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Double tap and turn up the volume!! Over the next several weeks we will be sharing some of our favorite hunts from last year to help scratch that itch. Come hunt with us! The video doesn't lie! We have the price you can't beat and the hunting that is as good as it gets. We have spring turkey hunts still available in April and a few dates in late May. Shoot us an email at milenorthhunts@gmail.com for booking and more info. #milenorth #springturkey #gobblers #wildturkey #turkeyhunting #kansashunter #outdoors #strutter #jebschokes #deceptiondecoys #lacrossefootwear #benelli #federalpremium #nwtf

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The Goose Gospel The 2016-17 Season

This season for me and several other guides and serious goose killers all over Kansas was an absolute frustration. As goes for anything, some people have good days and great weeks here and there. Expectations and standards have a lot to do with what I consider to be a good to great season. This report is going to be based on the expectation and standard of goose hunting 3-5 times a week and averaging 4.5 to 5 birds per man. The weekend warrior that field hunts 8 times a year and shoots limits with 2-3 guys half the time they go is always going to think goose hunting is cake. They simply aren’t out there enough to get smoked. But the more I do it the more I think that they might be the smartest guys out there?

For a brief history lesson and backstory check out my other blog talking about the Central flyway goose hunting and how it’s evolved so much in the last 5 years. 

November 

Hunting was very subpar for most of the state. The northern half of the state enjoyed a bit of decent honker hunting over water while the central and southern parts were below average to non existent. The bottoms area and Quivera enjoyed a few good days of staging specks and snow geese, but numbers were brief while the weather fluctuated so much. Cold fronts were few and far between and the calendar birds that moved in moved out just as fast.

December

With the arrival of the lesser Canadas and a better push of big honkers, the hunting got a bit better. Birds now were transitioning to dry feed patterns and field hunting for most of the state was now an option. Honker numbers seemed to be higher for some areas, while the lessers seemed to be down. The urban honker wintering population in Wichita has absolutely exploded and is incredible to see. Hunting during December was incredibly frustrating as the weather seemed to fluctuate so much nearly every 3 days. I saw birds feeding after shooting time of an evening depending on the wind direction, and birds willing to go water to water of a morning without feeding while temps were in the mid to low 40′s. Typically this time of year the big geese are targeting fresh winter wheat sprouts that are easy to feed on and abundant. This year the birds seemed to have no concern with feeding in winter wheat and were happy eating vegetation on ponds or loaf areas if temperatures were warmer. I have a hunch the nutritional content in the winter wheat was very minimal as the crop has been dehydrated for much of the winter. They also seemed to jump from grasses in the morning to grain in the evening, leaving us as hunters operating with a whole lot of risk involving setups on water or fields. Their unpredictability was at an all time high this year and it started early. The speck population and migration has remained incredible as they grow and push farther east every year. We really need to establish two different speck hunting zones in the state to allow hunters in parts east of Wichita a chance to hunt them in January when they are the thickest. Check out my blog “Speck Surplus” for more content on that topic.

January

This is usually the peak migration time for central and southern Kansas as the bird numbers typically explode as geese become extremely concentrated. I’d estimate that during the first week of January this year and like many years past, in a 30 mile circle of Wichita there was roughly 250k-300k wintering geese of all species. Field hunting at this time gets to be as good as it gets. Although birds are under intense hunting pressure, big rigs and big feeds often yield big results. This is the point where the guys that know what they are doing keep getting em’ and the weekend warriors often enjoy sloppy seconds. This year January was a bit warmer and mild than that of years past, and the birds seemed to be spread out a bit more. The freeze line hovered near Emporia to Hutch and birds north of that were feeding once a day to keep water open on their roost areas. 

February

I’ll argue this is the best time to goose hunt all year. By now most of your weekenders’ are done hunting and the pressure seems to back off. The birds are beginning to push back up the flyway and staging and feeding hard to prepare for their migration back north. I can’t figure what days they migrate back the best yet, because i’ve seen big numbers of birds push on calmer NW wind days and i’ve seen huge pushes on big south wind days. I do know the birds seem to stage a little bit longer when the wind is consistently out of the north. This year was no different, we targeted staging birds in some huge feeds and had the best field hunting we’ve encountered all year.

