What Month is This??

Hello again all my technologically advanced and well connected Waterfowl enthusiast friends. The cold weather, ice and snow makes a guy wonder just what time of year this is. It's down right cold out there. I haven't heard any real report for today but did observe some great migratory sort of action today. As I peeked out the windows at work, after the snow and ice gave way, there were thousands and thousands, string after string, of migrating snow geese. Only thing was is that they were all heading South. Yes, that's right South. These were not local birds flipping around looking for a new dinner table, these were higher flying strings of migrating Snow Geese heading back South with no apparent stopping point anywhere close to here. I had heard of a snow storm warning in South Dakota and it must have been true based on what I saw today. So here we go again. Time to fire up the horns, oil the guns and set the deeks. Oh wait, we already did that! They'll be coming back as soon as it warms up again which according to forecasts should be this weekend. If you haven't been out yet, now is the time. Get down and get ready. The Ditch will be man'd on Thursday and again hoping for a successful report. I was anxiously waiting for the Legends to report by I haven't seen one yet. Curious to know if they saw all these birds coming back. That's all for now. Check back for the latest and greatest and thanks for all the hits. MBO

Still Going...

The birds are moving. A large number of the Can's we've been seeing have apparently moved North lending plenty of space for the thousands, and thousands and thousands of ducks lying in every pot hole from Tekamah to 20 miles South. Snows are here in good numbers, but choosing not to play. A 2PM to 6PM hunt yielded no birds. Not a single group would play. Plenty of birds to decoy today, but nothing happened. By not being in the Ditch the last two days, I believe we missed them coming into the area and now they are here and hard to decoy. Beginning to wonder if we're ever gonna shoot. Not being expert Snow hunters I'm going with the belief that all these birds are "old" birds and the "juvy's" are coming still and they will give us a chance. Doesn't that sound like a typical waterfowler? Always holding out hope! The Legends Ditch is ready for some warm bodies to occupy the pits as they had good numbers decoying today with only one shooter. Wish we had that problem! Sounds like I need to scramble the F-16's again to keep the geese out of there to give the rest of us a chance. As one report says they're decoying well and another saying they're decoying poorly, you just never know. One thing you can be sure of is this: YOU CAN'T SHOOT 'EM FROM THE COUCH. We will keep it coming as we hear it. Check back for the lastest and greatest and thanks for all the hits. MBO

Migration Has Started

Hello again all my technologically advanced and well connected Waterfowl enthusiast friends. Well this post is a bit late. We hunted Thursday and observed a large push of new birds into the area. Many, many, many new Ducks, Cans and Specks as well as a decent number of Snow's. The morning fog and little winds lent itself to zero decoyable birds. All groups of Snow's large and small responded well to the "firing of the horns" but wouldn't finish. They all just floated around the sky wondering just where to land. We sat out until about 1PM, but the high sky and little wind just kept 'em going. Wouldn't you know it, the wind starting howling as we were loading up the trucks to go home. The Snows that we did see didn't appear to be sticking around. It's now Sunday and the area reports are of little success thus far. We were almost 100% iced up on Thursday but I recon by today after the big rain and winds the last few days we should be opened back up. Phone reports today and yesterday have Snow Geese all over around Desoto Bend and the adjacent areas. Fridays report for the "Hay Ditch" was of no success and no large numbers of Snow Geese. The Ditch will be manned later this afternoon and I'm hoping for a good report. After doing some checking, it appears that History has the birds showing up sometime in the next 5-10 days. We'll see how that all plays out, hopefully our schedules allow us to be on the move when the birds are. The SSPI (Sure Shot Predictive Index) is still saying around 100 for the Conservation season. The success and action should be starting anytime, we'll keep up with the news as we hear it. As always, check back for the latest and greatest and thanks for all the hits. MBO

