The spring of 2007 was an above average season. Our Missouri hunts got off to a muddy start but bird numbers were strong and the hunting was good. South Dakota was great but short lived. We arrived in northern SD about the same time as the birds. There was wave upon wave in the air however the abrupt weather change from cold with frozen ground to temps in the high 60’s and 70’s with a strong south wind resulting in a massive migration. The birds moved as far north as Canada which is a pretty rare occurrence for March. We kept thinking there has to be one more storm to push them back. It was just too quick. A quick look at the rainy weather forecast convinced me to cancel the last three days of our hunts. After speaking with several outfitters that ran hunts over that weekend I was very glad we cancelled. Their success was poor. One week to the day of canceling the hunts a snow storm moved through much of Canada, ND, and SD pushing large numbers of birds back into the areas we hunt. Too late for us to reschedule but never the less it is a good example of how weather can affect the hunting.
Our harvest was up more than 1200 birds over 2006. The total harvest was 5653 snow geese. We had two fields shoot zeros. Both occurred on half day hunts, one in MO and one in SD. Five fields broke the century mark, two 100-bird, two 101-bird and one 103-bird days. It was also a good band year for us. We shot 20 leg bands, 7 neck collars, one $20 reward band, and one tarsus band.
