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Success rate for snows

5K views 13 replies 5 participants last post by  deerbarn 
#1 ·
I joined a duck club and the guy that runs it also sets up for spring snows. It is layout hunting in a corn field with a few hundred sillosocks, silhouttes, and kites. So far I have hunted his setup four times over two weeks with a group from 2-6 people and haven't seen a single snow killed. There was only one group of 8 birds that was committing but the shot was called when the birds were too high. One of my buddies told me that snows are challenging and the average is only one good shooting day for every five attempts out. My question is what success rate are you guys seeing? Is this abnormal? My wife keeps reminding me I joined for the heated pit blind where I can take my kids during duck season, not the snow goose hunting, but I'm getting pretty frustrated.
 
#3 ·
TK - Are those geese hitting your spread? Do you get good shooting opportunities most days? My dog is figuring out that snow goose hunting is a code word for taking an afternoon nap in a field.

 
#4 ·
I'd say about 1 in every 5-6 hunts we kill double digets... Thats all we are going for 10+ and we call it a good day!!! The days of killing 50+ are few and far between but thats all people think that happens! :no: Thats because no one takes pictures of the days they only kill 4-5 and post them on the internet!! They only take the BIG pile pics and say "hey we stacked em up today..." No one ever ask how many they killed the day before or after...

Snows are hard to kill!!!! :mad: :mad:
 
#6 ·
TomKat said:
Hard to decoy, easy to kill....know what I mean Willie?
Actually we ran into some snows this year with bullet proof vest!!!!!!!!! In one weekend i bet we had 4-5 that he hit center mass and feathers came out of.. So we moved onto differnet birds only to have that bird fly off!!! :huh: Buddy was like ive never seen that 4-5 times in one weekend Normally a BB flys by them they fall out of the sky
 
#8 ·
hawkman said:
I have been exactly 10 times.
3 hunts - about 8 each hunt
6 hunts - between 40 and 80 each
1 hunt - 118
Then you should play the lotto or go to casino a lot more!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
#9 ·
Good to see the variation in success. I guess I was expecting huge days and getting skunked 4 times might just be a run of bad luck. A lot of the snows travelling to my area tend to stage first at Squaw Creek and have been leaving rapidly over the past week. I guess I'll try again next year.
 
#10 ·
hawk man, Great reply, Hunting is hunting and no matter how good ya are, shooting or scouting, Mother Nature still holds they last card, I have been a duck and Canadian hunting junkie for 25 years, Looking forward to my first hunt for snows, Expect little, Hope for some and anything after that is a bonus, Hunting up Chazy New York way the 1st and secound. Ever been that a way.
 
#11 ·
I have had a higher success rate per man hour pond jumping rather than decoying them. But thats just a number, kill ratios to man hours don't equate to the many wonderful hours I have spent picking up 1,000 decoys and listening to the drone of an ecaller. One hunt this year where we didnt get to shoot and were picking up decoys it actually sleeted on us. Good times.
 
#12 ·
That is the number of birds for a group of 4 to 6. What I didn't say was how many hours we've spent and how many miles we've driven scouting. Hundreds of hours and who knows how many miles. Definitely more time scouting than hunting. If we don't find a reasonably sure thing, we keep looking. We are also very flexible and
focus on the time when the birds are here. When I divide out the number of birds by the time scouting, the birds/hour is pretty low.
 
#13 ·
Hey Deerbarn,

Yes, I have hunted the Chazy area and done well but not yet this year. There has been a pile of snow and most everything is still frozen. Some folks are concerned they may pass west, closer to the finger lakes but we will see. It is just thawing now. Around the first of April, you might catch them.

I do play the lottery with a group. We win something about 50% of the time but never more than $5.
 
#14 ·
Thanks Hawk man, We were suppose to go up on the 19th and 29th, Guide was kind to call and see if we could come later cause of this bad winter, We have not even been able to boil much syrup because of the off winter, We all have positive attitudes towards the hunt, Hunting is hunting, The guy we are going with comes highly talked up, BUt, If birds are not flying, They are not flying. Thanks again, I really like this forum, Have one similiar with logging folks, Good deal to chat up with folks.
 
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