OK guys

I don’t get to chase the whites any more. Can somone please post some pics and a story for me. I need a fix.

I know you went Jake. Give us the goods.

It’s been a really weird year so far. We’ve been out 3 days the last two weekends. The birds blew through southern and central SD super fast….like in just a couple days. Last weekend we didn’t find the huge super flocks until about 30 miles north of Redfield.

We had a good hunt last Saturday night……shooting about 45 birds on a pasture pond from 6:30-8:15pm (yeah, that’s the latest I’ve ever shot geese!)

Other than that, our hunts have all been between 12-30 birds. Nothing great, but no single digits or zeros.

Headed out in a couple hours for four more days. We should be able to find some dumb ones and a LOT less hunters this weekend!!! Hopefully ND drys out a bit before our 5 day excursion in April. It’s a mess up there right now.

Haven’t had a lot of picture opportunities, the weather has been relentless. But here’s the pile from Saturday night.

Here’s a still shot from a video clip. Birds coming in on the deck to the new feather flyers.

Thanks Jake. We can always counton you in here. Drop an update when you get back. I need more.

Congrats Jake! Looks like you got them figured out! Love those action pics…

Nice!…Way to stack em up

Nice job How many decoys do you put out in a typical spread ??? I have never done it, but a guy I used to work with, would always go and I couldn’t believe how many decoys he would have in his trailer…

big G

Back again from the great plains of SD. Spent Saturday-Monday chasin juvies around.

After locking down an “X” field for Saturday morning, we were pumped up…..until we started to unload decoys. Note: Never put decoys away wet if it’s going to get below freezing before you pull them out again. What a pain in the . Saturday morning brought NO wind, bright skies…..and our decoys looked like frozen wet toilet paper on stakes. The birds came (and came), but needless to say, we had a hard time finishing them. We did get two BIG flocks to flip in close and ended the morning with the 22 that might have been……

Hunted new birds Sunday, but it turned out to be more or less a bust with another clear NO wind morning. Tried setting just our 300 silo-socks, but something was extremely wrong. Birds flared at 70 yds. Ended with 6 dumb ones.

Finally the stars started to align Sunday night. After spending a full day covering huge parts of the state, we ended up back on the birds we hunted Saturday. Pleasant surprise #1: the roost had double/tripled in size sense we left. Pleasant surprise #2: they all got up and fed in the same field that night. Pleasant surprise #3: We easily secured permission. Pleasant surprise #4: forecast for low ceilings and WIND in the morning. We set decoys that night and hopes were high for the morning.

Everything just seemed to come together in the morning. The first couple groups of birds were HUGE and close. We’d bust into them, they’d turn around and head back towards the roost…….then come back for more in smaller groups. Ended with 100 by 9:45am.

still image from a video of one of the first two big flocks to do it right……I was zoomed all the way out and still had no chance of getting all the birds in the frame.

Cut the trip short a day again because of another blizzard ripping across the state today. Too bad too, because we had another grouped pegged. Lots of snow fell overnight and today…..Southern SD should get another shot at them 3 weeks after they left.

Big G,

Our spread is about 1,250-1,300 decoys. 1000 wind socks and 300 silo socks. It takes about 1 1/2 – 2 hrs to deploy in an average spring field (not too wet)……we’ve done it in as little as 45 mins on a pasture ponds that we can drive into. Last friday night was one of the longer ones taking close to 3hr because of the frozen decoys and hard ground.

Excellent report Jake and congratulations on your successful hunt! Glad to hear that the stars finally aligned for you and your group.

Love those action pics!

Wow !!! Over 1000 !!! I was watching Planet Earth the other night and they were somewhere, I want to say south africa and they were showing Snow Geese, where they winter. I could not believe how black the sky got, when they would get up. There had to be millions of them. Pretty cool to see Nice job shootin’ em up

big G

Jake my man, you are an animal!

Chriss and I spoke today on the phone and agreed that if we could ever get paroled from our current chosen lives of kids, wives (only one for each of us) and careers, we would love to just tag along and do your grunt work for the chance to shoot your scratch birds.
We both agreed that we would certainly do things a little differently, if we had the chance to do it all over again. But, it would play out very similar to the way that you are doing things
Anyone who has followed Jake knows that he works hard enough in his prep and scouting to say that he never has a bad hunt and never has a successful hunt that he does not deserve.
Keep it coming Jake, some of us have to live vicariously through you
Good luck
cheers

Not doing anything special Drake……it’s just at this point in my life I have the time to put forth the effort it takes to have good hunts. It’s a “do it while you can” sort of thing.

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Not doing anything special Drake……it’s just at this point in my life I have the time to put forth the effort it takes to have good hunts. It’s a “do it while you can” sort of thing.

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Everything you do is special. Most have NO CLUE what it takes to have these hunts. My guess is that for every great hunt you have there’s probably 2 to 3 days of prep. (Both on and off site.) Well done Jake. Keep droppin the hammer.

Chris.

PS. Let me know if you need a side kick. (I’ll pin on a towel and call it a cape.)

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Not doing anything special Drake……it’s just at this point in my life I have the time to put forth the effort it takes to have good hunts. It’s a “do it while you can” sort of thing.

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You are capitalizing on the exact thing that some of us would change, if we had it to do again
Please keep reporting and include your fine photos when possible
Good luck
cheers