- Details
- Category: Waterfowl
- Published: Friday, 25 March 2011 08:04
- Written by Greg
Spring Snow Goose Hunt
Our 2011 Nebraska snow goose hunt with Midwest Migrators was a very disappointing experience. I would never recommend Midwest Migrators as a guide service, operated by Kalend McCurdy and Clint Didier. We tried to do our homework, but obviously should have talked to references. It all makes sense now the hunt is over. Kalend has only been in business for 1 year and certainly doesn't have the customer's best interest in mind.
When we first contacted Midwest Migrators (Kalend) for a spring snow goose hunt, he was very responsive which seemed to be a good sign. However, once we arrived Kalend collected our money and sent us on our way with a guide. Come to find out, the inexperienced guide said that he didn't have any say in any aspect of the hunt and that Kalend rarely returned his text messages, his only job was to turn on the electric call and then to "call" the shot. There was ZERO communication between Kalend and the guide or Kalend and ourselves during the two days of hunting, not to mention that the birds were non-existent. The promise made weeks before the hunt that if hunting was slow that we'd be moved to a new field or even another state never materialized. We were left to sit in a field that had been over hunted by different parties previous to our arrival (based on what the guide told us) which produced a total of 3 geese in 2 days. I wasn't all that impressed with the spread either...as far as sheer numbers it wasn't bad...it consisted of several hundred wind sock goose decoys and 5 sillosock ground flappers, but had ZERO shell or full body decoys.
The first day we did see several hundred birds miles away on the distant horizon, but only had 1 bird come to within shooting rage (approximately 40 yards); which we dumped. The fact that only 1 bird came in caused me to just sit and watch without even lifting my gun for a shot. I figured three shooters was two too many for just 1 bird. It turned out that the single snow goose that showed up at 9:15 a.m. would be the only goose for the day.
The second day was an even worse goose spotting day. We saw maybe 25 geese all day long. All but 2 of those geese were miles in the distance. Luckily 2 Ross' geese dropped out of the sky and got pounded by the 3 of us who decided to shoot, this time I was one of the shooters. It just so happened that we were all out of our ground blinds with our guide facing north and the rest of us facing south, talking. It was just after 10:30 a.m. when our guide said he thought he could see 2 seagulls approaching. We didn't give it much thought until the birds got close and he said, "Are those seagulls?" I turned to look and said "No, those are geese." He questioned and said, "Are you sure?" By that time the 2 geese where only about 200 yards away and approaching fast. Seconds later their wings were cupped and they were committed. We remained frozen, didn't dare move or go for our guns. As the geese passed overhead, we grabbed our guns and nailed both Ross' geese. In my opinion it was a fluke that those two geese came in at all.
All afternoon on the first day and all day long the second day we begged to be moved to another field or even to relocate to South Dakota. Again, our guide said he didn't have say in the matter, so there we sat. Very disappointing. I would have thought that with today's technology that Kalend and our guide would have been in constant communication, asking about the number of birds we were seeing, providing updates on his scouting activities (if that was even happening at all), proposing alternatives or even sympathizing with our situation...but nothing...silence. You know it's bad when the land owner pulls up to talk to you and says that the geese haven't been in the area for a while and wondered why we were still hunting his field. I was hard to accept that they were going to ignore the fact that we experienced a sight to behold as we drove through Kearney, Nebraska on the way in, seeing upwards of 40,000 geese sitting across several acres of fields and all we got was a "Yeah, they have lots of birds in the Rainwater Basin area." I'm sure that some of the Midwest Migrators clients get lucky and get some birds (right place at the right time), but their lack of customer focus and unwillingness to follow through with prior commitments makes it an easy choice to NOT recommend their services.
