# 263 Birds - Best Day Ever



## welders (Oct 7, 2003)

Last Friday, April 29th, was our best single day shoot on snow geese, 263 birds for three guys. We were able to find a pretty good concentration of Juvies/Non-breeders/Ross in North-central ND on Thursday evening and put the hurt on them the next day. If my buddy's Browning 10 auto didn't turn into a single shot for a good part of the shoot, we could have had a lot more on the ground. Even my Benelli SBE II turned into a high-dollar single shot when I broke my ejector after about a case of 3.5 inchers. It was the second broken ejector in the last three weeks and the fourth broken in three years. The gun is now on its way to Benelli.

We had a field lined up for Saturday that looked just as good as our Friday field, but never got to hunt it as the same buddy who had the 10 gauge issues, had his transmission take a short break in the early morning hours. Later that morning, while driving to the nearest town for some transmission fluid, my buddy found possibly the best looking field of geese we had seen yet. We decided to set up in the same half section of chiseled wheat as the geese and find out how cooperative they were. Needless to say, with a winter storm bearing down on us, they were quite cooperative. Unfortunately, my buddy decided to limp his truck home, and had to miss out on hunting that group. From about 1:00 to 4:00, two of us shot 105 and had to hit the road because we were completely out of ammo.

It was a great end to a great season. Over all, this spring season was easily our best and most consistant decoying. We ended up with 1245 birds in twelve days of actual hunting. Can't wait for Fall and Saskatchewan!


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## XFactor (Apr 4, 2011)

Nice hunt! It makes me want to get after them again... Definetly a barrel burner! HA HA :beer: Any prizes on those young birdies?


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## Duckslayer100 (Apr 7, 2004)

1245 birds over a dozen days?! Please tell me you have a bird hitch or something. I mean, since your average was just over 100 per day, and given that it takes roughly 2-3 minutes to clean a bird, that's 3.5-5 hours of cleaning per day! Yuck....


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

Sounds like you guys know a thing or two about snows!


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## Condn (Jul 16, 2010)

Now that is a pile. You guys are killing me though, I've got 10 months to wait. I can't even imagine a day like that. Based off the reports on here, it sounds like it was a bad year to be a juvie in the dakotas. Next time we get a banner juvie year I know where I'm going...


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## jpallen14 (Nov 28, 2005)

Nice work.


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## IowaBlood (Aug 16, 2010)

Holy Snow Geese!


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## shooteminthelips (Jun 13, 2007)

This makes me so hot! Nice work boys. 
:beer:


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## Drundel (Nov 14, 2010)

Helluva hunt guys. Were the birds finishing well? I have a buddy switch to 2-3/4 in good years so he can get more shots with less recoil on his shoulder.


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## welders (Oct 7, 2003)

As far as prizes go, out of almost 400 birds, we did manage to get three bands. One was a young adult Blue, one was a young adult Ross, and the third was our first ever (that I can recall) banded Juvie Snow.

As far as the birds finishing, yes and no. Considering we were setup both days in chisel-plowed wheat which is pretty hard to hide layout blinds in, the birds worked pretty well. We laid to the side of the spread just to take the focus off ourselves as the birds worked the decoys. As the wind picked up, especially Saturday, some of the birds (even Juvies) would stall and slide left or right or even fly up and backwards which made for a high number of shotgun shells per kill. There was no question that some of the geese didn't want to fly too close to our blinds, but then others acted like we weren't even there.


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## mallardhunter (May 15, 2004)

looks like a fun hunt, i wish they had no limit in the fall because in canada we shot 200 in just 50 min. I know we could have easily shot at least 500 hahaha. looks like fun tho congrats!!


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## goosehauler22 (Dec 16, 2004)

could kill that many almost every other day up there. but then there would be no juvies left for the spring, limits are legit and are needed up there


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## maple lake duck slayer (Sep 25, 2003)

Thats awesome, love to hear the late late season bashes.


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## khan2073 (May 7, 2011)

Good hunt guys, but leave some for others too... :eyeroll:

Isn't that too much for a day..what would you do with them? :roll:


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## mntwinsfan (Oct 8, 2010)

Once again some bonehead on this site comes on here and bashes someone else for no reason. This was the case with the other folks that shot nearly this number earlier in the year.

Its awesome when someone throws up pictures and a story of a hunt like this. Its something that all of us would love to do.

Save some for the rest of us? Are you kidding? Realistically there are 10-20 million snow geese that migrate through North Dakota and they are single handingly destroying their nesting grounds. Jealousy is an awful thing to portray on someone. The issue of bird use has been beat to death. I am guessing they turn most of their birds into brats/sausage or donate it.

Awesome hunt guys. There were a few days that I wished SD didn't have a limit this spring, but I dont think we would have shot this many, especially with 3 guys.


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## welders (Oct 7, 2003)

khan2073 said:


> Good hunt guys, but leave some for others too... :eyeroll:
> 
> Isn't that too much for a day..what would you do with them? :roll:


We clean every single goose that we shoot. We also give over 90% away to the numerous friends and family that we have turned on to the delicacy that is Snow Goose, especially when it is Juvies. The most popular dishes are Goose Fricassee, Swiss Goose, Goose Tenders, or the best of all, Grilled Marinated Goose Kabobs. Jerky is also quite popular, but would be more suited to older adult birds and Canadas. After this last trip, almost 800 boneless goose breasts were gone in two days.


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## 6162rk (Dec 5, 2004)

congratulations. would you mind posting up a few recipes or you could send me a pm? thanks


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## coyotebuster (Oct 8, 2007)

Awesome hunt guys! I'm also interested in your recipes.


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## teamflightstoppersND (Feb 20, 2009)

I wish there was no limit on those birds fall or spring, there are way too many around. Its good to see people shooting as many as they can (too the point of running out of ammo) because that sure is alot of tasty jerky in my mind.

This come from a guy that shoots maybe five snows a year. If only I got into them like that!


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## PJ (Oct 1, 2002)

khan2073 said:


> Good hunt guys, but leave some for others too... :eyeroll:
> 
> Isn't that too much for a day..what would you do with them? :roll:


Preposterous post of the year?


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## Drundel (Nov 14, 2010)

khan2073 said:


> Good hunt guys, but leave some for others too... :eyeroll:
> 
> Isn't that too much for a day..what would you do with them? :roll:


You'd be surprised how fast that can turn into jerky or sausage.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Honestly thats way more birds than I would ever want to shoot. I learned my lesson over 35 years ago when I caught and cleaned about 100 crappies. I never let anything like that happen again................. :rollin:


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## DuckDefiner (Jul 18, 2011)

That is awesome guys I'm hoping to learn the art of snow goose hunting. Only have been snow hunting a couple times back in Washington and it was a blast. I love it in norh Dakota and am planning on moving there and goin to college out there next year. Hoping to learn some tips on here. Keep up the good work.


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