Conservation at its finest! (w/pix)

[Brent Bryant]

I made it over for a little snow goose action this weekend. Richie and I had some guys that Cameron and Kale met last year give us a call wanting to stay at the lodge in exchange for taking a few of us with them on some professionally guided and videoed hunts over decoys. Well. . . to make a real long story REAL short; they laid out all day Friday and killed 8 or 9. In the meantime, after seeing how that was going, me and J.D. and club buddy Cameron went and jumped a group down the road and picked up 30. The big surprise was (J.D. and Cameron: Are you sitting down???) after picking the birds up in the field, carrying them to the truck, throwing them in the truck, throwing them on the shop floor and throwing them outside, I moved them out of the drive over the side and picked up a . . . [anyone? anyone?] yup. . . a band.
No fowl play involved, but inattentiveness on all of our parts before hand. J.D. and Cameron: We have to talk!

The next day, the professionals decided that maybe their decoying skills weren't quite up to the competition of umpteen bajillion birds flocked up around the area, so they all kind of split up and went their own ways for a little "hopping" as they called it. (That would be "jumping" to us rednecks.) They jumped a roost that Blake Cox and I manage to miss out on. Partly because we just screwed up; and partly because we had to go help Andy with this:

The result of the 2nd deer strike on a hunting trip this year by the boys from Tuckerman. The difference is that Andy's truck was toast and could only be moved out of the road after we pulled the bumper out of the tire with a chain. While screwing with the truck, we did manage to kill 3 geese flying around. After getting Andy's truck towed, I then went on a solo stalk. (Solo because the rain sent everyone else to the houses and cafe's.) I picked up 43 from 6 BB's or BBB's. I've got to get a magazine extension and hevi-shot next time!!!

Afterwards, Blake Cox got back out and we jumped another field. We only picked up 19, but . . . you guessed it . . . another band! From there is was off to Swan Pond where Andy was sitting on a field waiting on us where the 3 of us picked up 44. For the day, I think that brought me and my company to 109 for the day!



The next morning, the guys from Kansas, get this. . . slept in and then rolled out without so much as a thank you, good-bye, or kiss our ass. Maybe that's just the way they do things in their part of the country! Only 2 of them (one guy from OK and another from WI) got up to chase a while before heading out. These guys are rumored to have been deer hunting with magazine extensions on their guns when the three of us popped over a levee and dropped 66. Just FYI the patterns of carnage were noticably different (which prompted me to ask what they were shooting), but I based on what I saw, I think I'll stick with my large steel shot - especially at that range!


I saw the most geese this weekend I have ever seen (and that is saying a lot), but by midday Sunday, you couldn't hardly find a goose in the area as they had all staged up and headed out. Duck hunting may have been average this year, but with the exception of hearing the words, "That'll be tawoo-hundrid, tawoo-hundrid, tawoo-hundrid, and, uh, tawoo-hundrid!", the snow goose chasing was as good as ever.

I'm hoping for one more trip when the next train rolls in. Just give me a call if you can make it.

[Stuart MacDiarmid]

How many bands does that make for you this year?

[Brent Bryant]

1 honker band in the pre-season;
1 snow band with Tony;
1 snow band with J.D. and Cameron (assuming they don't wrestle it from me ); and
1 snow band with Blake cox.

No duck bands though, but I'm starting to see a pattern here with snow geese. I don't ever remember folks ever killing banded snows year ago, but now they seem to be more common than ducks. For what it's worth, those guys that came down to hunt with us said they average a band out of every hundred or so geese up there. Ducks seem to be 2 or 3 times that down here. Who knows. I'd like to see the numbers of ducks and geese banded by usfw each year. I'm sure it's online somewhere.

[Stuart MacDiarmid]

As of 2004, approximately 60 million birds have been banded across the United States and Canada under the North American Banding Program. About 4 million of these bands have been recovered. On average, about 1.1 million birds are banded every year.

Game birds make up only 31% of birds banded, but account for 72% of band recoveries.

According to the Bird Banding Laboratory, number of game birds banded and recovered in 2001:

Game Bird
# banded
# bands recovered

Ducks
222,006
48,576

Geese (includes Brant)
132,295
39,766

Swans
1,063
555

Doves
4,329
156

Woodcock
934
94

This was taken from the Delta Waterfowl site. Have you ever known anyone to kill a banded dove? What would have really been cool is if that dove you killed this season with your truck antenna would have had some bling on it. I am never going to pass up shooting a swan again either! What is really amazing is that 10% of Woodcocks and over 50% of the swan bands were recovered! They must band em, throw em up, then shoot em!!! Hehe

[Brent Bryant]

Actually, I have heard of people killing banded doves. Paul even banded some for AGFC up at Donaldson. I always check doves for bands - even the one I stratigically killed with my antenna!

What I am real interested in seeing is the number of birds (particularly snow geese) banded each year. Was there an increase in snow goose banding that coincided with the concerns that spawned the conservation order?

[Stuart MacDiarmid]

There almost had to be an increase in the last 3 years. You remember how shocked we were when we killed that Snow with the collar band? Up until the last few years you almost never ran into people with Snow bands.

[Brent Bryant]

I thought some of you might be interested to know that J.D. and I talked about the overlooked band and J.D. just kicked himself for not having seen it either and told me to keep it since I eventually found it. Cameron, on the other hand, found out about the band from Kyle or Kale and then proceeded to crawl up my ass accusing me of hiding it from him. Good grief, those bands make people do some stupid shit. That conversation only went downhill from there. (Someone remind me to not post information on a public forum the next time I try to hide something. ) Needless to say, it is safe to say that band is staying in the finder's keeper's category. Maybe next time he'll ask to flip for it before he starts calling me names.