Mizzou Snow 2018
- Thread starter bowhunter1023
- Start date
Crazy clouds this morning. We're at 9 or 10 right now. Folded them like clean laundry too. I killed 4 so far, all on the 1st trigger pull. Gun is shooting well this weekend.
Gordo
Senior Member
Crazy clouds this morning. We're at 9 or 10 right now. Folded them like clean laundry too. I killed 4 so far, all on the 1st trigger pull. Gun is shooting well this weekend.
That is an awesome picture. How many decoys do they set up
120 dozen socks, 12 dozen full bodies , those 2 flappers and a whirly-gig that we didn't run very much. Over $15K in equipment in this field.
We knocked down 14 yesterday before noon, repacked the truck after changing clothes, grabbed lunch and hit the road at 1PM CST. I drove 5 hours straight out of the gate before stopping. We made the return trip in 13 hours with 3 stops after doing it in 14 hours and 5 stops on the way out. Since Tuesday last week, I've spent 4 nights in a hotel, slept maybe 14 hours and have 31 hours of drive time. I'm exhausted and my reward is driving an hour to attend what will likely be a worthless meeting for 3 hours, then coming back home. But the adventure was well worth it!
I share some cool details of our hunt when I'm recouped a little. Lots of cool things about who we hunted with and where we hunted.
I share some cool details of our hunt when I'm recouped a little. Lots of cool things about who we hunted with and where we hunted.
It's funny how returning from a dedicated hunting trip will leave you with less fuel in the tank than you left with, and yet still you feel 100% rejuvenated. Nature is a powerful thing.
Looking forward to the recap dude.
The week got away from me after confirming for a second interview tomorrow that required yet another presentation, this one much more in-depth than the last. Never seems like there’s enough bandwidth to go around!
I know a few of you guys have said you’d like to take a trip west to hunt snows and I’m here to tell you, make it happen! Nothing we get to witness here in Ohio even comes close to the display of nature that is the snow goose migration. Not only did we see well over a couple million snows, we saw tens of thousands of ducks, several groups of trumpeter swans, tons of speckle belly geese, and if you can believe it, we got tired of seeing bald eagles! You’d be laying there with 10K snows overhead and out of nowhere, they’d go apeshit and scattered like flies and sure enough, here comes a freedom chicken soaring through like he owns the place. There was rarely a minute that passed by without some sort of fowl in eyesight.
For us, this trip started a little over 2 years ago during a duck hunt when I showed my buddy Jimmy the video from my 2011 hunt. Many conversations were had that year about us getting a trip together, but several bits of “life” prevented it from becoming a reality. During our first hunt of the second split this year, we decided the time was right and I made a couple of calls to see if we could book a field. After talking to a couple different outfits, we confirmed for the first weekend in March, which is traditionally prime time and we chose Mound City, MO since it has a storied history as the snow goose hotspot.
The other 3 guys about wore me out with their excitement and anticipation leading up to the trip! It was cool seeing them amp’d up for the hunt and was a big part of why I enjoyed myself so much. We rolled out of my driveway at 4:05AM Thursday with the goal of making it to Mound City in time to do some backroading. After 13 hours in the truck, seeing next to no birds, we rounded the last bend in the highway and as we rolled over the hill, the sky filled up with geese! We couldn’t have planned it any better and what a way to welcome us to Mound City! After checking in to the hotel and grabbing some roadies, we hit the gravel to check out the migration. The video I posted earlier in the thread was taken later that evening and will forever be one of my favorite moments. The four of us stood in silence for several minutes taking in a beautiful sunset and the definition of “awesome” as hundreds of thousands of snow geese settled into the refuge for the night.
On the way back to the hotel, we drove past a decoy spread not 5 minutes from the hotel. I jokingly said that if that’s where we were hunting, our guide already earned his $100 tip from me! Sure as shit, we hunted that spot the entire time! Our guide was is from Minnesota and was a lot of fun to hunt with. We were supposed to be with another group of 4, but as it turned out, we got to hunt with our guide’s dad and the landowner the first day. The landowner told us about how his grandfather used to market hunt the same farm back in the 1930’s. They would load their kills on to a horse-drawn wagon and take them to the nearest town, which is a 35 minute drive today. He grandfather eventually purchased the farm, handed it down to his dad, and now he and his 2 brothers own it. They build a sweet cabin on the property and have 2 pit blinds for duck hunting. They have built two ponds, a miles worth of berms and have installed pumps/drains all over so they can strategically flood certain fields. We hunted a field that butted up to a small pond and was in my opinion, a sweet ass setup. To me, it was an honor to hunt with the landowner, especially because he gave us a ride in his SxS and drank beer with us when the hunts were finished! Beats the hell out of walking a mile to the field and hunting with some guys you don’t know!
