Had to make sure the first trip with Ward wasn't a fluke. :yes :yes
Left Wednesday, hunted Thursday, Friday, and Saturday then returned on Sunday.
Three words would best describe this hunt..........COLD and SNOW!!!!!
Ward said in the four years he's been guiding in Saskatchewan he's never seen it snow this much let alone consecutive days with as much accumulation as we were there. He also said he'd never hunted in weather under 15F. Not two records I was really looking to break.
Talking to the farmers they were a little surprised by the weather as well. Sure they had gotten snow in September and October, but never this much with no end in sight. The local paper stated most farmer's had over 60% of their crops left in the field, and most were worried if they were going to be able to get it out now.
The geese were much more difficult to hunt this time around, and it was apparent the migration was fully underway with not very many geese left in the area. However, the duck hunting more than made up for the lack of geese. The hunt on Sunday PM was worth the trip. Not sure if there were more ducks in the area or not, but the cold weather had them concentrated due to the snow and most of their water frozen. Saw a lot of Swans migrating while we were hunting. Pretty cool sight. They are HUGE and almost invisible in a snow filled sky.
Thursday AM found us in a pea field setting up for a large concentration of geese the guys had found the night before. The snow flurries started about the time we were done setting up the spread. It continued to get progressively worse as the morning went on at times with the visibility only being a few feet. At first we were all pretty excited to hunt in the snow, but that didn't last long as it's a PIA to keep the snow off the decoys. Made it difficult to finish the geese. We didn't shoot them at 5-10' this time, but we still managed to kill a limit.
Thursday AM Pic:
Group of geese coming into the field after we were done:
Lex bring back a goose. Should give an idea of the snow building on the decoys.
Thursday PM we set up for a duck hunt. Mainly had flurries that afternoon, but the temps continued to drop with a pretty stiff wind. I don't know if the wind was worse, or it blowing snow off the field into the blind with you. 3 of the guys couldn't take the cold and went to sit in the car. The guide held out with us, and we ended with 26 mallards I believe. Very cool site watching those mallards banking into the snow on final approach. No pics from the hunt as I was too dayum cold.
Friday AM was a test of wills. We arrived to the field to set up for geese with a temp of 13F and wind chill at or below zero. It was brutal. The geese didn't move like normal, and those that did wanted little to do with the decoy spread. We still scratched out 29 and one mallard drake even though 3 of the guys gave up again as well as one guide that will go nameless.
Friday AM pic:
Me with a few greaters that were shot:
Friday PM was the start of the duck show. 2 of the guys decided to sit this one out as they thought they had frost bite. It actually ended up not being as cold as that AM, and the hunting was awesome. After the 4 of us limited out on mallards, the two guides moved up to shoot. I think we finished with 39 mallards. Wish I had a few of the groups that decoyed on film. It's what keeps me going back to Canada. No pics as again I was ready to get out of the cold.
Saturday AM we set up for geese again. The first two groups of the morning had us thinking this would be a quick hunt. However, the rest of the groups that morning seemed to not want to finish. We did shoot two nice specs and the only two specs we saw this trip. Pretty cold again this AM, and lost 3 of the guys again. We ended with 32 dark geese and 7 mallards if I remember correctly.
Saturday AM pic:
pic of the spread:
We decided to stick around for a PM duck hunt as the goose hunting had been tough and our flight wasn't until Sunday. I'm glad we did. This hunt made our trip. I wish we had the whole thing on video. Several thousand birds were sitting on two big sloughs with a pea field in between. They would get up in groups of a few hundred to several hundred to trade between the bodies of water and wanted everything to do with our spread. Got to see several tornado of mallards coming into the decoys. Our daily limit was finished in short order and the guide decided to get in on the action.
Saturday PM pic:
Happiness is a bloody dog!
Our group ended with 234 this trip I believe, so that's 526 birds for us in Canada this year. Going to be hard to get excited about shooting some educated birds in TX this year.
