There were a number of weather challenges this year causing us to postpone more days than in any year in the past. Much of the season was unseasonably cold with many days 20-30 degrees colder than normal. Mother Nature gave us a couple crippling ice and snow storms that froze our equipment into the ground. We were left with no option other than to wait for a warm up. You can’t fight Mother Nature.
With all of this said you may be thinking how was this past season? It doesn’t sound good. Hunting success depended on when you hunted with us. There was some very good hunting as well as slow hunting at times. If you were hunting when there was not weather issues than you likely did average or better. If you were with us around some of the weather events then hunting was likely a little slower. Overall we feel the 2014 season was a fair season. Not our best season and not our worst but somewhere in the middle. We had a lot of fields harvest in the teens and low twenties which is average hunting. There certainly was not nearly as many of the 40+ bird days that we see on the better years. With the weather conditions we had we were satisfied with the results.
The total harvest was 3707 snows with four leg bands. Two of the four bands were shot out of one flock. The pair of juvy blue geese band were separated by only seven numbers. On the surface the 3707 snows harvest might seem low however the lower harvest was more a result of fewer days in the field rather than from poor hunting. When we only get to hunt 30 some days this year and most years we hunt 40-50 days it stands to reason that we are going to harvest fewer snow geese…that is what happened in 2014.
