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Photo by the author |
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The Great Reset |
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Outrageously nasty weather causing snows and blues to reconsider their migration schedule |
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By Jay Anglin |
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MUSKEGON, Mich. (February 21, 2025) – Planning your life around prime hunting times can be a major challenge. While some game animals are relatively consistent when it comes to the best times to target them, like mature whitetails, others such as waterfowl are at best an assumption based on conventional wisdom, but completely at the mercy of weather patterns, among other insidious factors. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Hunting snow geese during the Light Goose Conservation Order, or as it is known around the campfire, the “CO”, is something quite a few hunters consider the grand finale of their annual waterfowl odyssey. It’s kind of a big deal. Most years the peak northward migration falls into a two or three week window. The smart money figuring on where that window is should be based on prior seasons, but there is always an “unless” factor: Unless we get a big snow storm up north (almost guaranteed), unless it gets super warm in Arkansas and they roll early (definitely SOP and it happened this season already), and so on and so forth. |
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Then we have what has happened this season which includes the early push, plus a February bomb cyclone/Arctic Blast of cold air – and yes, it included lots of snow. This “perfect storm” of factors has effectively reset the clock on where the snow geese are and when they will end up someplace else. So, if you missed planning a big spring snow goose adventure this season, there is still plenty of time to heat the shotgun barrel to upper tolerance and have a bunch of snow goose summer sausage made for the freezer, and those trendy charcuterie boards you’ve been meaning to take a crack at. If you didn’t have time to build a decoy spread in time for CO ‘25, no worries, all you gotta do is call one of these Hardcore Waterfowl preferred outfitters and book your dates. Make no mistake, time is a wastin’, so don’t wait to make the call! |
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KANSAS Hundreds of thousands of snow geese migrate through Kansas on their way northward, but it’s also common for geese in northwest Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota to quickly jump back south into Kansas when the going gets rough further north. No doubt, Kansas is consistently one of the best states to chase snow geese during the CO. “As of a few days ago, we were covered up with birds, snow geese were everywhere. But, with this cold snap and snow many of them moved back south. I’m confident we’ll start seeing them return this weekend and it should be phenomenal hunting from there on out. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see birds into April,” said Native Thunder Outfitters owner and guide Cole Smith, located outside Great Bend, Kansas. Smith says there are still some CO dates available – for more info check out www.huntnativethunder.com MISSOURI The Show Me State’s position as a snow goose stronghold is indelibly marked in the CO hunter’s mind. From the Bootheel in the southeast to the mid-flyway Mother Ship snow goose stronghold at Loess Bluffs NWR near Mound City in northwest and just about everywhere in between, Missouri is a no-brainer for much of February and March, and this season may go later than normal. “Lots of adult snow in my area of central Missouri,” said Walden Chevalier Jr., owner of Central Missouri Wildlife located about an hour east of Kansas City in the powerhouse Missouri River waterfowl migration corridor. “Just guessing at a number of 200K-plus snow geese in the area. It’s extremely cold this week but they’re toughing it out, and we begin warming up by the end of this week.” Like all snow goose hunters in the northern fringe of inhabitable snow goose country, Chevalier is banking on the coming warm-up to push stale adult birds northward and cycle in some fresh, juvenile birds. For more info check out the Central Missouri Wildlife website. |
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ILLINOIS The State of Illinois is known as a waterfowl mecca, boasting two migration superhighways – the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Hundreds of thousands of snow geese can be found in the hot zones at any given time from late February through much of March. “This cold weather seems to have held a lot of adult birds in the area,” says Aaron Quillan, owner of Monarch River located in Southern Illinois north of St Louis in the Illinois River Valley, not far from the adjacent Mississippi River. “The rivers have begun to freeze back up, so there will be a bit of a reverse migration until the weather breaks. Look for a big push to occur next week when it warms up!” For more info check out the Monarch Rivers website… ARKANSAS/SOUTHEAST MISSOURI This arctic blast may be very advantageous to hunters towards the southern end of the CO migration schedule. While this region is notoriously good during the first couple weeks of the CO, winter warm-ups tend to thin snow goose ranks pretty quick, though easy to fool juvenile snow and Ross geese tend to linger here much longer. With frigid temps and snowy weather dipping into the south this week, Arkansas and the nearby Bootheel of Missouri should be 100 percent in play for the foreseeable future. Check out Hess Waterfowl and Twisted Timber Guide Service for current information on Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. |
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ABOUT NEXUS OUTDOORS Nexus Outdoors, headquartered in Muskegon, MI, USA, is a leading worldwide designer, marketer and distributor of performance, hunting and casual odor-controlling apparel, footwear and equipment under the ScentLok Technologies®, OZ®, Blocker Outdoors®, Whitewater, HARDCORE, and Tree Spider® brands. It also owns American Range Systems, manufacturer and distributor of the world’s strongest and safest bullet traps. Nexus Outdoors is the only company with access to all scent-controlling technologies, including their patented Carbon Alloy™ and Cold Fusion Catalyst™ technologies, which provide superior success in the field. ScentLok and Blocker Outdoors are pioneers in the hunting industry, which many credit with creating a market focused on superior scent control to get closer to big game. |