Although the birds didn’t work real well, that was the case for nearly everyone we spoke to, we saw a literal shit ton of birds. On Friday, we watched birds fly from sunrise to sunset with maybe an hour break. Otherwise, it was a steady flight of birds all day long. Think of the biggest flock of Canadas you have seen, then imagine filling up the sky 270 degrees from horizon to overhead and there were times it was like that for well over an hour. We ended up killing 52 birds, which is not what we had hoped, but we did create a reputation for ourselves when it came to our shooting ability. Of the 52 birds, we killed a good 30+ stone dead over 100’ in the air and when they hit the ground, it’ll put a smile on your face! I killed one single with one shot that was pushing 60 yards and when it hit, you could feel it land! Giggity!
Our group hunts hard here at home and we struggle through some boring ass hunts together. It was a great experience for our group to burn up some shells and enjoy ourselves in the process. We’re already talking about our next trip, but it may be an Arkansas duck hunt next. Regardless of the next adventure, this one will not soon be forgotten!
I know a few of you guys have said you’d like to take a trip west to hunt snows and I’m here to tell you, make it happen! Nothing we get to witness here in Ohio even comes close to the display of nature that is the snow goose migration. Not only did we see well over a couple million snows, we saw tens of thousands of ducks, several groups of trumpeter swans, tons of speckle belly geese, and if you can believe it, we got tired of seeing bald eagles! You’d be laying there with 10K snows overhead and out of nowhere, they’d go apeshit and scattered like flies and sure enough, here comes a freedom chicken soaring through like he owns the place. There was rarely a minute that passed by without some sort of fowl in eyesight.
For us, this trip started a little over 2 years ago during a duck hunt when I showed my buddy Jimmy the video from my 2011 hunt. Many conversations were had that year about us getting a trip together, but several bits of “life” prevented it from becoming a reality. During our first hunt of the second split this year, we decided the time was right and I made a couple of calls to see if we could book a field. After talking to a couple different outfits, we confirmed for the first weekend in March, which is traditionally prime time and we chose Mound City, MO since it has a storied history as the snow goose hotspot.
The other 3 guys about wore me out with their excitement and anticipation leading up to the trip! It was cool seeing them amp’d up for the hunt and was a big part of why I enjoyed myself so much. We rolled out of my driveway at 4:05AM Thursday with the goal of making it to Mound City in time to do some backroading. After 13 hours in the truck, seeing next to no birds, we rounded the last bend in the highway and as we rolled over the hill, the sky filled up with geese! We couldn’t have planned it any better and what a way to welcome us to Mound City! After checking in to the hotel and grabbing some roadies, we hit the gravel to check out the migration. The video I posted earlier in the thread was taken later that evening and will forever be one of my favorite moments. The four of us stood in silence for several minutes taking in a beautiful sunset and the definition of “awesome” as hundreds of thousands of snow geese settled into the refuge for the night.
On the way back to the hotel, we drove past a decoy spread not 5 minutes from the hotel. I jokingly said that if that’s where we were hunting, our guide already earned his $100 tip from me! Sure as shit, we hunted that spot the entire time! Our guide was is from Minnesota and was a lot of fun to hunt with. We were supposed to be with another group of 4, but as it turned out, we got to hunt with our guide’s dad and the landowner the first day. The landowner told us about how his grandfather used to market hunt the same farm back in the 1930’s. They would load their kills on to a horse-drawn wagon and take them to the nearest town, which is a 35 minute drive today. He grandfather eventually purchased the farm, handed it down to his dad, and now he and his 2 brothers own it. They build a sweet cabin on the property and have 2 pit blinds for duck hunting. They have built two ponds, a miles worth of berms and have installed pumps/drains all over so they can strategically flood certain fields. We hunted a field that butted up to a small pond and was in my opinion, a sweet ass setup. To me, it was an honor to hunt with the landowner, especially because he gave us a ride in his SxS and drank beer with us when the hunts were finished! Beats the hell out of walking a mile to the field and hunting with some guys you don’t know!
Although the birds didn’t work real well, that was the case for nearly everyone we spoke to, we saw a literal shit ton of birds. On Friday, we watched birds fly from sunrise to sunset with maybe an hour break. Otherwise, it was a steady flight of birds all day long. Think of the biggest flock of Canadas you have seen, then imagine filling up the sky 270 degrees from horizon to overhead and there were times it was like that for well over an hour. We ended up killing 52 birds, which is not what we had hoped, but we did create a reputation for ourselves when it came to our shooting ability. Of the 52 birds, we killed a good 30+ stone dead over 100’ in the air and when they hit the ground, it’ll put a smile on your face! I killed one single with one shot that was pushing 60 yards and when it hit, you could feel it land! Giggity!
Our group hunts hard here at home and we struggle through some boring ass hunts together. It was a great experience for our group to burn up some shells and enjoy ourselves in the process. We’re already talking about our next trip, but it may be an Arkansas duck hunt next. Regardless of the next adventure, this one will not soon be forgotten!
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