All in all, this was an average to below average year for most of the goose hunters i know. The early freeze up seemed to push a lot of birds out and move birds to big water patterns that can sometimes be tough to hunt. With more and more land being leased to deer hunters the access to hunt fields is becoming tougher and tougher. The birds quickly find a safe field and know where they can and can’t get shot.

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The goose revolution...

The Flyway

For nearly a decade NW Texas and SW Oklahoma suffered from extreme drought and the water was simply gone. In this region playa lakes, large cattle ponds, and flood control watersheds hold millions of birds on a normal year. If you look at a map it ranges roughly from Big Spring, Tx up to Lubbock, and north to Amarillo. Then east towards Altus, Ok and Lawton, Ok and on up to Salt Plains at the northern end of the winter range. This is the “little goose wintering area”. This area is made up of mostly lesser canadas, specks, and snows. They feed in the peanut fields, milo fields, and winter wheat fields that keep them fat and happy all winter. 

The Drought

The drought affected nearly everything imaginable. While some areas still had birds, the % of the norm was not even close. The birds that were used to going there had little to eat and little to no place to rest on water. The birds simply pushed elsewhere to find water and food, thus starting a change in the migration and the flyway. Over time and over a few seasons, Kansas and Northern Oklahoma began to explode with little geese. Thus sparked a change in the normal patterns of larger more territorial bigger Canada geese. Although they have the same markings and go by the same name, they are subspecies and far from the same bird. For more on understanding the subspecies of Canada goose from a hunters perspective, check out my other blog Same Name Different Bird.

Urban Wintering Geese

I will put my money on the table and comfortably say that Wichita, Ks holds more geese in a 30 mile circle of the metro area than any other city in the central flyway. Wichita has a ton of land inside city limits that is still farmed and this provides a safe food source for thousands of geese all winter. Wichita also has a landscape development trend that includes 2-3 ponds or lakes in neighborhoods and industrial areas. Wichita also is home to over fifty 10-40 acre sand pits with more being mined every year. These are in fact the ultimate goose refuges as they are often very deep and rarely freeze. Venture into the surrounding metro suburbs and these trends stay the same, more sandpits and neighborhood ponds, more urban farming. The geese can often go all winter in the city without ever being close to a decoy spread. You can begin to paint the picture of how many birds winter here! Say there are 50 sandpits and roughly 25 of them hold 5-10k geese, thats over 150k geese on a low estimation. Factor in 500-1000 on the neighborhood ponds, then add in 2-5k on the city lakes all within 30 miles of downtown and the numbers get INSANE. 

Lessers vs. Honkers

Leading up to this year, lesser canada goose numbers in Kansas were absolutely incredible. The past two years have seen a slight decline and some have begun to return back to their native winter grounds in SW Oklahoma and NW Texas, but they haven’t completely disappeared. A whole new generation of lessers ages 2-5 years old doesn’t even know about Texas having water, that has led them to wintering farther and farther north as they are able to stay on open water across the region. This had led to a decline in honker numbers in traditional areas as the lessers have pushed in. The big honkers do not like to mix with the lessers as they travel in much larger groups behaving a lot like snow geese. I have witnessed a change in habits as the big honkers are more likely to feed by themselves in different areas not far from the roost area. They will often follow the lessers in the general direction and peel off somewhere quiet and less populated. While scouting this is a bit of a challenge as sometimes the lessers will pile in with them in the same field and you don’t know who got there first.

Summary

Goose hunting has changed tremendously in the last 5 years. The price of corn rising and falling has effected feeding areas and bird densities in wintering areas. The introduction to double crop farming in a lot of areas has led to the explosion of speck’s throughout new wintering grounds. The drought and lack of water in Texas for nearly a decade changed the migration of little geese tremendously, and the last two years has seen a change back to more normal wintering patterns for the lesser canada’s. The birds are smarter now that ever. Roughly 4 years ago when we first started using homemade A Frame blinds, they would decoy near them almost anywhere and were willing to come to the edge of almost any field. In that short of time everyone started using the A frame and hunting the edges, now birds are super skittish near any sort of large structures and are becoming more difficult to pull to an edge. An incredible goose killing friend of mine recently said “a goose decoy now only has the power to move them 100 yards in your direction” and it’s been so true. We have already made moves to switch tactics next year and go back to methods that were widely successful in the late 90′s and early 2000′s.

