Spring Snow Goose

R@nger_BO@TS

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Thinking about getting a snow goose spread what would the bare minimum be needed as far as decoys and calls and everything to have a shot at getting some snows in the spring.
 


SDMF

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Binoculars, lots of fuel, and patience.

 

Kurtr

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It really depends if hunting a perfect piece of sheet water as few as a couple dozen could work. In general I would say 70 to 100 dozen with some fliers and a vortex and a couple ecallers would be ideal. They are some frustrating sons of bitches.
 

v193

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30 dozen would be a good start. And easy enough to transport into a field/pasture/sheet water set up. get a couple flags to start with too, dont need rotarys. But if you do want rotarys i have 2 to sell....
 


snow1

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Start hoarding ammo....Now.waterfowl loads are tough to come by these days.

Find a good feed a couple dozen deadly socks,good ecaller,have at it,you'll be cleaning mud off your rig for months,it's all in the name of fun,one man operation.
 

wslayer

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Almost never failed would get on a flock, spend an hour setting up decoys and they would go sit in the next field. For that reason, don't do it anymore. Honkers, we park out about 6 doz.
 

Kurtr

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i think its a 1 in 50 deal but that one time is worth it have thousands of birds dumping air spinning circles. Plus not much else to do that time of year and it gets the dog in the field
 

riverview

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spring snow goose hunting is the coldest and wettest hunting i have ever done. if i try now i usually try and pass shoot. I will say my wife is a goose coinsure and she says spring snow geese are the best goose to eat.
 

Dirty

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As much as I love shooting snow geese, I will stay warm and dry while I put the hurt on the turkeys. Good luck though…snow goose shooting is awesome when it pans out!
 


Migrator Man

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Thinking about getting a snow goose spread what would the bare minimum be needed as far as decoys and calls and everything to have a shot at getting some snows in the spring.

Save your time and money and hire a guide. This is about the only hunting guide I would ever hire. Well worth the $$$$ !!!!
 

Traxion

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I hunted lots of years, both fall and spring, with around 600 decoys. This was with 1-4 guys....and with just me that number was way too much work. I never felt in the fall that I needed more decoys. In the spring, I never felt like more would have REALLY made a difference. Too many people fall into the trap of "if we only had more decoys" when in reality, it probably wasn't going to work no matter what that day. I got out of the game just due to my location and travel time necessary to find birds. If I were to go back, I'd find a pasture pond type setup and hunt that rather than chasing feeds. Just too many experiences with birds bailing on me, hitting the next field, etc. I think 4-500 decoys and some floaters on a pasture pond would do all I needed to do these days. Oh, and TWO good ecallers. Way too many holes in the sound with one IMO.

If you haven't hunted much, hire a guide this spring for a couple days. See if you like it or not. Big investment that can piss you off the majority of the days. But a good day with a huge migration is a really, really fun experience.
 

Maddog

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@Traxion I agree with your comments and opinions.

Your size of spread and number of callers is really close what we did too -- with 2 people.
It was a blast. I was always amazed that you would see them way up in the sky, just a dot and they would slowly circle down and down and down. We had pretty good luck It is a lot of work. But it matters how you look at it. We solely hunted fields.


I believe you will see that geese tend to blow through NoDak a lot more quickly than other states due to how the snow/ice melts. IMO

I really like your idea of hunting near some type of water.

Good luck.

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If you haven't already, I highly recommend cow boarding for snow geese. It works well. Surprised how close you can walk up to them. Closer than 30 yards is the norm. You all need to try it at least once. It is a hoot.
 
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