Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Blizzard After the Blizzard

The weather has calmed after last week's storm.  This week we have had another 'blizzard'. A storm of white geese.  Tuesday and Wednesday the skies were filled with migrators.  We had two very successful days of hunting.  Tuesday we had three hunters on Barber's Pond.  They bagged 35 birds.  We decoyed several flocks upwards of a thousand birds.  The dogs got a great workout and as usual we didn't lose a bird.

This morning brought cold and windy conditions.  The wind kept the pond open but the wind had coated the decoys with a thick layer of ice.  It would have been a futile effort to clear the decoys.  In fact there never was a time we didn't have birds working.  As you can imagine the birds didn't finish well at all. The big groups would get to about 80 yards and slide off.  So my two hunters greased up the full chokes and took some a little tall.  Now the dogs love this because we do get a few sailers. 200 - 400 yard marked retrieves as well as long blind retrieves were the norm for the day.  When they stopped flying today the bag total stood at 30.

The word on the migration is that a few scout groups are moving into South Dakota but they can't go far as the state is snow packed and lakes are still frozen.  Squaw Creek in Missouri is holding nearly a million birds. 

Lots of birds still to come.

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