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A ducked up year...

As i’m lucky enough to partake in season after season, my interest with understanding ducks and geese becomes more of an obsession. Truth be told, I enjoy scouting with my camera in the mornings and evenings across the state almost as much as I enjoy hunting them. The migration is truly fascinating. 

All frills aside i’ll cut to my diagnosis of the season here in Kansas. 

First things first, there are several different flyways in the state of Kansas alone. Every state has these. Believe it or not there are geese staging and migrating through Kansas in early October in numbers while in other counties there may not be a single migrating goose. That’s another topic for another day.

I try to take into consideration as many factors as possible when I think about bird numbers, the migration, etc. Keep in mind i’m out scouting roughly 4-5 days a week and hunting nearly the same, and my network of associates covers roughly 60% of the state. I have a very good idea of what’s going on from a very good circle of guides and diehard killas’. For this particular rant i’m going to break down the season in months for the ducks. I’ll do a separate post for the goose diagnosis because those bastards deserve their own obituary.

November.

I spent a lot of time in November in a treestand. A lot. In fact I don’t think i clicked the safety off until Thanksgiving week. Historically the last week of November can be stellar for big geese over water in my area (SC Kansas). This is when i’ve had some of the most memorable days of my life in a duck or goose blind. Veteran’s day is also historically a really good day if the weather cooperates. Full moon migrators. Thanksgiving This week if the weather cooperates can yield one of the first field hunts of the year for big ducks. This year that was not the case. Ducks we sparse and the geese seemed to be in no rush to get here. My network seemed to reciprocate the same story in that water was good and weather seemed normal towards the middle of November, but weather patterns were steady and the ducks never seemed to show on the calendar and lacked a strong front to push them here. Nebraska and South Dakota were CRUSHING.

December.

Throughout December the hunting was average to great. The early part of the month yielded a few good days with sunny skies and Northwest winds. Whether they were calendar birds migrating or freeze line birds that could sense the big weather change coming, big water holes seemed to produce well across the state on migration days. With water levels being low, the river and creek hunting when the temps dipped below freezing was as good as it gets. The last two years haven’t produced full straps like this year did. Total duck numbers seemed to be down compared to other years. 2013 was without a doubt the most ducks i’ve ever seen in our area of the state. Within roughly a 100 sq. mile area i’d estimate we were holding roughly 120K ducks. I also had a biologist tell me there were 30k plus in one field alone feeding in the evenings. Of course it was leased to a deer hunter from Texas... If i had to put numbers on how many birds I saw at peak migration times this year in December between a 2 county area, i’d estimate between 20K-30K ducks in 5 large holding areas during a 7 day stretch from Dec. 17th to the 24th. Anyone that I talked to minus out west (CYB and west) absolutely crushed ducks from this 7-10 stretch if they could find open water or a hot field.

January.

January can be the best of the best if you know what to look for. If you’re a public hunter relying on walk in areas and open marsh land well you may be SOL. The same could be said for the farm pond hunters. Once the ice covers the farm ponds and the ducks can’t feed on the localized invertebrates and bugs in the shallow water, they switch to a grain feeding pattern or migrate south. Ducks are a lot like humans, they have different diets at different stages of their lives. Some ducks just don’t like being cold as well and migrate more based on the calendar vs. weather fronts. (I might have to go on another blog shhpill over that topic as well). A big front at the beginning of January sent the birds back to the dry fields and big water to avoid the ice up. Some larger watersheds stayed open with the strong winds and hunting was absolutely stellar. I took a trip to Stuttgart, Ar. during this time and missed out on the second best stretch of the year unfortunately. By the middle of January things got very tough as temps got consistent and by now, ducks have figured out where they can and can’t get shot. East zone hunters got to enjoy stale ducks and warmer temps as birds entered the first phase of breeding and doing their weird duck stuff by pairing up, avoiding other ducks, and flying back north already. The last 10 day stretch of the season yielded good to great results as it almost always does. In normal years, the ducks are already staging hard here and have migrated back north to get here. The freeze line is usually within 150 miles and they seem to concentrate just shy of that in large numbers. This year was no different as much of the stage enjoyed phenomenal gunning especially on water sources with large concentrations of moist soil foods such as smart weed and other similar vegetations. Evening field hunts were also productive as birds are trying very hard to stock up on high protein food sources to help their bodies transition to the breeding season. Overall numbers seemed to be down and misleading this January as the weather was warmer and birds were not concentrated due to small water being frozen. However some pockets of birds still seemed to be using dry feeding patterns and roosting on large bodies of water.

