Anyone Gearing Up for Snows?

[tbuc]

A little late with this report, but I hunted the southern edge of ND last Sat-Tues. I stopped by Tewaukon to see the half million +/- birds then continued west another hour, positioning myself northwest of Sand Lake. There was good bird movements out of the south Sunday but it slowed down significantly Monday and Tuesday. I was between 2 roosts Sunday morning, but those birds left and never came back. People I talked to all suggested going further north since they were seeing a lot more than what was in the area. But I was hunting solo and had limited time so I stuck with my spot and pulled the big goose egg for the trip. I really anticipated more of a migration those last 2 days but now think more were past me to the north than I realized. Headed home Tuesday afternoon I found 50k plus just east of where I was hunting and those were the last snows I've seen. I zig-zagged south and east through NE SoDak making my way to Watertown and saw no snows at all. I'm sure there's some on the back roads if you spent some time looking. But I think middle of ND would be easier to find birds at this point.

[tornadochaser]

Starting to get good in SD.

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[maplelakeduckslayer]

Nice.. Planning on hitting ND in 2 weeks

[Bill Gilbertson]

Yesterday was a lot slower. Almost nothing flying in the AM except specks, pintails, and mallards. It was cold, overcast, and insanely windy. A fair number of modest-sized flocks in the PM. We ended the day with only 4. The guide suggesting that the birds have a hard time landing in such high winds. We ended up finding a few more birds in the decoys from the prior day, so we ended up with 78 for the 3 days.

For all the criticism of guides, they worked hard scouting and setting fields. The first guide was more patient letting the birds work more than any I have previously used. He let many birds pass well within range expecting a bigger group to be in range in moments. He was usually right on, waiting until we would see a whole line of targets right in our face. It was incredibly exciting. From my perspective, especially considering my lack of equipment and experience, I think I got a good value.

One of the advantages of this type of hunt is all the people one meets. We had a person from Alaska, one from Florida, and later 2 from Wyoming and 3 from Maine. I also met a potential business partner from Stillwater. The lodge had a very comfortable common area and we had the opportunity for many interesting conversations.

I slept in late this AM and heard several flocks over the lodge. But I saw no snows driving the back roads towards home. Lots of Canadas though.

[maplelakeduckslayer]

Glad you had a good time!

[h2ofwlr]

From a report this AM, Snows are in force into Northern SD. Quote" Snows are everywhere" as he was driving the roads toward Aberdeen.
So evidently some did head back south with the snow and cold in northern ND a few days ago.

[9manfan]

Seen a couple big bunches on way to work today ......................

[h2ofwlr]

[Moderator Edit: Removed subjective copy & paste.]

[Gordon]

Spreading the word on these 2 fraudulent guides in SD so you don't get screwed too.

[Moderator Edit: Removed subjective copy & paste.]

Which facebook group is this from? I'd like to hear both sides of the story before they are called "fraudulent" by someone who wasn't even on the hunt.

[tornadochaser]

It was posted on a few different pages, snow goose migration, snow & blue geese followers... Seems like miscommunication more than anything and should probably have been handled privately. That being said, this is what happens when everybody and their drinking buddies decide because they own 800 sillosocks that they should be guides. A few of us are in talks with some officials here in SD to start looking at creating some regulation of the guiding industry in SD. There is a guy with a pasture spread half hour west of Sioux Falls, has had 4-6 clients in that spread the last 3 days and they've only decoyed one flock in 3 days. Barf.

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