Talk about a plan coming together!

We had scheduled our Canadian prairie adventure across the last couple days of September and the first few of October. Our hope was to time our arrival to coincide with the season's first major push of snow geese from their arctic and sub-arctic breeding grounds. Our dream was that the Indian summer weather gracing the prairies to that point would take a turn for the worse. And it did. The low, angry, rolling, cold-fronted scud, and gusty 20-knot-plus winds that greeted us that first morning, were just what the goose doctor ordered.

The travel-weary, empty-stomached snows wanted our pea field in the worst way. Busy fighting the wind, the wavering, juvenile-laced flocks and family groups came low...some scraping the deck, others whiffling in with total abandon...sucking in to our mixed spread of silhouettes and windsocks. The shooting was at once relatively easy, but fast and furious. Though we didn't tally limits, the four of us were not far off by the time the flight ended.

Now, any time we get to experience one snow goose hunt like that, the entire trip is considered a success. But when the next two day's hunts, thanks to favorable (i.e. nasty) weather and an abundance of young birds being exposed to decoy spreads for the first time, proved near carbon-copy replays of the first...well...we were on a roll!

But as we hustled to deploy our decoy rig in a short-clipped wheat field that fourth morning, I was sure our luck had run out. A thick blanket of stars flickered overhead, stretching to touch the prairie horizon in every direction. It was cool and crisp, but totally still. So quiet our breaths hung in clouds that only stubbornly and slowly sank to the ground.

Still, there was the optimism that began to build as distant roosted-goose music began to roll across the countryside, while the sky began to faintly show pink in the east.

We'd all been snuggly settled into our heavily-stubbled layout blinds for more than 10 sweat-settling, bone-chilling minutes when our first customer...a Kamikaze single...attacked the spread: a solitary shotgun blast; a resounding "ka whomp" as the bird crashed into the frosted stubble; a streaking yellow dog scooping its prize. The hunt was on!

What ensued was almost chaotic.

Snows and blues began to stream to our field from the multiple roost ponds surrounding it. The unusually low-flying birds acted as if they owned this half-section of prairie they'd gorged themselves in for the past three days. It was soon apparent that nothing, not even open-topped blinds, hunters sitting or kneeling up in them, smoking guns or free-running, bird-crazed retrievers was going to keep them out.

Now, everything recounted to this point may give a prospective hunter the misguided notion that chasing snow geese often amounts to a slam-dunk proposition. Most who have tried to hunt them know this. Those who would consider pursuing the Wild One, (as the snow goose is affectionately referred to by its fans), or the White Devil, (as its detractors might label it), should be aware that this game is not easy. Not by a long shot!

The fact is snow geese, as their population has exploded in the past 25 years, have become so frustrating to hunt stateside that they've become almost unhuntable. And because they've become so difficult, few would-be hunters speak of the birds in anything but unfavorable, derogatory terms.

Continued -- click on page link below.