Summary.  This season for me and a lot of other serious duck hunters was a good season with some great stretches in between. It was pretty unanimous that the duck hunting was far more successful than the goose hunting. Water levels were normal to good, duck numbers were down but still dense enough to put on a show that everyone knows Kansas is famous for. The price of corn being so low doesn’t help the state, when corn was sky high our bird numbers were higher and more concentrated than ever. A hot and wet summer also has a lot to do with our winter season and we had a wet summer this year. This can sometimes hurt big reservoirs and other managed areas as the state (doing what little effort they do to manage wetlands and public areas) can’t get in to spray cattails or plant moist soil vegetation for waterfowl to feed on. I’m interested to see how next year turns out with two years of ample water and good crops to influence staging areas and migration patterns throughout the state. 

Be sure to checkout my goose blog and my other stories coming out soon!

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Blue skies and greenheads. I must be day dreaming. #mallardmonday #milenorth #milenorthhunts #greenheads #kansas #ducks #waterfowl #centralflyway #outdoors

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A shot of badassness for your monday workday. Cheers. #photography #summer #country #canon #midwest #heartland #kansas #milenorth #nature #outdoors #freedom

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Instagram cutting off half my glory here. Damnit. But hey Kansas, i love you. #harvest #milenorth #country #outdoors #photography #johndeere #wheat #farming #heartland

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Leaving Bass Pro with my brother. We are bargain hunter extraordinaire's . Hey these Iowa Sunsets aren't to bad... @zraulie

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I am so ready to get back to work this fall. Its been 100deg for 2 days and im about to loose my mind. All i can think about is NW winds and numb fingers on my camera. Yes I do love it. If anyone owns or runs any coastal bars or fishing operations and needs a photograher... now is the time to speak up. Ill be your photo guru for the next few months. I need to migrate out of here for the summer. #milenorth #summer #photography #outdoors #country #kansas #waterfowl #fishing #hunting #deceptiondecoys #duckhunting #goosehunting

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Sometimes i do cool stuff. Ill go for the time lapse effort tomorrow. That will require like 6 beers and not just the one i had cold tonight. I apologize, poor planning on my part 😑 Fyi [Now accepting applications for an assistant for my nightscape sessions, must be female, good looking, able to not bump the tripod, likes cold beer...what else?] #kansas #summer #milenorth #midwest #outdoors #nightscapes #country #nature #photography #canon

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Haul balls and kick ass. @barker_46 getting back in the saddle. #rideordie #horsepower #speed #yamaha #motorcross #supercross #dirtbike #outdoors

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Late season gobblers. Leg miles. Mosquitoes. And sweat. @utty09 Putting his time in. #milenorth #turkeys #spring #kansas #kickschokes #beretta #deceptiondecoys #naturalgearcamo #kansas #outdoors #hunt #gobblers #thunderchickens @worldofberetta @naturalgearcamo @kickschokes @deceptionoutdoors_grant

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My boy and old tiger shortstop @elnenuko_ just being himself doing insane things with the glove. #1 on Sports Center Top10 plays. I see you kabronnn! Cowley Tiger alum. You might know his brother, @javy23baez hitting nukes for the cubs. #sctop10

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Editing a bit of footage tonight, thats not a sunrise. Thats a lightning strike ;) #milenorth #september #teal #deceptiondecoys #outdoors #kansas

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Sunday was good me to and my ol man. He's still lethal on lonely Tom. #milenorth #turkeys #turkeyseason #deceptiondecoys #kickschokes #kansas #rio #turkeyrut #outdoors #hunting

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Teals. Fly fast. Shoot fast. Die fast. This fool tried to strafe me like those migs did my boy Maverick in Top gun. They lost!!! | 🔫 | gotheem. #milenorth #september #teal #shotgun #waterfowl #duckhunting #gopro #somanyskeeters #tealforbreakfast #tealforlunch #tealforsupper @deceptionoutdoors_grant @garrett_deceptionoutdoors @oklahomawaterfowl

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Breakfast time for the freaks. Buck nasty.