mismanaged" snow geese.
Seems like Texas is butthurt that the birds aren't wintering there and rather than just accept the fact that they don't have prime wintering grounds anymore, they want to ruin it for everyone like a bratty child.

First off, Texas goose hunters aren,t for closing the CO anywhere. We happen to have a waterfowl manager who is and he has very limited support from mostly older guys that don,t hunt anymore. We have been fighting to keep it open here and it looks like we have succeeded for now. Why the hell should we close our CO season when the same geese will move north and get hammered along the way. I,d bet more light geese were shot in Arkansas by jump shooters in 2 weeks than in all of TX during the CO this season. We lost around 70 % of the prime habitat we used to have mostly to urban sprawl. Our rice farming now mostly suffers due to demands for water.

Light geese and specklebellies have shifted their migration east for better habitat. There,s also vast amounts of no-till corn they,re holding on when the weather doesn,t push them south. Geese were getting bird flu in the Dakotas last Nov because they were staying on small pools of water too long. They just did,nt want to leave that corn. If we had no-till corn in TX it would help us hold more geese but it doesn,t work here because of the climate.

 

[Drundel]

There was a lot of decent information in the podcast, as well as a lot of red flags. After delving down a rabbit hole with the Arctic Goose Joint Venture, I'm really interested in how data is collected and where exactly this data exists, as well as the funding stream for these projects. The fact that we are paying tax dollars to fly around and guess at duck counts, a process that hasn't really changed much since the 50s and not at all in the past 27 years is asinine. High-res satellite imaging and a programmed bot would be cheaper, more accurate, and quicker than current practice. Plenty of information seemed speculative and the fact that it contradicted the April 2022 AGJV strategic plan is definitely of concern. I want to make clear that I have nothing against Kevin Kraai and him bringing this information to the public, but if there's one thing that a degree in economics gave me is to look at the data, look at the collection process, and look at the model before believing something at face value. It's real easy to cover the truth up with the right variables either included or omitted. Just my couple pennies.

Do we know each other? You replied pretty much like my hunting buddies and the red snapper fishermen related to the "great red snapper count" related to counting method here in Texas think.

Just got through The Outdoor Life Podcast: What We Got Wrong About Snow Geese 25 June 21. The information in it was fantastic. Only 26 minutes long and they touch on how the wintering grounds changed, hunting is keeping the population at a stable level, and Texas "mismanaged" snow geese.
Seems like Texas is butthurt that the birds aren't wintering there and rather than just accept the fact that they don't have prime wintering grounds anymore, they want to ruin it for everyone like a bratty child.

No no, its just a few blowhards who complain the loudest.

---

First, I'm not NEAR involved in snow goose hunting as I have been. I'm getting older, shifting interest, being promoted higher in a multi-billion dollar global oil company and am currently pursing a global role, that being said, I have MANY friends who still love chasing snow geese and are very aware of what's going on. I'm sending the link to one of them to see if they want to add in anymore detail or correct me if I am wrong.

One of them attended the "North American Arctic Goose Conference and Workshop" in Corpus last December and sat right near Kevin Kraai. From what he said, the fed's pretty much disagreed with everything KK has publicly said.

If my memory is correct, Kevin isn't even from Texas and its well known he dislikes guides and guiding. A lot of the people agreeing with him are old guides/outfitters from the 70-early 90's who complain about the good ol' days and that e-caller season has ruined it for Texas. They don't want to admit the fact that we have lost a TON of rice fields, the type of rice has changed (very few will mention this, but look up the huge increase of rice seed being planted vs food rice, google ricetec), the massive population increase and the urban sprawl, stupid *** solar panel farms, climate change, LCRA and water shortages, and all the other little things that add up to create a massive snowball effect. There have been some "fun" conversations on the Texas Goose hunting facebook page related to this.

The numbers published about how many snows killed in TX are pure BS. I can personally list the hunters who are responsibly for probably 90% of the snows shot here and its around 10-15 people and they are NO-WHERE near what is supposedly killed.

IF e-caller season is ended here in TX, all its going to do is send money to other states and people like me will travel more to AR/MO, etc. for e-caller hunting. If they shutdown snows in general, god help the poor specklebelly because all the guides will just target them and cranes more.

Anyways, hope this helps and I'll see if any of my buddies care to add more.

 

[CNBarron]

Do we know each other? You replied pretty much like my hunting buddies and the red snapper fishermen related to the "great red snapper count" related to counting method here in Texas think.

Lmao, you should read my posts on thehulltruth about red snapper counting and the gulf council being full of ****. So, while we may not know each other, maybe we should. I have stated on multiple occasions that the government has turned the red snapper into such a pervasive species that they are wrecking the ecology of reef systems. While I wouldn't consider myself mad at red snapper, they offer an opportunity to bring people offshore and introduce them to the sport with pretty much guaranteed success.

 

[Drundel]

Lmao, you should read my posts on thehulltruth about red snapper counting and the gulf council being full of ****. So, while we may not know each other, maybe we should. I have stated on multiple occasions that the government has turned the red snapper into such a pervasive species that they are wrecking the ecology of reef systems. While I wouldn't consider myself mad at red snapper, they offer an opportunity to bring people offshore and introduce them to the sport with pretty much guaranteed success.

Curious, what state are you in?

 

[CNBarron]

Curious, what state are you in?

Louisiana

 

[Drundel]

Louisiana

Ah. There was that great video/news article out of LA about Guindon buying congressmen.