"BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG" ETC., ETC., ETC. and ETC. After the barrage of shots and several complaints of a head ache I heard my friend Larry reply "boy that sounded like the grand finale at the end of a fourth of July fire forks display". Thirty rounds went off from six hunters from Wisconsin on their first snow goose hunt in northern Missouri. Nine geese dropped out of a flock of some four or five hundred birds.

Although thirty shots may not seem like a lot for only dropping nine geese, but we were ecstatic. Not a goose was less than forty yards. We were there at the request of the USFWS on a spring snow goose hunt, doing our part to save the northern habitat which these birds decimating. Every hunter has heard the horror stories of the snow geese, and many are taking advantage of this incredible opportunity.

Myself, son Sean, my father Ralph, brother in law Bob and friends Larry and Scott booked a snow goose hunt with Tony Toye and Big River Outfitters from Wisconsin. Although Tony is well known for his Mississippi river duck hunts, we heard he also chased snows in the spring. We had also heard he hunted in Missouri. That’s where a lot of the birds are in February, which is when we wanted to go. That way it would be a couple months in between duck hunting and turkey hunting giving us a well needed hunting fix in the heart of winter.

After a little bit of a late start we headed out of Wisconsin to pick up my brother in law Bob in Illinois. After a usual bouncy ride through northern Illinois we arrived at Bob’s house and headed out. After about a hundred miles, I began to feel a strange bumping in my truck. Now, I know the roads in Illinois are bad, but something else was definitely going on. Yep, we turned around and headed home to switch trucks. Luckily my Dad’s truck was parked in my driveway. It turned out a ball joint went bad. The Morrissey curse was upon us again. That’s what my Dad say’s every time something bad or goofy happens on one of our trips. Come to think of it, our family does have some strange things happen. Oh well.

We had planned on hunting in the southern part of Missouri, but a couple days earlier we were informed by Tony that the birds had moved north and we would need to re-book at the motel in central Missouri. After eight hours we arrived at a Super 8 motel in central Missouri.

After unpacking and waiting outside to meet with our guides we spoke to a couple guys just returning from the days hunt. As they were hunting with Big River Outfitters we were anxious to here their report. They were on the last day of a two day hunt. They’re party of seven boasted about shooting over a hundred geese in the two days. There only complaint was the fact that they all had sore shoulders. They told us about spiraling geese coming down to twenty yards with a cork screw of birds traveling up as high as the eye could see. To say the least, we were extremely excited.

We met with our guide Ryan and were informed to meet him at 5:45am the next morning. It was hard to sleep thinking about the sore shoulders we surely would experience the next day.

We followed our guide Ryan to our first field, about fifteen miles outside of town. We threw our gear on the sled to be pulled by his ATV and started out into the field. Even in the dark we could see the silhouettes of hundreds of snow and blue geese wind socks as we approached. After setting up in our lay out blinds we began asking Ryan questions like, when do the birds start coming?, do the birds decoy well?, which direction do they come from?, ect, etc., ect. Somewhere in the barrage of questions being thrown at him, someone finally asked him where he was from. We came to find out through our conversation that he was from the New Berlin area which is close to where we all are from. But call it a small world, we then found out that Ryan knows my brother, whose name also happens to be Ryan. In fact Ryan (the guide) is engaged to marry Ryan’s (my brother) wife Julie’s cousin. With all this going on someone asked, "So where are the geese"?

As the sun came over the horizon (into our face) the cut cornfield began to shine. The little wind that blew wasn’t enough to move the wind socks and when the geese began to move through the area they circled us, got about 60 to 70 yards down and bugged out. Every time a flock would come into eyesight Ryan would turn the electronic call on, they would immediately turn are way and begin there corkscrew type descent. Then, like the flock before, would head out. The birds were landing about a half mile away in another field. As the live flock grew, it began to get harder and harder to get birds over us. The live birds in that field along with no wind to move are decoys made it impossible to get the birds closer than sixty yards.

After another flock did the same, Ryan said "hey guys, we’re going to have to take some of these, I think that’s all they’ll give us". We all kind of looked at each other and said "huh"? "Those birds are over fifty yards" I said to Ryan. "Well that’s all they’re going to give us", he replied. Another flock came over and Ryan called the shot, "kill um"!

After just one goose fell out of the flock we began to get a little disappointed. The wind picked up, but by then the birds stopped flying. One goose is all we brought in. We did see plenty of Canadian Geese, Speckle bellies and ducks, but since we can’t shoot them during this spring hunt they provided little but scenery.

