One year after the Magical Snow Goose Hunt of 2003, Tim and I returned with my father in tow.  We had hopes of having a fraction of the success. We called Ten Mile Pond several times each day during the week leading up to our scheduled hunt. The Snow Geese numbers reported by Ten Mile, and all of the wildlife refuges in the area, painted a bleak picture. According to reports, there were less than 1000 geese holding in the refuge at Ten Mile.

Despite the less than ideal reports, we decided to make the drive up early Saturday morning. Our plan was to arrive at Ten Mile before noon in hopes that no one else would be hunting the P field. The temperature was in the low thirties and promised to drop in half overnight. When we arrived at Ten Mile Pond we were delighted to see that there was only a single hunter checked in. He was hunting the O field which was the same field the other poor hunter had occupied the year before. We were hopeful that history was about to repeat itself. We lugged our 300 Texas Rags and a couple of dozen ‘shell type’ decoys out into the P field and positioned them in a manner that would allow us to hide in the ditch. While we were setting up, the hunter in the field next to us packed it in. While we were busy putting the decoys into position we were relieved to see thousands of Snow Geese traversing the sky. Some were even congregating in a flooded field about ½ mile southeast of the P field.

At several points during our setup effort, we retreated to the ditch as geese began to circle overhead. After what must have been our third trip to the ditch, we were all thrilled to see a lone goose ‘on a string’ headed straight into our decoys. My Father and I were sure that it was a Canada goose, and we berated Tim to hold his fire. As soon as the goose touched its feet on the ground, we all realized that it was in fact a Snow Goose. Tim touched off his SP-10 and wounded the goose. Upon hearing the shotgun blast, my lab, Hank, jumped out of the ditch and looked around for something to drop from the sky. I stepped out of the ditch, called him to heel, and sent him out on a blind retrieve. He was headed directly for the wounded goose, which was standing and staring at us from a position about 10 yards beyond the outer edge of our decoy spread. As Hank sprinted towards him I was thrilled. When he slammed on his brakes and stuck his snout into the bag we had been pulling the Texas Rags from, I was pissed. He did make a nice retrieve on the Texas Rag that was wrapped around a wooden dowel, but I still knocked him over the head with it when he offered it up. By this time, the goose had decided it might be in his best interest to get the heck out of Dodge, and Tim advised me in no uncertain terms that I should put another ounce or two of steel into the bird. I obliged, but did not manage to kill the goose. However, shooting at the goose did give Hank a clue as to what I was wanting him to retrieve. As I looked down and saw that he had his gaze fixed on the goose, I released him for the retrieve. Since Hank was only 13 months old and had never retrieved a goose before, my hope was that his first retrieve would be on a dead goose. I didn’t want him to have to fight a wounded goose his first time out. I guess my worries were for naught as Hank tore across the field and chased the goose a good hundred yards before tackling him. He scooped the bird up and proudly brought it back. It ended up being about a 150 yard retrieve across the muddy excuse for a wheat field.

That was the extent of our action for the next 24 hours. By noon the following day we decided to begin our drive back to Murfreesboro before we were all too exhausted to drive. We had plenty of geese work our decoys during our afternoon and morning hunts, but we couldn’t convince any of them to come close enough to offer a shot. We were certain that we were very obvious to them from the sky. Our plan of hunting from the ditch didn’t work as well as it had the year before due to the lack of snow on the ground. Sunday morning we tried building makeshift layout blinds using the corn stalks in the O field. Still, it was not good enough to fool any of the geese. The weekend’s adventure did provide my Dad the opportunity to see the sky full of geese just as I had described it to him. It is too bad that he didn’t get to fire his gun a single time. Perhaps he will get the chance to slay them at some point in the future.

On the 27th of February a gaggle of hunters ventured back to Missouri. This time around, Tim and I convinced three other hunters to attend, David Milleville and Tony Acklen from the group I hunted with at Woods Reservoir, and Adam Kremer from Murfreesboro. This would be the first waterfowl hunt of any kind for Adam!

For this trip, Tim and I had to force ourselves to go. Having had no success on the previous trip, hearing reports of 0 geese from the local refuges, and the weather promising to be a balmy 60 degrees over the weekend seemed to be the one, two, three punch to knock this trip out. When we left Murfreesboro in a two vehicle convoy I was preparing myself and my fellow hunters for the prospect of a very slow weekend of Snow Goose hunting.

Our plan for the first morning was to hunt a wheat field very close to the pit blind that Tim and I had hunted the year before. The field belongs to Tim’s brother-in-law and we knew that there was a bit of wheat in it. That first morning we were very surprised to find that the field was dry enough for us to drive our vehicles along the edge to a point where we could unload the gear within yards of where we would setup, what a luxury!  As the sun began creeping over the horizon we had over 350 decoys out and our layout blinds (lesson learned from previous hunt) in place. We saw several large groups of Snow Geese fly overhead towards the Ten Mile Pond refuge. About thirty minutes into the morning hunt we had a lone goose try to light into our decoys. David promptly knocked the goose down with a single shot. Hank, who was tucked away in my layout blind, was taken aback to suddenly hear a shotgun blast and find a dead goose laying less than 10 yards in front of him. He was so surprised that he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the goose when I released him. I was finally able to convince him to pickup the goose and deliver it to David. This seemed to be an ominous sign (a la the hunt with my Dad) that we were to once again have a terrible hunt. That goose must have been the last one to fly within one mile of our spread.

