Spent 8 days in Saskatchewan. This was my 6 year in a row and had a blast.

Disclaimer: If you are reading this report and are expecting to see 200 dead snow geese in a pile or in the shape of some number, then stop reading now. My philosophy has changed a bit over the years and I’m just not interested in killing that many birds. I am also not interested in bringing home a possession limit (60 Snows, 16 darks and 16 ducks) as there is no way I could use and or give away that many. Not saying you are wrong for doing it, but it’s just not my thing. I enjoy myself very much just being up there or anywhere out in the wilds, seeing all the wildlife and bringing home a couple of nice birds.

That being said, we had a great trip. We hunt out of a small (I mean very small) town called Fillmore which is about 60 miles South East of Regina. One of our friends here in SoCal has owned a house up there for 16 years and invites us up to hunt.

We always go on the week that goose hunting changes from half a day to all day hunting. Up until the 15th or so of October you can only shoot geese until noon. So we always try to go that first week of all day hunting.

The weather seems to be different every year. This year it was way to nice for the most part. Around freezing at night and up into the high 50’s and low 60’s during the day. We did have some wind and some rain at night, but not as much as we wanted.

The birds, especially the snows had not really moved into the area in the huge numbers we usually see. There were some around and they actually filled in more as the week progressed. We did see way more then the average number of Sharptails, huns and moose. The moose were everywhere and we saw a few bulls with decent racks.

We started off Monday morning driving around looking for bigger concentrations of birds as the reports from the previous week were a bit dismal. We jumped a few ponds but most were holding small ducks like Gadwalls and Spoonies. The good weather hadn’t really pushed the little ducks out yet. Finally we made our way out to a new area that we had permission to hunt a came upon a large lake that was holding a ton of Mallards and some snow geese were in the fields around it. We decided to set up on the edge of the lake and had a few good shots on Mallards and the gesse came by a couple of times. I eneded up with 2 nice green heads and 2 snows.

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Went back there for the evening shoot and finished off my limit of Mallards 7 greens and 1 hen doh!

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The next day we were out looking at some ponds and got into a bunch of sharp tails. Those guys are tough to hit when your shooting your goose gun and loads.

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One morning we checked out a small lake that was loaded with ducks and a few honks. We had a decent jump shoot with some nice green heads and decided to come back later to set up. In the afternoon we got set up around the edge of this pond and after the initial jump it was a ghost town. My dad calls over and asks if we should stay, but since we really didn’t have anyplace better to be, we stayed. About an hour before quitting time, the geese and ducks started pouring into the place. We ignored the ducks, but I could have slayed the mallards. First the honkers came, then the snows and finally the specks. At anyone time there were groups of all three sitting on, landing on and or circling the pond. Unfortunately due to the size of the pond, it was bit hit or miss if the birds would come over but I scored a couple of nice honkers including one that went almost 14 pounds and the rest of my crew had similar results.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/6252-Bryan_14_pounder_150.jpg

We a had a couple more decent shoots at both WTF lake and the other big pond with some nice geese and ducks.

We did try pass shooting snows a couple of mornings as they came off of a big lake which is also a reserve (Can’t shoot within 500 meters of the water) that is usually very productive, but due to the overall lack of snows it wasn’t really that good. My dad did whack them pretty good one morning, but has was also shooting very well and maximized his opportunities. Towards the end of the week we did see some big groups of snows coming into that lake from the north, that looked like new birds.

The boys with some nice ones, mine went just over 14 pounds.
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Roger with Buddy
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All and all it was a fun trip and we had some good shooting and still brought home plenty of birds. Can’t wait to do it again next year.

Bryan

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