# Fall tactics for snows



## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

I just wanted to know how everyone changes there hunting techniques come October. In my personal experience snows are very shy in the fall to the blinds and calling and I have had countless experiences of balls of snows flaring out at 100 yards. Do most hunt with the blinds in front of their spread or is better camoflauge without a blind the key? And in General what tactics do you use?


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

In my experience Snows are not blind shy at all. The overall decoy spread and managing the sound of the ecaller are the biggest thing to worry about.


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## fungalsnowgoose (Sep 11, 2004)

cover cover cover! I try to keep as hidden in natural cover as possible using drainage ditches, fence lines, weed lines anything but the blind I don't know why but it seems like in the fall they hate those blinds.


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## Decoyer (Mar 2, 2002)

The key to hunting snows in the fall is FLEXIBILITY... if you aren't in canada shooting green birds so to speak, you better be able to go at a moments notice. Bluebird days, no wind, warm weather, anything that isn't "goosy" is gonna screw you in the fall state side. Usually the best days in the fall are extremely windy, spitting snow, usually within days of freeze-up. The birds can loose their edge in these conditions and become fairly easy to harvest. The problem is predicting this date, some years it is before halloween here in ND, or it can be after thanksgiving. You just gotta be ready to go when the weather turns.


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## goose0613 (Oct 24, 2003)

Decoyer said:


> The key to hunting snows in the fall is FLEXIBILITY... if you aren't in canada shooting green birds so to speak, you better be able to go at a moments notice. Bluebird days, no wind, warm weather, anything that isn't "goosy" is gonna screw you in the fall state side. Usually the best days in the fall are extremely windy, spitting snow, usually within days of freeze-up. The birds can loose their edge in these conditions and become fairly easy to harvest. The problem is predicting this date, some years it is before halloween here in ND, or it can be after thanksgiving. You just gotta be ready to go when the weather turns.


I disagree. If you are doing things right, they will decoy on a blue bird day with no wind. There is something about it -- we have an advantage on those days. However, they do fly much lower in heavy wind and will appear to be easier to kill. That said, I know there have been big number days by many groups of hunters in varying conditions.

Have you all seen the new 24-7 running traffic DVD? They talk about how they set those decoys. Pay attention -- the way they set those decoys works! Opposite of a Canada goose spread.


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

Just to get a chuckle out of some, here is a pic of my blind....yes it really does stickout as bad in real life. :lol:

The place was a warzone daily under all types of conditions.










Makes me sit back laugh at myself, "all those years at trying to blend in". :lol:

Fall hunting timing is more critical, for us anyway...none stick, its pretty much a 2 day migration.

Decoy spreads....I agree fully!! Take everything that you have learned with Canadas and throw it out the window.


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## minnesotaman200 (Aug 18, 2006)

Where are you hunting? States or Canada?


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

Nebraska RWB


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## GooseBuster3 (Mar 1, 2002)

> There is something about it


Its called a juvinile snow.. :roll:


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## h2ofwlr (Feb 6, 2004)

I hunt spring snows the same way as fall snows. I'm not a Johnny come lately hunter, as I s1st hunted them in the 70s in ND, but really started S&B hunting 19 years ago in ND back when it was 5 a day and to shoot an adult Blue was a big deal. Those were the days....

Scout em, secure permission, set decoys, and have fun. Same in fall as spring when field hunting them.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

There is no magical decoy spread that'll decoy snow geese in all conditions in the fall. In my opinion, if you believe it you fell victim to marketing or you haven't been hunting snow geese for a long time. I'd like to find someone who had big shoots in '90, '91, and '92 when there was literally a bust hatch and every day was bluebird (at least when we were out).

If you're approaching snows on a bluebird day and you want to get some shooting you better hope the birds come early. When that sun comes up you're time to decoy birds will greatly diminish.

There's 2 things to consider with your decoy spread and you'll have to find the balance. 1) You'll want to spread out the decoy spread as much as possible. Keep their eyes moving all around, don't make it easy where they can see EVERYTHING in a swing or two. 2) You'll need to manage shooters in that spread. What's the point of spreading out your decoys so much that they're working the sides where your shooters aren't?

So the best tip I can give is to spread out the decoys as much as possible while considering shooting positions at the same time.

Oh ya, hide. They will see you.


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## h2ofwlr (Feb 6, 2004)

Chris Hustad said:


> I'd like to find someone who had big shoots in '90, '91, and '92 when there was literally a bust hatch and every day was bluebird (at least when we were out).


Right here. :beer: 
We always got decent shoots, not every day, but the average was pretty darned good per hunt considering what the limit was, and some days I limited out no problem. I think timing is very important, and good part of hunting is knowing when and where to go :wink: I remember at the motel guys grousing about poor hunts, we just said nothing as we were doing pretty darned good compared to the others. No real secret--scout, scout, scout. :lol:


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

jkern said:


> The overall decoy spread and managing the sound of the ecaller are the biggest thing to worry about.


In exception of breaking the law, all the other advice is real helpful. I just wish I could get the birds to come in to land like we had them going all spring. I guess we will see this fall because our spread has quadrupled. I had problems pulling the big flocks last fall hopefully it will be better this year.


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## Canuck (Nov 10, 2004)

Just because we live and hunt in Canada doesn't mean the birds don't get extremely wary. I have seen it so bad that the only way to get a good shoot was to position yourself right on the "X" without any decoys.


