Odd question

[dean nelson]

Have any of you seen any real flocks of snows yet? Not talking 10,000 birds or anything just groups of birds clearly off the tundra and not just a left over cripple or two from the spring. Have now seen one report and been told a second of flocks of 100 and 150 seen in the last few days. I personally haven't seen flocks of that size in the southern half of the state at this time of year since the early 90's.

 

[Trip McNeely]

about 10 years ago we set up on a mixed feed of 2-3k snows and 500 canadas(big and little) this was on resident opener so around the 20th-25th. cant remember the day exactly. ended up killing 18 snows and a limit of canadas. this was in northern nd and back in the early 2000"s there were always at leasr a few snows around. havent really spent alot of time up there in a few years so not sure how it is now. these are devils lake basin birds so coming thru manitoba they always seem to run a week or two earlier than sask birds. 4 years ago we wiped out a nose-bleed flock of 7 blues(2 adults 5 grey birds) on resident opener in sc nd. heard them well before we saw them, next thing we knew the tiny dots kept getting bigger on top of us.

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i say this every year but i feel like this may finally be the year it all happens earlier.

 

[Hornhunter]

Early 2000s there were hunt able numbers in the new Rockford Carrington areas for a few years straight on opener

 

[PrairieGhost]

There has been a flock of about 300 west of Jamestown all summer.

 

[Trip McNeely]

There has been a flock of about 300 west of Jamestown all summer.

right around cleveland by chance? south side of 94? pretty decent chance a good chunk of those are cripples .that area staged huge numbers this spring and from my understanding was a highly publisized area on out of state migration threads. ie recieved a TON of pressure. i know a guy that hunted that area 3 weeks straight and id guess staged birds for up to 7 weeks. took the kids to storybook land the first week of may and there were around 1500 feeding in the corn right off the water....... and yep 14ft trailer lurking close by.

 

[dr_weather]

I hunted west of Saskatoon, Sask two weeks ago today and the whites were still @ 1-2 hours drive north of us. That week has been good for the first push for several years now but they were late this time. We did get several small groups (usually a few hundred to a thousand) with a lot of Ross; even killed two banded. They piled right in and provided some fun shooting. Shot lots of darks as Sask fish and game moved the season opener up for non-residents. I checked the outfitters site just now and looks like they are continuing to have decent but small shoots on whites; they just seem to be a little reluctant to come down. I'm thinking 5-6 more weeks....

 

[campcook]

You can thank that mental midget jimmy cater and his russian grain embargo for the lack of snows in our area. The canucks capitalized, good for them, bad for us.

 

[dean nelson]

about 10 years ago we set up on a mixed feed of 2-3k snows and 500 canadas(big and little) this was on resident opener so around the 20th-25th. cant remember the day exactly. ended up killing 18 snows and a limit of canadas. this was in northern nd and back in the early 2000"s there were always at leasr a few snows around. havent really spent alot of time up there in a few years so not sure how it is now. these are devils lake basin birds so coming thru manitoba they always seem to run a week or two earlier than sask birds. 4 years ago we wiped out a nose-bleed flock of 7 blues(2 adults 5 grey birds) on resident opener in sc nd. heard them well before we saw them, next thing we knew the tiny dots kept getting bigger on top of us.

- - - Updated - - -

i say this every year but i feel like this may finally be the year it all happens earlier.

The difference in arrival time between the Manitoba and Saskatchewan bird is caused by the tree line. The migration moves at roughly 10 miles a day and the Manitoba birds just have a lot less distance to cover. The birds coming from SK have between 300 and 370 miles till they get here vs around 150 for manitoba. The bad thing is many of the Saskatchewan birds were formerly Manitoba birds. Now days the little bastards cut west a few hundred miles before they start going south.

 

[Trip McNeely]

that is correct and i can confirm that. we had a big shoot about 4 years ago on birds i would consider sask. birds. 117 and some cacklers and specks. awesome mixed bag day. anyways shot 2 banded juvie snows and a reward double banded blue. juvies were banded in churchill manitoba and the blue was banded in ontario. it literally flew further west than it did south to get to where it was shot. i think the canola had alot to do with the migration shift. ne nd up through winkler is dominated by canola now. 90s and 2000s it was barley and durum

 

[Auggie]

I got back from bear hunting at Winnipegosis on Tuesday. It's about 5hrs north of Bottineau. Hardly a snow goose when we got there a week earlier. Saw a number of snows the day we left. But not the huge numbers you see here over the last weekend of October.

 

[PrairieGhost]

Trip M yes the Cleveland area. I have friends to the north that had even more snows. I seen one section that was near solid white. They would only move back about 100 yards from the prairie trail when a guy drove by them. Odd thing is the non residents didn't stray more than five miles from interstate that spring.

 

[gst]

I got back from bear hunting at Winnipegosis on Tuesday. It's about 5hrs north of Bottineau. Hardly a snow goose when we got there a week earlier. Saw a number of snows the day we left. But not the huge numbers you see here over the last weekend of October.

Got a friend up there, South Shore?