When hunting a snow covered field, my set up routine changes. I approach the location of where I plan to set up my decoys from the upwind area and park my truck and decoy trailer a hundred or more yards upwind of where I plan to have the upwind edge of my decoy spread. From there, all the decoys and blinds are carried by hand into position. In addition, this is usually done under the cover of darkness or with flashlights as my vehicle is turned off as soon as it's stopped to prevent the heat from the motor melting the snow and revealing a non-natural area of exposed ground or melted snow.

When everything is unloaded and set up, I'll start up my truck and quickly drive away from the area and hide my vehicle. Upon returning to my spread, I'll use a rake to smooth out the snow and fill in the foot tracks that were made in the snow by walking back and forth while putting out decoys.

By going to this extra effort, approaching geese do not see vehicle tracks in the snow covered field as they approach the landing zone. In addition, they do not see a bunch of tell tail tracks of people walking around in the snow.

A front closes in.

It's no secret that decoys show up great on snow covered fields and are visible for long distances. However, the opposite is true when snow is falling. Snow can quickly cover the backs of the decoys, which makes them harder for ducks and geese to see. In addition, snow covered decoys look unnatural as snow never seems to accumulate on the backs and heads of feeding waterfowl.

If it starts snowing while I'm hunting, I continually get out of my blind and either knock or brush the snow off my decoys so they look natural. Over time, I've found that a vehicle window brush works great for removing snow off my decoys and can be easily tucked into a blind when not in use. When snow is in the forecast, I usually downsize my spread so that I have fewer decoys to clean off which reduces my odds of being caught in the open with a snow brush in my hands.

Another trick I like to use when hunting in snow is to deploy sleeper decoys and take the legs off some of my full body goose decoys. I do this to represent content relaxed birds that are spending the day feeding and resting in a stubble field.

When hunting in snow, I also try to eliminate any signs of blood stains in the snow from downed birds. To do so, I try to kick white snow over any blood stains I see when picking up downed birds. In addition, I also try to hide all downed birds in my blinds so that blood does not leech out and stain the snow.

Wind
When the wind is blowing, it's easy to set up a landing zone and position the blinds so that I have close range head on shots at birds attempting to land where I want them to. However, when the wind isn't blowing, the advantage goes to the birds as they seem to land haphazardly all around the spread and often approach the decoys from various directions.

Under these conditions, I tighten the main body of my decoy spread by spacing my decoys two to three feet apart to prevent ducks and geese from attempting to land within the main decoy spread. I also exaggerate my landing zone by making it wider and longer than normal. To add further appeal to my landing zone, I'll set up one to three decoys that represent birds that have just landed.

To further increase my odds of getting in some shooting opportunities, I'll position my blinds just off to one side or the other of my landing zone for angling and quartering shots as opposed to putting them in the main decoy spread for head on shooting opportunities. The side of the spread I pick to set my blinds up on these windless hunts is determined by the direction I anticipate the birds to come from. Essentially, I position the blinds so that I can see the birds coming at my spread as opposed to having them come in from behind and taking me off guard.

When hunting on windless days, I get away from trying to have picture perfect hunts and work the birds into position for classic feet down close range shooting opportunities. Instead, once the birds are within shooting range, I watch them and try to read their body actions. If it looks like the birds are going to keep on coming and get closer, I'll hold off on shooting. However, if it appears as if they are going to move out of shooting range, I'll call the shot instantly instead of trying to work them around for a closer shooting opportunity.

As you can see, I do things differently when hunting in different weather conditions. However I also monitor the outcome of each hunt and keep track of what works and what doesn't work in various weather conditions for fuure reference.