Guided Spring Snow Goose HuntsThe HuntSpring Snow Goose Hunting gets in your blood, if you have never seen or heard the racket of 10,000 Snows and Blues circling down into your spread you have missed one of the greatest experiences of the waterfowl world. Spring Snow Goose hunting is something truly amazing to see and I there is nothing else to compare it to in waterfowl hunting. To have the opportunity to see up to a million birds in a single day is northing short of amazing. Snow Goose Hunting is also a vary frustrating experience if your new to it, knowing where the birds are coming from, where they are going, finding the right kind of field, knowing what effect the weather is going to have on them is all things that comes with time and experience. I have been a waterfowl guide for 12 seasons now and until last season I did not feel comfortable enough to guide snow geese in the spring. It was an art I wanted to master before taking paying clients into the field to give them the best possible experience possible since for most of them it might be their only outing of the year. Just sitting in a picked cornfield amongst up to a thousand snow and blue decoys with the snow goose e-caller roaring is enough to get you excited
..then the birds start moving and it gets really amazing. With a little luck it is tornado after tornado circling down on the spread with geese stacked up to thousands of feet above the ground. When it all goes right you better have a full case of shells in the blind and remember not to touch your barrel because it will be red hot.Every day is a different experience, some days will be a struggle and the birds will not cooperate as well as desired and other days will be a barrel burning experience. Last year we averaged 70+ birds per day out of my spread with on average 5 hunters in the field. I think our best day was 120 for 6 of us and our hardest day was 20 birds. For this reason I hope everyone can come to enjoy more then one day of hunting, best case would be for a 3-day weekend for each hunter so they can increase their chances of that barrel-burning day. Typical Day in the Field Our typical day will start early usually an hour before shooting time to make sure everyone is ready to go and any last minute changes to the spread can be made. Typically the action does not start until shortly after sunrise, we like to have everything ready to go at first light just incase we get some early arrivals. We will typically hunt from the early AM until the morning flight is over, from there we will break for a late breakfast/early lunch. At this time we will usually break off from you so we can do some scouting for the following mornings hunt, sometimes we will decide to pull the spread and relocate it for the evening hunt. After lunch we will return to the spread for the evening shoot, this will depend on how the geese are moving. We do hunt until sunset every day, at the end of the day often we choice to pull the spread to move it to another field for the following morning. I do not require you to help us do this, but I do appreciate any help you would like to give ..picking up a thousand decoys is no walk in the park. From there we will usually move to town for diner and talk about the days adventure. From there the guides will probably leave to set the Snow Goose spread for the following day. ScoutingScouting is the single most important component of spring snow goose hunting, if your guide is not scouting he is not doing his job very well. On an average 3-day weekend I will usually put on 500-1000 miles scouting, I want to give you the best possible opportunity to kill a limit of snows and blues. It is quite common for us to move our spread three times on a 3-day weekend so that we are on the "hot" field. Since we are scouting every day we might be moving up to 100 miles the next day, if that is something you don't want to do let me know ahead of time so we can find the best possible field closer to our home base. It is your hunt and I will fashion it to your desires. Equipment Decoys - The spread will depend on the hunting situation, early in the season we will usually set a very large snow goose spread consisting of up to 1,000 decoys, later in the season we sometimes will run ultra small decoy spreads. One of my better spring snow goose hunts was over only 100 full body decoys, just in the right spot at the right time. Currently we use a mixture of decoys including Bigfoot and GHG full bodies, Silosocks, custom painted Northwind, GHG and G&H shells, and floater decoys. Blinds - For spring snow goose hunting I strictly use Final Approach x-lander layout blinds, these are the lowest profile blinds available and also the most comfortable from my experience. Easy to conceal blinds is key in the spring, we will ask you to help each morning and throughout the hunt to touch up the stubble on your blind. Electronic Calls - During the spring snow goose season e-callers are allowed by the USFWS. We use top of the line callers with up to 8 speakers covering the entire snow goose spread. We use The Snow Persuader electronic calling system, this is a top of the line snow goose calling unit that is loud enough to draw the farthest flock, and has the sound quality required to get that same flock feet down hovering above the spread.(make sure to bring ear plugs - these ecallers are LOUD) Special Equipment - We do use other types of equipment in the field to entice and fool the wary snow goose, depending on that the situation calls for or allows we will use other tactics. I can't tell all my secrets so to you will just have to come and hunt with me to learn it all. Locations (Click on each state to read more) Missouri South Dakota Nebraska Pricing Missouri
The biggest difference between us and other snow goose guides is we only run ONE field per day so you're always on the "hot" field. It will always be myself and another guide with you, usually one of us will leave the field during the morning and evening hunts to scout for the next days hunt. The next biggest difference is I want you to view me as your hunting buddy; I want to have fun in the field and by no means want to have a guide/client relationship. I am not doing this to make a living as I am doing it to allow me to hunt all season. With the rising cost of fuel it had become impossible for me to hunt every weekend. There are only so many weekends to do this every spring and I want to enjoy them all. As much as I am your snow goose guide, I am also a member of the hunting party. To keep this a fun outing I never want more then 6 hunters in the field at a time including the two guides, this means I want to keep my parties under 4 hunters most of the time. If you have more I will consider them on a case-to-case basis, I firmly believe the quality of the hunts goes down the more guys you have to hide in the snow goose spread.Lodging We do not provide lodging as part of the spring snow goose hunts; we will however provide you with names and numbers of hotels in the area we are hunting. Lodging is usually very reasonably priced, since your spend up to 14 hours a day in the field lodging is usually not a big priority to our hunters. What to Bring
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Spring Snow Goose Locations Read more about our Spring Snow Goose Hunts information, rates, lodging, booking, etc. Blackfoot Guide Service
2007 & 2008 Booking Info - The 2007 spring snow goose season was a success and Midwest Waterfowl Outfitters is now taking reservations for the 2008 spring snow goose hunting season. Fill out our online request form to book your hunt, questions, or available hunting dates. We offer discounts for larger hunting parties.
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