By 8:00 AM Tim and I decided it was time to go check out the refuge and perhaps call some of the others in the area. We didn’t want to waste another moment in the wheat field where we were setup. Tim, Hank, and I walked across the big wheat field to the silo and got into my truck. We drove the mile or so over to Ten Mile Pond and were delighted to see several thousand geese sitting in the P field. I cranked the handle on my cell phone enough to get a signal and call the guys that were still at our original site. I told them to pack up the dekes and grab there guns because the hunt was about to commence!

Once we all registered and arrived at the parking spot for the P field, we were proud to be able to show the other guys what a gaggle of Snow Geese looked like. Directly in front of us in the southeast corner of the field was a group of approximately 5000 geese. Each of us strapped on our fair share of the gear and began humping the access road along the south side of the field. When we reached the hub of the irrigation pivot we were standing within 150 yards of the geese. Amazed that they had not flown yet we all dropped everything other than our guns and continued walking in a crouched position to attempt to hide behind the waist high sage grass that stood between us and the geese. After walking like this for forty yards we were absolutely astounded that the geese were still holding tight in the field. That was enough to really make us mad. In unison we all dashed the fifteen yards through the sage grass to the edge of the field where the geese were sitting. Our frontal assault was enough to convince the geese it was time to go, but they had tempted fate too long. I suppose each of us emptied our unplugged guns into that group of 5000 geese as they took off into the wind. Once the smoke cleared and the feathers settled there were twelve dead or wounded geese in that wheat field! What an awesome team jump shoot! Hank went nuts chasing down the wounded geese. I think he managed to shag at least eight of them. Hank was ecstatic, and so was our group of five hunters. If the hunt ended at that point it would have been a blast. After several minutes spent collecting geese we returned to our pile of gear and began setting it up in the area the geese had been using. Within half an hour we had everything setup with the full compliment of 350 Snow Goose decoys deployed. It was now time to settle in and see what the afternoon held for us.

From our new position in the southeast corner of the P field we could see the main group of Snow Geese in the refuge about ½ a mile away. Every time they began to stir, our hopes would soar. The majority of the time the geese simply sat back down into the flooded crops in the refuge.

Sometime within the first hour a group of about seven geese locked onto our spread at about 500 yards out. The geese worked in just like we had imagined and someone called the shot when they were well within the perimeter of our spread. We managed to drop three of the seven. Hank did a marvelous job of marking them all and retrieving them in subsequent trips. High fives all the way around again! During the rest of the early afternoon we had several small groups of geese work our decoys. By 3:00 PM or so we had something like 15 geese stacked up around our layout blinds. We took a small break for a snack and watched the geese begin to stack up in the O field, which was 300 yards to our north. Becoming frustrated at our inability to compete with a live spread so close to ours, we devised a plan to jump shoot these menacing geese once again. Hank and I hoofed it back to my truck, where we were to drive to the parking area at the O field. The rest of the guys began a low crawl across the wheat in the P field so that they could take up a position near the ditch that is the northern border. When I parked the truck at O field it looked like the guys were pretty darn close to the ditch, so I began walking towards the geese, which had to be 500 yards away. When I got within 200 yards of the geese they took off and headed in the general direction of my hunting partners. Later I found out that they had not quite made it to the ditch at the time I spooked the geese. I guess the geese were too smart to fly directly over their heads, but they still managed to get within range of their shotguns. The other guys managed to drop three more geese. We all humped back to the decoy spread and sat back down in hopes of decoying some more geese. We were successful in doing so a few more times before legal shooting light left us.

After we packed up our gear and packed it back to the vehicles we had 23 Snow Geese total, including the one from early morning position. After being hassled by the game warden for awhile, we headed back to the hotel in order to get cleaned up and grab a bite to eat. It had been a marvelous hunt that day. Although I didn’t keep a count during the day, it is safe to estimate that Hank retrieved 15 of the 23 geese we took that day. Needless to say, everyone was exhausted and ready for bed. 

After several hours of much needed sleep, we all awoke and left the hotel at 5:15 AM. We weren’t too concerned about being first in line at Ten Mile Pond due to the fact that only one other hunter bothered to show the day before. When we arrived at the check-in station at 5:30 we were pleased to see that nobody else had beat us to the punch. We selected the O field after observing the flight pattern of the geese as they entered and exited the refuge area the day before. We setup in the east side of O field in a pretty decent stand of winter wheat that was bordered by rows of fallen corn stalks to the north and south. It was the area the geese had been using the day before.

Sometime within the first hour a group of five snow geese worked in low and slow using the southeast wind to work into our decoys. David Milleville and I were setup on the northwest side of the spread and we had the best shot at the approaching geese. We were able to drop two of them and Hank gladly retrieved them. I’m not sure if the other guys were sleeping at that point, but they gave no excuse for why more geese didn’t fall from the sky.

One or two groups of geese worked our decoys during the rest of the morning. This time, David and I were definately the only ones awake to shoot at them and we blamed the snoring of the others on flaring them before they got well within range. Sometime around 10:30 AM we decided to pack it up and head back to Tennessee.

All in all it was a great hunt that weekend. Each of us had plenty of opportunities to take shots at geese and we managed to pack 25 breasts into the cooler for the return trip home. Personally, I was tired enough to not want to make the trip again for another Snow Goose hunt. At the same time I was completely satisfied and somewhat relieved that Tim and I were able to have a fruitful waterfowl hunt in Missouri. It was a healthy and upbeat note to end the 2003-2004 waterfowl season.