Well we here down along the Missouri River in Central North Dakota have always had at least some specklebelly show up in any given fall but most years it was normally just a few here and there with the occasional year popping up where they became at the very least a bit more common. But perhaps I'm mistaken or just seeing it through my own eyes which is well the only way i can see things but it sure seems like the ratio of years were specklebelly's buildup in actual legitimate numbers in this general area is increasing at a fairly significant rate on a year-to-year basis and is to the point where a number of times over the last 5 years including right now specklebelly's are becoming the most common Goose around. I post this up simply because I'm curious what other people are seeing as well because this is one Goose trend I would be all for since they are such fun Birds to hunt. For instance I took this picture this morning up outside of Bismarck of what I thought was for the most part a pure snow goose flock but due to the fact that I had an entire harvesting crew coming up behind me with a couple combine still having their headers on I didn't have a lot of time to sit over and the glass the birds just enough time to take a few shots. (Needless to say there's no way in hell I was getting in the way of a harvest crew!) I thought was 10 to 15000 pure pure snows. So be ause of that i was only able to briefly glass the flock at first but I suddenly had to re-evaluate what I thought I saw when I started looking at the pictures later and they turned out to be infiltrated by probably damn near 1/3 speckle bellies. Now this wasn't an overly big shock since the other flocks in the area also had large numbers of specks in it but this was such a pure looking or more so behaving snow goose flock doing what snow goose flocks do as they jump over the jumpers over the jumpers over the jumpers so I just didn't notice the specs at first. And again basically the whole point for this ridiculously rambling slightly alcohol-induced thread is what are the rest of you guys seeing not just this fall but last fall the fall before the fall Seven Falls ago cuz for me at least in the area I'm in north of 94 east of the river south of Drake basically the propensity of speckle bellies has increased well beyond anything I would have expected and definitely is showing signs of becoming a new normal
This flicks was 3/5 specks two days ago
And this flock is the one I was talking about today. Specks are harder to see but seriously who amongst us who hunted this area since the 80s and the 90s would have ever believed that a day would come whete it would be dramatically easier to find a limit of specklebelly's vs. Lesser Canada's!
This flicks was 3/5 specks two days ago
And this flock is the one I was talking about today. Specks are harder to see but seriously who amongst us who hunted this area since the 80s and the 90s would have ever believed that a day would come whete it would be dramatically easier to find a limit of specklebelly's vs. Lesser Canada's!
