Snow geese hunt came up empty, but wait ’til next year

Laying on cold, damp ground is usually a recipe for misery. But in this case I think it was a feature and not a bug.

An uncomfortable body would at least be an alert body, alert for the arctic bound geese transiting the atmospheric highway of northern Missouri and southern Iowa.

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Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of snow geese ascent the great central rivers. Some fly up the Mississippi River and stack up in great numbers roughly between Canton, Mo., and Keokuk. For reasons known to geese, and speculated by humans, flocks will lift off and then fly west to the Missouri River to await another great push to the pole.

It was these geese I was awaiting. It was snow geese that had me lying in duff aside a pond surrounded by picked cornfields. March is an odd month. How can I go goose hunting in the spring, you may be asking. I’ll get to that.

Joe got a last-minute invitation to go snow goose hunting, I got a last second call to come along. Short notice was the least of my concerns because I didn't need to be so excited for more than a couple of days otherwise I would have been exhausted from anticipation. Exhaustion would come anyway.

The alarm called at 1:21 a.m. I was on my feet in seconds. Actual sleep measured in hours was only a few. I rendezvoused with my companions a little after 2. With only one gear goof-up we were southbound to Bloomfield. At 5 a.m. the gorgeous Second Empire courthouse of Davis County greeted us. It was beautiful by streetlamp, I wondered about the daylight.

Joe, Noah and I got some provisions at Casey’s while waiting for our host. In short order his truck and trailer pulled in. We made brief conversation and then made a short caravan southeast of Bloomfield. By moonlight, the expanses of farm fields rolled on in all directions. The wind was light and the air was mild — downright nice weather.

The order of march was to help set the decoy spread. Snows travel in large flocks and require large spreads of counterfeits to entice them from their flight path. I learned we’d be setting out about 700 decoys. When I go duck hunting, I tote a bag of 13 decoys. This game was at another level.

Four sets of hands made quick work of setting the stage. Mild conditions almost manifest a sweat. The nearly full moon obviated headlamps.

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Zach pronounced it good. It was the largest spread I had ever seen. Zach said he’s seen spreads of thousands, though those were often placed for the seasons. There were only minutes until shooting light; Zach reassured my look of anxiety the flocks won’t appear for at least a good hour later.

We tucked ourselves into the hillside with grasses we raked up. I anchored the left side, Zach the right, Joe and Noah filled the middle. Squadrons of mallards made strafing runs at our spread but none landed. A couple of teal tried the ponds. The local Canada geese flew in to occupy what clearly were their customary spots, just out of gun range. No matter, for them, it was a time of truce.

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Spring hunting of migratory birds was the norm from time immemorial. It would be easy to imagine for the Native Americans, or hand-to-mouth settlers, the infusion of fowl, plump with fat, was something of a providential gift as March was known as the starvation season. Industrialized market-hunting tipped the equation toward extinction.

Spring shooting came to a halt with the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1916, the first of its kind in the world. An international agreement to manage birds that use two nations to complete their life cycle: Canada and the United States.

The snow goose hegira takes them from the high arctic tundra flats to the rice fields of the lower Mississippi and the bayous of the Gulf. A funny thing happened on the way to the present. The treaty’s conservation measures worked so well that several geese species swelled in population, specifically the snows.

The waste grain from rice fields and modern agriculture fattened the geese overwinter in ways Mother Nature couldn’t. The extra calories meant the geese arrived on their arctic breeding grounds in high health. Think large and productive clutches. A population boom ensued.

Biologists feared the extra grazing pressure on the fragile tundra was reaching a tipping point. So, to prevent a collapse of tundra ecology and predictable population crash, the governments agreed to a special conservation order that allowed for a spring take of snow geese to lessen the burden on the nesting grounds. That was 26 years ago.

The spring season breaks the rules of all regular fowling. Hunters may use shotguns capable of holding more than three shells. The serious gunners tote implements with a garishly long tubular magazine to hold about 10 shells. There are no bag limits, and you can use electronic calls with speaker systems to reproduce the cacophony that 700 feeding geese would make.

Zach gave his speaker system a test run, it sounded like a chaos of chickens on Pentecost. A lone specklebelly goose approached. It too enjoyed a spring truce. Its call had a refined melody that suggested voice lessons.

Clouds blanketed the skies, however they afforded no warmth. Instead they blocked any chance of the sun’s warming rays. A stiff west wind stole the heat off my body. I snuggled deeper into my grassy nest.

I protected myself another way. I was actually lying on my padded gun sleeve. It was like a ground pad and insulated me from some direct contact with the cold and damp ground unlike the rest of the crew. Their attentiveness was assured since their comfort was not.

Joe, Noah and Zach were up and milling about. Joe asked if I had a good nap. Oh my.

Zach declared our chance at seeing a morning flight had passed, it was time to go. The previous Saturday his group bagged scores of geese. Today there would be none.

The 700 decoys went back to the boxes and bags in half the time it took to put them out. We commiserated at the trailer. Zach acknowledged the disappointment. We assured him we understood the stochastic nature of snow goose hunting in Iowa.

I’ll take making a new friend over a couple of birds on the strap any day. And, there’s always next year.

Looking up, looking ahead, and keeping my pencil sharp.

John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D. teaches at Linn-Mar High School. He sits on the Marion Tree Board, and is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America