Spring Snow Geese Blizzard

“Even with snow geese over-populated throughout North America, hunting them is not as simple as throwing out a few decoys and laying in a field waiting for shots. Time and effort will be rewarded as you scout and set up successful hunts.”

- Wes David

After crossing into Saskatchewan we saw more and more snow geese. The spring migration was pushing through, and as we turned east we saw even more and larger flocks. We were on our way to an outfitted hunt, not yet equipped to hunt them on our own. But we couldn’t resist stopping and taking dozens of photos of thousands upon thousands of white geese feeding in the prairie grain fields.

After we arrived at the outfitters and got settled in, our guide drove us out to see where we would be hunting the next morning. There were flocks of snow geese with blue geese and Ross’s Geese in almost every field, including the one we would hunt early the next morning.

Two large flocks were feeding when we arrived, and smaller flights were continuously joining from all directions. We watched spell bound for about half an hour, keeping our distance to be sure not to disturb the geese.

Sleep didn’t come easy after seeing that, and at 5 a.m. the next morning we were already sipping hot coffee at the edge of the field we had watched the evening before, receiving a quick orientation from our guide, Garrett. He had put out a mix of 900 full-body and sock decoys the evening before, and all that was left to do was position laydown blinds amongst the decoys.

Before long we were tucked in those blinds, locked and loaded with magnum loads of 3-inch steel shot. When Garrett turned on the digital caller, it sounded like a hundred cackling snow geese shattering the morning silence.

The blinds were positioned 25 feet from a shallow slough, with a large opening in the decoy spread just behind the blinds. The idea was to shoot geese as they glided in over the slough, headed for a landing in that opening. This flight path should take them directly over top of our five blinds for close-range shots.