Still Not Ready

Hello again all my technologically advanced and well connected Waterfowl enthusiast friends. A walk outside this morning found southerly winds, mild precip, and a low ceiling. Could this be it? Would the 1.2million in Squaw Creek start to move North? One would hope. But not quite yet. The amount of coffee in the thermos acted as the time teller today. When the coffee was done so was I. A variety of weather this AM and we even had to fire up the HEAT. Sprinkles gave way to rain, which gave way to sleet, which gave way to big North winds. Many a days this past fall we would have loved todays wind's and low ceiling. Ducks by the thousands are everywhere, as well as a decent number of Can's. We did manage to see a dozen or so small bunches of Snows, with each bunch numbering less that 15. Not much of a push going on, but we did run into about 100 Can's that liked the spread. They came gliding from about 2 miles up right over the top of us, not a single wing beat. A great site! The last few warm days have definately pushed some more birds into the area, but the snow geese are still behind. After this front moves out we should be able to hunker down and get some good hunting in. For those of you who haven't been keeping up with Squaw Creek: two weeks ago 40,000 snows, 1 week ago, 600,000 and as of monday (3 days ago) 1.2million. A guy really should get some more bullets! If them baby's come movin' through here that quick I might just wet myself. Now, I know what you're saying, how can you get that excited about Snow Geese? Let me tell you, I've always been one for Conservation. I conserve my energy on the way to the ditch by riding a 4-wheeler. I conserve shells, by taking only high quality, sure shots. I conserve all my money by buying things that are only "on sale" from Cabela's and Mack's. And finally, on my lanyard I carry only the minimum amount of calls necessary to "sweet talk" the birds down...
"The Super Model" - a really high dollar duck call that I had to have that is way out of my league,
"Old Faithful" - a lower dollar but still expensive duck call that sounded better in the store than the really high dollar call,
"Coyote Ugly" - the super cheap duck call that I justified spending money on 'cause it sounded good in the store and was cheaper than the other two (what was I out?),
"Just In Case" - a speckelbelly call,
"Why Not" - a snow goose call,
"Soul-Mate" - a really high dollar canada goose call that I refuse to give up on 'cause it was so expensive, and...yep one more,
"The Fooler" - the ever popular drake whistle that some guy on a duck video talked me into having.
So you see, I do all I can for conservation. For now, we'll keep out watch for the beginning of the push and as always, check back for the latest and greatest and thanks for over 10,000 hits. MBO

Not Quite Yet

Hello again all my technologically advanced and well connected Waterfowl enthusiast friends. The water we had open last Sunday has now closed up with ice. We finished up the spread and some other housekeeping around the Ditch today. Apparently Mother Nature isn't quite ready yet! The ducks we saw Sunday have mostly moved on, either further North of back toward the South. Very few birds around during today's 6 hour event. A decent number of Dark Geese floating around the river, as that appears to be the only open water right now. Not a single snow goose seen yet. We fired up the horns today and wow what a sound. We got a car radio, an amp and 2 horns, how annoying! Hopefully the geese like it, as it is almost piercing to the ear of a human. The horns and the CD's came from performancecalls.com and they sound great. They are each over 1 hour of constant sound with no breaks. One is of feeding snows and one is flying snows. We've opted to go the easier and less expensive route this season and invested in some Goose Gloves. A guy spends so much money on Big Foots and GHG goose deeks why not use 'em. The Goose Gloves fit great, it's the most economical way to turn your Canada spread into a Snow spread. We're probably about 2 weeks away from seeing any real push of snows. This cold air from the North pushing down over the next few days will surely hold those 600,000 snows at Squaw Creek from coming up any further. We'll be ready when they come. Amongst friends I mentioned that I thought with good timing we may just be able to scratch as many snows this spring as we did ducks this fall. Who knows, the SSPI (sure shot predictive index) this fall what about as accurate as our local meteorologists. That's not saying a whole lot! Today's temp on the way to the Ditch was 10 degrees, it warmed up to 25 before we left about 1PM. Why is it that in the fall when it's 25 we have the heaters flared up and more clothes on that you can shake a stick at...and in the Spring when it's 25 and calm you don't even think about firing up the heaters? Just doesn't make much sense, but then again neither does snow goose hunting. Just trying to do our part for conservation! We'll keep up with the local bird news as best as we can until the real action starts. Check back for the latest and greatest and thanks for all the hits. MBO