The next morning we hunted with the owner of Big River Outfitters, Tony Toye. With a good wind and sun (the preferred conditions for migrating snows) we did manage to double the day’s before performance, two. Not seeing many birds by 8:30am Tony suggested we pick up the 1500 plus decoys, check out of our motel, drive two and a half hours north, check into another motel, set up 1800 decoys and finish the days hunt there. Tony said "it sounds like a lot of work but I talked to a friend of mine up there and he said there are tons of birds". "What do you guys want to do? Uh, shoot geese?

Tony’s group wasn’t suppose to move up north until the next week but conditions were early this year and all three groups of hunters and two of his guides all packed up and moved to northern Missouri.

We were set up by 3:45 pm and just then birds began showing up by the thousands. "Quick get your stuff and get in the blinds", Tony said. With that many decoys and the electronic callers blaring, the geese came from almost every direction. The sight of the snows and blues in those numbers were something these Wisconsinites had never seen. I was in awe. The sun was out, but again we were faced with no wind. I think that the geese get down just so far, then they pretty much know the set up is fake. That’s when you take um.

After a couple flocks work the spread, you can kind of figure out how many more passes there going to make. These flocks were working us down to forty or fifty yards and then bugging out. And when they leave, they leave. No messing around. It’s almost like they’re flaring on shots.

Which brings me to the subject of power gunning. Forget about finesse shooting, don’t think about shooting two and three quarter inch shells, and leave the sissy twenty gauges at home. Think about high quality (expensive) shells, extender wad separating choke tubes (like the Pattern Master or Wad Wizard), three and a half inch chambered rounds, twelve or ten gauges loaded with whack your shoulder off magnum loads. That’s what you want to bring these birds down.

On those days when the birds simply wont decoy closer than forty yards, you can’t go wrong preparing for it. You can turn a so so hunt with a few birds into a great hunt with many birds. The group that hunted before us got lucky with perfect conditions and fresh birds. Our group on the other hand, had to power blast our geese from high up. On our four day hunt we didn’t have a shot under forty yards.

Some of our birds fell over three hundred yards away and the guide’s dogs did a great job with cripples. Still, at times the guide would have to get on the ATV and chase a long flyer down.

When the smoke cleared, after an hour and a half of shooting we had 23 geese down. As we packed up we were all commenting on the far shots. Shots for the most part wouldn’t have been taken back home. The sun set and an awesome day came to a close. Geese were still flying as we drove back to the motel.

The next morning we woke up to rain. Not good. Cold, windy and wet are not good goose hunting conditions. It proved true as nearly everyone we spoke to in town at the end of the day confirmed it. Skunked, we called it a day. Our guide Mark was great to have out on such a bird less day. We all swapped hunting stories, dog training methods and laughed a lot.

The last day was to be spent back with our new found cousin, Ryan. Big River alternates guides with all their hunters. At this point in the season they had three fields with three guides. The weather did break a bit but still cloudy, it warmed up and we decided after shooting just three birds in the morning to stay for the full day. Most hunts end at 2:00pm. If you want to stay until dark it will cost an additional twenty bucks a man. Being our last day we stayed. Our luck was changing as I popped two blues trying to sneak into our spread. Than another flock came down to within our kill range of forty yards and my son Sean shot a nice Ross’s goose.

While Ryan was out chasing Sean’s goose, the mother load approached from the north. As the birds were literally stopped, hovering over our heads I admired them. Then a voice inside me said "call the shot dummy",, "kill um" I said. After the finale (as Larry put it) we hooted and hollered in excitement. A couple more flocks came in and a couple more birds hit the ground. 16 was the finale count. We took pictures, cleaned the birds and said good bye to our new cousin Ryan.

Tony does run and gun his birds, and will do everything possible to get you geese. He has literally thousands of decoys, ATV’s, comfortable layout blinds and his guides are second to none. Our final total was 42 geese on our four day hunt. Although many hunters do better, for the conditions, we were extremely happy hunters. I did bring home a nice Blue Goose and Ross’s for the taxidermist and a lot of goose meat. For sure some day I’ll be back to see those cork screwing flocks of Snow Geese. For info on Big Rivers hunts contact Tony at toyedecoys@tds.net

And don’t forget, those birds may be a little farther then your used to, so knock um out of the sky, Power Gun Um.