Mid-continental light geese are on the move again and numbers in Squaw Creek dropped from over 500,000 to 40,000 in a matter of days. In the Dakota’s, light goose numbers soared over the past week as hunters in North Dakota face dangerous flooding conditions when heading to the field.
Hello folks, and, as always, welcome to Waterfowler.com.
The great outdoors are filled with moments of irony and light goose hunting is no exception. While the pristine, downy feathers of a snow goose can be pure-white, the spring pursuit is often plagued by an absolute onslaught of mud. While you may not fill your limit of geese on every spring hunt, you can count on getting mud on your boots, gun, clothes, layout blind and decoys. If you haven’t gotten your truck stuck at least once when snow goose hunting, perhaps you’re not hunting hard enough. Yep, spring snow goose hunting is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
While the abundant spring run-off in the U.S. Prairie Pothole region will provide much needed replenishment to previously dry portions of nesting areas, the flooding in southern North Dakota has created extremely DANGEROUS conditions. Hunters heading to the field are encouraged to take extreme precautions in southern North Dakota – where road washouts are common at this time. Moving water can lift, roll and submerge the largest of trucks, so please exercise extreme caution. It’s better to get there late than not at all.
As the spring snow goose harvest continues across the eastern three flyways, the disturbing trend of “dumping geese” has plagued the headlines on Google News. While the goal of the spring hunt is to reduce the population of light geese and protect nesting habitat, the wanton waste of wild game by some hunters is a blight on the sport. While snow geese are not known as the best table-fare amongst all waterfowl; in a worst-case scenario, they do make some of the best jerky at an affordable price. Considering that retail beef jerky can cost as much as $27 per pound at the retail counter, snow-goose jerky can be processed and packaged into convenient 1-lb. servings for a third of the price at your local butcher. Considering the discernable differences in flavor and texture of snow goose and beef jerky are so minute, even those who don’t eat “wild game” will be asking for more.
Waterfowler.com encourages our spring hunters to make a plan for meat processing before you harvest an abundance of geese this spring and to report those they see “dumping” geese to local officials.
MISSISSIPPI & CENTRAL FLYWAY:
Light geese are moving into the northern portions of the flyways from Great Falls, Montana to western Minnesota. Snow goose numbers are good to excellent in Nebraska, South Dakota and western Iowa at this time. In Missouri, light goose numbers have dwindled over the past week, though hunters working the fields hard have scratched out decent harvests in the waning days of the spring season.
ATLANTIC FLYWAY:
Greater Snow goose hunting was fair to good from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to New Jersey over the past week, though numbers have reduced substantially as the northern migration continued. In New York, the special season will run from March 11-April 15 in the Western, Northeastern, Southeastern and Lake Champlain waterfowl hunting zones. Light goose numbers are fair to good for this time of year in the Finger Lakes region, upper Hudson and Champlain Valley regions with hunter success fair. Snow goose numbers are on the rise in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and expected to increase throughout the week.
Until our next report, hunt safe and hunt often.