Great Snow Goose Chase

Well, here we are. February 15th and the birds are slowly starting to trickle already. We set up shop today and a hammer and re-bar drilled the holes for the rags and the bigfoots are set up with goose gloves over the top. The Pintail's were all over the place this afternoon. Amazing site this time of year, plenty of huge bull's in full color. Thursday will be opening morning for the Great Snow Goose Chase. We have the horn speakers all amp'd up hoping they'll pull 'em in from the stratosphere. Just South there was about 5 inches of snow, but nothing in Tekamah. Not a single trace anywhere. The ground is beginning to thaw and the mud is THICK. Couldn't hardly get there with the small trailer hooked up to the Polaris. Have about 200 deeks out right now with a mix of floaters, full-bodies and rags. As soon as some more ice goes away, we'll put out some more floaters and see if that'll draw them in. It's time to get going after the 8 week break and we're ready. Ready for what only time will tell. If the amount of ducks around right now is any indication of the migration path toward the North, we should have some great sights this Spring. And...if we're lucky we may just scratch a snow goose or two along the way. Check back for the latest and greatest and thanks for all the hits! MBO

Season Report

HAPPY NEW YEAR - Who would've thought that a bunch of "sand bar" hunters could've come up with enough to write about to get OVER 9000 hits. Well we did it, had fun along the way, and met some new friends. The Ditch is covered up and we're trying to figure out just how much we're gonna spend this year on the great snow goose chase. We have around 200 deeks between full bodies, rags and floaters. Not sure if we need to spend any more money. In the last 4 years we've spent about $2000 and shot 1 snow goose (INSERT HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER HERE), pretty expensive hobby. I spoke with a guy at Stereo West and he's certain he can make me quite an e-honker for the season with a couple $20 cd players from WalMart. We've been doing some research on snow goose calls etc, and have found that the guys at performancecalls.com have the right gig. We're going to get their CD's and "horn" speakers and take the setup to Stereo West and see if they can make it so loud that the Legends Ditch hears us and thinks they've got 'em locked up.
This innagural season at the Ditch has proven to be both fruitful and frustrating. We shot just under 90 total birds with very few geese. We learned a few things along the way and will be better preparred next year. We've been fortunate enough to get our spot and look forward to many years of trial and error. One thing we did learn is that the shells sure pile up quicker than the ducks. Also we've all agreed to purchase one dozen duck decoys each month until next season, that's one dozen per month per member! That should get us around 400 duck decoys in the water on our 10 acres, that oughta bring 'em in. If it don't it sure will be fun when the first "surspise" freeze comes. Heard all kinds of reports on final numbers but I'll hold off on those. Two turns into four, four turns into eight, and eight turns into sixteen. We look forward to the great snow goose chase and will come back then on a regular basis to keep the action coming. To all who followed this blog, THANK YOU! There is still some late season action to be had if you can get hooked up on a field. Tons of birds, as always, around Valley and guys oughta be getting tired of hunting by now, you may just be able to slip in a great hunt in the next two weeks. We haven't cleaned out the trailer or hosed off the 4-wheeler just yet. I may turn blue holding my breath, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Need just one good goose hunt to end the year, we kinda missed that. We have 5 guys, and a 12 year old who hasn't pulled the trigger since November, holding out hope for one last hoorah. THANKS AGAIN to all who have visited us along the way. We appreciate each and every person who has put us in their favorites and we will try to keep it coming for many years to come. Check back for the latest and greatest and THANKS FOR ALL THE HITS!