There's no Geese like Snow Geese

Have you ever been at the bottom of a Snow Goose Tornado? That's what happened on this morning. The day before I had scouted this field that had about 40 acres of Snow Geese feeding on leftover barley I could tell from the immature colors of the snow geese and the way they reacted that they were mostly recent arrivals from the northern Canadian Tundra and were very hungry for some of our Saskatchewan grain. Early the next morning we deployed our spread of mostly Texas Rag decoys (we have since upgraded our snow geese decoys) in an open long U. The day was sunny but windy. The Snow Geese began to arrive and the guys began to warm up their gun barrels. More and more snow geese arrived to this Saskatchewan snow goose spectacle, some from local roosts but a lot of migrators that began to stack up and circle above as they waited their turn to settle in for their first grain feed since the spring. The noise of the snow geese helped drown out the sound of the hunters guns that was already being carried away by the wind. The seven hunters by this time were up retrieving harvested snow geese. The geese wouldn't quit coming in even though the guys were loading and firing pretty well as fast as they could while standing in the decoy spread. We later figured that the dead geese falling out of the sky acted as lead birds for others to follow in. By 10:30 AM there was 140 snow geese cleaned and in the freezer. For many, even those who really love gunning snow geese, it is tempting to lay down the gun and enjoy the experience with a camera which is what some do.