SD spring snow goose hunt

[Outdoors Junkie]

My two sons and I drove to Huron, SD for a spring snow goose hunt with three of my cousins and their sons. This was all of ours first ever snow goose hunt and we had a blast! Our guide was Mike with Last Call Outfitters (who is another of our cousins). If you have never been snow goose hunting, I would highly recommend the experience! We are already planning next years trip!

[Bobberineyes]

Looks like a great time OJ!! I've hunted out of pits but nothing that extreme,  good times fir sure!!

[LPS]

Now that looks like a gentlemens hunt.  Looks like a great time. 

[snow1]

Sweet,looks like you guyz were in a underground bunker.... we're not confined to one general spot,rather we go to the birds on a feed,unlike hunting canada's if you find a good feed (field they're feeding in) canada's will be there the next day /day's until they move on,snow's will drive ya crazy trying to figure them out,we scout for a general location near a water roost with huntable numbers,say several thousand or more ,take the wind in to consideration and hope for the best,we also found that 50 miles either side of the james river in the spring has the bulk of migrators heading north follow the river ,first waves are the adult birds(horny devils) then later the bulk of migrators are the juveniles(juvies) a little easier birds to decoy.

Agreed outdoor,been hunting these devils since the spring conservation order began,back in the mid 90's.  surprised you found ammo,you must of had a good supply squrriled away as most store shelves are empty last I  checked.

we came home with sore shoilders as well.muddy and tired but loaded with great memories.

Day one we blanked,day two scratched out 9  for our group,day 3 all heck broke loose made two ammo runs back to the truck during lulls but man were they rolling in sunday.

[glenn57]

  dats alot of gooses!!!!!!!!

[Outdoors Junkie]

Snow, great to hear you had success on your trip too! One of my cousins works at Federal, so he brought two cases of ammo. Plus what each of us had on hand too. We were about a mile from the James river, south of Huron. The guide we used also offers options with layout blinds in fields they have permission to hunt within about 25-30 miles of the hunting lodge and location of the under ground pit blind.

Attached is an overhead view of the pit blind and decoy spread that my son took with his drone during a lull. There are a couple of large ponds to the left, just out side the view of this picture.

Sweet,looks like you guyz were in a underground bunker.... we're not confined to one general spot,rather we go to the birds on a feed,unlike hunting canada'a if you find a good feed (field they're feeding in) canada's will be there the next day /day's until they move on,snow's will drive ya crazy trying to figure them out, we scout for a general location near a water roost with huntable numbers,say several thousand ,take the wind in to consideration and hope for the best,we also found that 50 miles either side of the james river in the spring has the bulk of migrators heading north,first waves are the adult birds(horny devils) then later the bulk of migrators are the juveniles(juvies) a little easier birds to decoy.

Agreed outdoor,been hunting these devils since the spring conservation order began,back in the mid 90's.  surprised you found ammo, you must of had a good supply squrriled away as most store shelves are empty last I  checked.

we came home with sore shoilders as well.muddy and tired but loaded with great memories.

Day one we blanked,day two scratched out 9  for our group,day 3 all heck broke loose made two ammo runs back to the truck during lulls but man were they rolling in sunday.

[Steve-o]

It's prolly illegal, but it would be really cool to see "birds eye" drone video of the snows flying in - that is if the drone doesn't spook em out.

[snow1]

COOL OVERHEAD SHOT!  surprised the dekes show brown?

for comfort pit blinds are the mac daddy but for snow geese usually never in the right spot,I had two man pit blinds for my rochester mn canada goose operation but nothing like you guyz had,wow,sweet.

I've got a gig going with Hevi Shot,recently "outdoor vista" bought out my company,outdoor vista also owns federal,winchester cci and others,our supply chain of ammunition has been interupted for the time being until the dust settles,loaded up on hevi shot bismuth last fall to give it a whirl,looked good on paper but doesn't compare to 100% hevi shot on those wary of decoy snow geese,80% of our shots are beyond 50yds,20% dumb young birds usually end up dropping on us in our layouts...gotta watch the "incoming" when shooting starts.lucky you had a ammo in for your trip.

god send for us was the " birdie hitch" on our last day we had 3 of these mounted in our decoy trailer went thru 181 snows in 45 minutes.some went to the food shelves in watertown I  took 40lbs of breast meat to my local butcher for sausage and sticks.

bout wore out but thinking another road trip this week once I recover,my neighbors out near chamberlain said migrators coming up the missouri all last week mostly mostly doing the mile high fly over but some fields are white with geese,so might try out there to check things out.

[snow1]

It's prolly illegal, but it would be really cool to see "birds eye" drone video of the snows flying in - that is if the drone doesn't spook em out.

lol steve,agreed I invision attaching  a flyer deke or real wing decoy to a drone swooping around the spread on a rare dakota calm day,I mean we already use ecallers and rotary machines,for snow goose hunting the more movement the better most often.

[snow1]

O-junkie what did you think about using a e-caller?  buddy invented the "squawk box" years ago,sitting in the middle of the speakers one would swear you were in a jungle when you closed your eyes,all the "
cooo - coooing going on we use a couple hand calls to spice things up as well.lots of noise and movement,did ya score any bands in your group? I blanked this year so far but previous years always manage a couple on each outting two really old bands collected 18 yrs and 21 years old both banded in hudson bay.amazing how long these birds live

[Steve-o]

It's prolly illegal, but it would be really cool to see "birds eye" drone video of the snows flying in - that is if the drone doesn't spook em out.

lol steve,agreed I invision attaching  a flyer deke or real wing decoy to a drone swooping around the spread on a rare dakota calm day,I mean we already use ecallers and rotary machines,for snow goose hunting the more movement the better most often.

...'Course there's ALWAYS one guy who wants to see if he hit the drone.   

[snow1]

When the sky turns to salt and pepper you know its gonna be a good day in the blind.

dang-it,klick on the pic she'll straighten out