Talking about snow geese

Derek

Do you hunt out of ground blinds, Pits? How many decoys do you use? All the guided hunts I been on they use about two hundred or more Full body, socks flags , Never seen them use shells. When I hunt Canada Geese I use shells and I love them I have both . But the shells are easier to put out. Want to know what you think about the different set ups.

Thanks
 
We field hunt in Iowa and MO. We use a mix of full bodies, TNT shells and socks. We have 10 dozen full bodies and 10 dozen TNT's that we use in the hole and the front of the blob. We have 1200 socks. a mix of headed deadlies and a lot of the white rocks. for this year; we started buying the skyfly's a nice decoy and I like the collapse system. the issue with the shells and full bodies is the amount of room that they take up. and then the issue of getting them into the field if it is muddy. we have a UTV and a 4 wheeler and big sleds. it adds to the amount of work to get everything out and set. Ideally if money, hauling, getting into the field was not an issue; then all full bodies. There is one outfitter in ILL that has two spreads with 10,000 full bodies in each set up. and no that is not a typo. yes I said 10,000 FB's

on the water we use between 10 dozen and 24 dozen floaters; depending on how many guys are hunting. the biggest issue is getting the decoys out to the marsh. I just bought one of the old 10 ft long jon boats made by sears. these are the ones that have the really thin, dimpled alum. you can pick up the 10 ft boat one handed. I am going to tow it behind my pumpkin seed. I own 113 snow and blue goose floaters. My one hunting partner has 10 dozen and he also has a tow boat. If our third partner goes; he has another 3 or 4 dozen decoys.
 
Wow lots of hard work for a lot of geese. Hope you never have a bad day. You must be dead on your feet some days. I can't do that kind of work any more that why I use a guide. Medical stuff can't lift nothing over thirty pounds. Plus a bunch of other stuff. But I make the best of it. Still having fun. Your a true sportsman and a heck of a hard worker.

Thanks
 
the field spread goes out pretty fast. typically for the field hunt we will have 4 to 6 guys. Socks go in fast. You grab 50 or so and put them under one arm; grab one and give it a shake. the back bone snaps into place on the white rocks and you stick it in the ground. take two steps and stick another one down.

The water set does take some time but it is well worth it if the birds are migrating. typically we get one out of every three or four flocks that are thirsty and with the layout boats stuck into the edge of the cattails; we finish them to 20 yards or less. our best water hunt was two years ago. three of us on a marsh. we had 30 to 40 mph winds. the birds were tired and dropped right in. With that wind; we could only kill one apiece on most goes because they were out of range in one heartbeat. the most we got in one go; was 5. we killed and retrieved 31 geese that morning. And did not lose any. we don't take the long shots. it was a very good hunt.
 
Derek

Sounds like a great hunt. Everything is worth it if you enjoy what your doing. I love water hunting better then field. But I have to say I have had better luck on geese in the field. Not that I have not had great days on the water. But in fields there hungry and coming there to chow down. Thanks for a nice post.
 
We put a strap weight bolted onto the plastic keel with small machine screws and nuts so it is bolted flat to the existing plastic keel
 
That sounds good. They ride just fine with proper keel weight.

When I bought mine new. I heated a screw diver to make a hole in the thin keel that would not leak. Threaded some anchor line through some heavy fishing sinkers, then through the melted hole in the keel. More or less a close to keel swing weight, that still works very well on the old decoys "that take a licking and keep on ticking".
 
Yes, they are a great little decoy. Very very durable. I buy all of them that I can find. But they're getting pretty hard to come by
 
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