2005 Spring Light Goose Outlook

By Doug Leier
The variables of each hunt, whether from day-to-day, season to season or species to species, are like fingerprints between humans – no two are ever the same.
Sure, there are similarities, like spending opening day with the usual crew in the same field year after year. But the unique aspect of hunting assures each [...]

The Population Ecology and Population Genetics

By Charles Gorecki
Lesser Snow Goose is one of three species of snow geese; the other two are the Ross’s Goose and Greater Snow Goose. All three species are migratory waterfowl that fly south each year for the winter and then back north to the arctic tundra in the spring to reproduce. The life history traits [...]

2003 Snow Goose Migration Chronology

By Perry Thorvig
Snow geese begin their migration in late August. By early September, a few of them appear in Saskatchewan. The big migration from and across North and South Dakota occurred on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 30 to November 1 in 2003. The following chronology describes the year’s migration.
 
September 7-13, 2003
8th – The first [...]

Spring Goose Hunting in North Dakota

By Doug Leier
North Dakota’s spring snow goose conservation season is in progress, but since the birds are just beginning to arrive, it’s a good time to reflect on the past five years of this recent hunting opportunity.
The spring conservation season on light geese was one of several responses to an elevated population of breeding birds [...]

Saskatchewan Waterfowl Hunting 2003

By Chris Hustad
The snow goose migration was extremely predictable when I was growing up. On the waterfowl opener in North Dakota, you could find my family staging at the Gateway Inn along with a hundred thousand snows along J. Clark Salyer Refuge by Westhope. We didn’t have to question whether or not huntable numbers were [...]

Hooked on Snow Geese

By Perry Thorvig
Some who have tried it are apathetic when it comes to waterfowl hunting. Most of those that walk away from hunting have failed to have those premier experiences that can hook a hunter forever. This is the story of how four hunters got hooked on North Dakota waterfowling.
My brother-in-law, Ken Carlson, and I [...]

The Youngster’s First Hunt

By Perry Thorvig
I had waited for several years for the day when my son Erik would be old enough to sit in a North Dakota stubble field and watch the white specks lose altitude and tumble into a decoy spread. Ken Carlson and I had experienced a great flight of birds in 1994 and I wondered [...]

North Dakota Or Bust!

By Perry Thorvig
Some hunters will do anything and endure a lot of hardships to make their annual hunting trek to the North Dakota prairies. I am one of those guys. This story is not about shooting birds and decoy layouts. It is about the adversity we hunters endure to pursue a few flying fowl.
I first [...]

Getting Hardcore for the Spring Season

By Jason Phillips
The passion that waterfowlers exhibit may be unmatched in outdoor world. This passion is perhaps most evident during the Spring Goose Season. The Spring Season extends the waterfowling season and has become one of the most anticipated times of the year for waterfowlers throughout the flyway. The challenge of decoying birds that have [...]

Spring Goose Season – A Lesson Learned

By Jason Phillips
 I  learned a very valuable lesson during the snow goose migration this spring, a lesson that will definitely help me bag more birds next year. The weather in the northern plains this past winter was anything but typical, so it was no surprise that the snow goose migration was also unpredictable which demonstrated [...]

Spring Snow Goose Hunting Ethics

By Doug Panchot
What does hunting the snow goose in the spring mean to hunters? To many it is another opportunity to get out in the field once again and too enjoy the time with friends and family. Too others it is a mission to go out and shoot as many birds as conceivably possible. Many [...]

Spring Snow Goose Decoying Tips (2007)

By Chris Hustad
I love this time of year. The snow geese are pulling out of their wintering grounds in route up north, pushing as far as Mother Nature will allow them. Today there might not be a goose in the state, tomorrow there could be hundreds of thousands. I’ve setup a decoy spread in North [...]

Snow Goose Decoys

By Chris Hustad
The month of August marked the beginning of decoy making season when I was growing up. We would meet in the backyard one of our hunting partners where we would put our ideas to the test in our always evolving snow goose spread. We made our own shell decoys from life-size to the [...]

Getting Ready for Spring Snow Geese

By Doug Leier
For many hunters, spring turkey season ushers winter out the door. I prefer to kick start spring much earlier, marked by the return of snow geese.
South Dakota’s spring snow goose season opened Feb. 1, in what should be the heart of winter. North Dakota’s season opened Feb 18. While it still looks like [...]

So You Wanna Be a Spring Snow Goose Hunter?

By Chris Hustad
It’s that time of year where winter is inching closer to spring, and my email box will begin to fill up with various questions on using decoys for spring snow goose hunting. Don’t get me wrong, one of the main reasons I started Nodak Outdoors years ago is I can’t talk enough about [...]

How to Make Northwind Decoys

By Jed Fluhrer “GanderGrinder”
With the fall hunting seasons over and the winter months already upon us there is no better way to avoid cabin fever than a midwinter project. If you’re like me you are reminiscing over past hunts and looking forward to March and April (or whenever your season runs) when you can pursue [...]

Convert Shell Decoys to Floaters

By Chris Hustad with help from Tyler Ellenson
If you’re reading this article, then I’m assuming you have an interest in decoying snow geese. Whether you’ve been doing it for years, or whether this is your first step in giving it a try, welcome to the insane world of hunting snows. If you take snow goose [...]

Snow Goose Decoy Spreads

By Perry Thorvig
The following is a description of decoy spreads deployed on a recent hunting trip. There were two groups hunting. Each group had about 500 decoys. They consisted of Northwinds, Last Looks, shells, and various flags and kites.
There was no frost on the decoys any morning. E-caller’s was used only once.
During a brief interlude [...]

How To Stay A Step Ahead Of The Migration

By Chris Hustad
Spring snow goose hunting has become one of my favorite seasons. While still close to its infancy, it has provided some of my most memorable waterfowling experiences. Whether it may be fooling a migrating flock of snows into shooting range or watching flock after flock of whitefronts, canadas and ducks land in your [...]

Spring Snow Goose Stratagies

By Chris Hustad
Snow geese are tough to hunt. That’s a reality that everyone needs to understand before they head out to the field. There’s really no magical combination of decoys that will bring in the birds, and you normally can’t set up in just any field and get shooting. Sneaking a flock is sometimes impossible, [...]

Goose Recipe

Here’s some favorite goose recipes of ours.
Goose Recipe Ingredients:

4 large goose breasts
6 tablespoons of salt
3 containers of BBQ sauce (kraft works fine, and it’s cheap)
1 container of favorite BBQ sauce (I like Famous Dave’s “Rich and Sassy”)
Mustard
Hamburger Buns

I like to prepare it the night before the hunt, than it’s ready for after the morning hunt.
Make [...]

Spring Snow Goose Decoy Tips (2003)

By Chris Hustad

2007 Decoy Tips

If you plan to hunt in the spring, especially over decoys, there’s a lot of work involved compared to the fall. The following is a list of tips and tactics we use to make the whole experience a little easier.
–You don’t need a fat wallet to amass a nice decoy spread [...]

Planning a Waterfowl HuntingTrip to Canada

By Justin Gatzke
Well, it is getting down to crunch time. We are officially less than two months away from the big waterfowl hunting trip to Canada. Coordinating a hunting trip can be a series of headaches if you let it overwhelm you. There is lodging to find, licenses to buy, trailers to stuff, and so [...]