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## Decoyer (Mar 2, 2002)

I would agree.. scout, scout, scout. As far as the 24-7 video, those were some of the best guys out there hunting with the best equipment out there. And, that is spring hunting which is a completely different ball game. If anyone out there has the key to consistantly killing snows in bluebird weather, with the same consistancy as those nasty, late season days TEACH ME!!! otherwise I tend to agree with GB3's previous statements.


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## calisnowhunter (Jun 7, 2006)

well first of all you have to have staging birds to kill them on bluebird days you are not going to kill migrating birds when there in no reason for them to stop. in southern cali we hunt blue bird every day and we kill are share the on e thing that we do is set up in front of are decoys up wind snows are fast feaders and they will jump from the back of the feed to the front non stop until it is time to water. we have no luck hunting down wind the birds see you before the decoys and will fly around and leave. the birds we get down here feed until 10 am water till 1 feed tlll 4 water until dark and then go to roost. we have killed more birds between 10 am and 2pm than any other time. small flocks and singles will exercise during the middle of the day more than big flocks and it makes for easy decoying when everyone else is at lunch or taking a nap


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

Funny you mention it. For years we ALWAYS set up on the downwind side of the spread. Nowadays we setup closer to the middle or even back at times (of course this depends on weather, etc). I'm finding the birds will approach the spread from the sides and will cut over the spread towards the top end. Very frustrating when you're on the downwind side.


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## calisnowhunter (Jun 7, 2006)

we never really noticed it until last fall we were scouting and about 5 thousand snows were feeding and the birds from the back kept jumping in small groups to the front of the feed. we also noticed that every new bird that joined the feed would cut accross the middle then land in of the feed. it makes since because you figure all they feed in the back is gone so we sat up up wind in the morning and slayed them we had about 3 to 4 thousand birds come in and start landing between us and our decoys and they never saw us until we started shooting


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

If the winds were really strong and I was hunting staged birds that had to buck the wind to get to me, I would definately hunt downwind. Other than that I hunt about 1/4 down from the upwind side. Dont know how many times I have hunted downwind only to have the geese come over us at 60 yards high then drop to 10 after they got past us. Always seems like the lower they start off, the further downwind you need to be.

Question....

Do you guys really think Snows are harder to decoy in the Fall? Or is it more of a timing thing?

I dont know for myself because I havnt been able to hit it in the fall cause they are only here for 2 days.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

jkern said:


> Do you guys really think Snows are harder to decoy in the Fall? Or is it more of a timing thing?


Timing is huge. If you're at an area with the same 25K birds that have been hunted for 3 weeks....it's near impossible without weather.

If you're at an area with 200K that moved in the night before, reload often. 

Timing has been tougher to come by the past 10 years (give or take) since the biggest push doesn't come down until mother nature says so...and it doesn't take long for it to be over. Last year it was around 4-6 days. The sky was always full of V's heading south.


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## Decoyer (Mar 2, 2002)

It all depends on the situation, snow geese under the right conditions are not hard to kill, but the right conditions only come around every so often. In the fall, for me, it is those 2 or 3 days before the "big freeze." The birds will usually be feeding very aggressively, and all day in some situations. They seem to be more concerned about eating as much grain as possible and not so much about decoys and hunters. When I was younger it was always around halloween, now it could be anywhere from then to the first week of December. Its just hard to predict.


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## Perry Thorvig (Mar 6, 2002)

There are a lot of gold nuggets of wisdom in this thread. Good discussion guys.

By the way, we had one hell of a good weekend of snow goose hunting in ND in 1991. The first day was as clear and nice as can be and the last of four days was as mean as can be. The birds fell on both kinds of days. But, we were very lucky that year. The number of hunters was a drop in the bucket compared to now. There was very little pressure and we found a roost that had the last two inches of water in the county in it and was holding birds.

Little pressure.
Good scouting.
Birds on the ground.


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## f.o.s. lover (Sep 27, 2004)

A friend of mine read an article about snow goose hunting last fall by a ND guide. He stressed spreading the decoys out extremely and another very simple change that most hunters wont think about, get out the spotting scopes and 20 power binocs and look close, if you get lucky you'll notice it. I'm not going to say what it is as I THINK its an advantage we have, we tried snows twice last fall and shot like 6 before trying the way he suggested. With the exact same decoys we harvested 15 2 guys, 38 2 guys, 25 bluebird day 4 guys, 51 4 guys, 57 3 guys. The last three hunts were the same flock of geese. This wasn't shooting a hanging pairs and flocks of 5-10 very often it was flocks of 500 all working us. We have some crappy video proof at this link. Watch the skipping school hunt last thats the best, it was the last flock of the 51 bird day, we never want to pull the camera out it's been a jinx!


[url=http://www.****************/Video.html]http://www.****************/Video.html


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

link doesn't work.


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## walleyesandwings (Sep 12, 2005)

delete the last part......{url} and it will work


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## walleyesandwings (Sep 12, 2005)

try www.tippedwings.com/video.html


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

walleyesandwings said:


> try www.tippedwings.com/video.html


Not right either.......

www.****************/video.html


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## f.o.s. lover (Sep 27, 2004)

its www.**************** go to Tippingwings TV and go to 2005 video they're there


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