re: Hunting over corn or other bait; where’s the satisfaction?

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20 years ago when I was in college I listened to a guest presenter lay out the snow geese situation. His proposed solution was to go up to the arctic when the geese were molting and bulldoze 1/2 of them to knock the population back. I thought he was genius. I was the only one in the room that felt that way.

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There has been serious consideration of something along these lines...the problem is the area in question is not easily accessible when snow geese are present. In the dead of winter you can land planes on it but in the spring you can't walk on it let alone drive equipment. Just getting planes to the area is problematic logistically.

It really is a mess and an interesting event if you are compelled by such things. I did not realize it has been going on as long as it has....I thought it was a 20 year problem when in fact it evidently started in the mid 70's. The data is pretty obvious that it is reaching a point of no return...apparently light geese are smaller now than they used to be because there is not enough food for them to plump up...only enough to survive and breed like flies. That usually makes an animal even more subject to disease....its amazing something hasn't happened along those lines...nature usually takes care of these things itself.

Again, I wouldn't normally propose baiting as an answer but light geese are hard to hunt for small groups of people...access to land is difficult if not impossible to obtain and the gear required is extremely expensive when done right...hard to decoy 35000 birds when you can only afford a $10K decoy spread, even as easy as snows are to decoy WHEN they want to be where you are....they are, in my experience, almost impossible to pull and are way less predictable day to day than ducks and dark geese. Plus, given their numbers today, every time they do fall for decoying 100 of them die and 34,900 fly off with a little more education.


Outfitters make a game effort and hunters will do what they can but setting 100 dozen rags and silos is damned hard work, getting access is expensive, and every year the geese get less and less likely to fall for anything other than full bodied, fully flocked decoys set perfectly and blinds that are INVISIBLE. Again, 3000 sets of eyes are harder to fool than 30. And, anyone who hunts snows regularly knows, when they are using a field this afternoon they are less likely to do so tomorrow...relative to dark geese and ducks. So it is not unusual to set up and watch wave after wave of birds fly sky high over a field they devoured the evening before.