# Snow Geese



## MFPS (Jun 21, 2009)

I know there are a few small groups seen each year and a few shot in Michigan.
How long do you think it will be before michigan has an established snow goose population?


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## cornfieldbill (Jun 6, 2009)

In 59 years of hunting in Michigan I have shot 5 .So I am think-en never.Back in the 60 ds .We would all all ways see some on Saginaw Bay .I see 1 or 2 each year mixed in with the dark geese.They do get some in the U P:sad:


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## DEDGOOSE (Jan 19, 2007)

Do you mean a bonafide migration of snow geese.. We will never establish a local population of snow geese..


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## thedude (Jul 20, 2004)

we will never have a migration or local population. what you see is what you get.... just the few lost-souls that wander through.


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## FullBody (Nov 4, 2008)

thedude said:


> we will never have a migration or local population. what you see is what you get.... just the few lost-souls that wander through.


What is the reasoning that we cannot sustain a migration around here? Lack of food? Not doubting you guys....just curious.


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## Mike L (Sep 8, 2003)

Flyway............they use the middle or central


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## lewy149 (Apr 19, 2007)

i heard they were moving east due to destroying their habitat where theyare in the tubdra.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## TSS Caddis (Mar 15, 2002)

West of us and East of us they have large numbers. Historically, we are not a stop over, we hear them at night every year blowing by without stopping, but as the environment changes, I'd never say never.

It is my understanding that Tundra Swans didn't exist on Mattamuskeet in N.C. 100 years ago and it was loaded with geese. Now there is hardly a goose and I think it winters the largest population of Tundras in the country. A local was telling us as a kid he shot one and didn't have a clue what it was since it was the first they had ever seen.

Things change.

There was a great example also with Canvasbacks I remember reading a few years ago. I forget what lake it was down south where they used to winter in large numbers and over the course of a couple years they all moved hundreds of miles away.


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## wavie (Feb 2, 2004)

Moons ago Saginaw bay was traditionally used by snows as a staging area. who knows, maybe changes in ag practices in the midwest changed their flight patterns. Food for thought, Amikiski island in james bay never recorded any significant breeding numbers of snows. today they are worried that their breeding numbers are increasing so rapidly this could have have huge impact on the SJBP canada geese d/t habitat destruction. maybe this eastward breeding distribution may cause us to see more snows in the future, who knows.

One thing i always wondered when hunting the very southern end of james bay was the amount of snows(lessers) that staged there, it was stagering. never saw a greater snow which migrates down the east coast. now if you look on a map and they planned on migrating from the southern tip of James bay, where would they head? a direct line would take them south over ontario then through michigan, not west to manitoba/dakotas but i guess its possible they might fly that way. why you dont see more in michigan is odd.


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## DEDGOOSE (Jan 19, 2007)

Funny this came up, scouted this morning, saw my first snow of the season.. Boy did he look stupid amongst 500 canadas.


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## Mike L (Sep 8, 2003)

wavie said:


> Moons ago Saginaw bay was traditionally used by snows as a staging area. who knows, maybe changes in ag practices in the midwest changed their flight patterns. Food for thought, Amikiski island in james bay never recorded any significant breeding numbers of snows. today they are worried that their breeding numbers are increasing so rapidly this could have have huge impact on the SJBP canada geese d/t habitat destruction. maybe this eastward breeding distribution may cause us to see more snows in the future, who knows.
> 
> One thing i always wondered when hunting the very southern end of james bay was the amount of snows(lessers) that staged there, it was stagering. never saw a greater snow which migrates down the east coast. now if you look on a map and they planned on migrating from the southern tip of James bay, where would they head? a direct line would take them south over ontario then through michigan, not west to manitoba/dakotas but i guess its possible they might fly that way. why you dont see more in michigan is odd.


Wow, as cornfield bill has stated, I as well have been around the bay all of my life. My Dad was here 60yrs before I came along, and I have NEVER even heard him mention "Anything" about snow geese in and around the Saginaw Bay. I guess a moon is a whole lot of years.....lol I would like to read up on that if you've got anything in print or any reference material ?
I'd appreciate it ?.........

We do get a few every once and awhile, about three years back I seen three flocks of twenty to thirty birds come through FP one night. They didn't stay. I shot a blue years ago when I lived out in that area. I'd like to see more of them personally.


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## quackersmacker13 (Dec 9, 2009)

when my grandpa lived in sebewaing in the 60's he shot a blue goose that was WAY up there, when it landed the breasts split so he couldnt get it mounted....i see a couple at the todd farm every year, and saw one kinda out by coopersville lat in the season last year....


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## Angeloboot (Oct 13, 2009)

Are snow geese (besides being, ya know, white) the birds that sound like a Canada only more muted? Had 2 flocks of something white flying wayyyyy up over my deer stand last year, and they were sounding off quite a bit. Sounded like a mix between a goose call and a dog whelp, only muted. I thought at the time they must be a species of swan, didn't even think about snow geese until it was too late to pay more attention.


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## redtick (May 4, 2009)

Angeloboot said:


> Are snow geese (besides being, ya know, white) the birds that sound like a Canada only more muted? Had 2 flocks of something white flying wayyyyy up over my deer stand last year, and they were sounding off quite a bit. Sounded like a mix between a goose call and a dog whelp, only muted. I thought at the time they must be a species of swan, didn't even think about snow geese until it was too late to pay more attention.


Most likely tundra swans, I would guess.


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## thedude (Jul 20, 2004)

FullBody said:


> What is the reasoning that we cannot sustain a migration around here? Lack of food? Not doubting you guys....just curious.


there is a huge population of snow geese on hudson bay, they fly toward the mississippi traditionally. However if you look at a map, its quite a ways for them to reach any sort of agriculture which they need for food. Ontario and much of north-east of manitoba is boreal forest. There simply isn't enough food to sustain huge migrating flocks of birds. The fastest route to flat, non-forest covered land is Western manitoba and sask and that is where they funnel through. The few birds we see are typically the ones that get off track and follow the lessor canadas that migrate via the great lakes through james bay. 

only good shot we have at seeing numbers would be for them to get blown east by a front on the migration north. I have seen huntable numbers a handful of times in the spring along the IN/IL border as well as a state game area in IN that is directly south of west michigan.

the birds we hunt in MB fly straight in from hudson bay - which is about 500 miles. i assume they leave around first light or even in the dark on a full moon and we see the migrators showing up usually mid afternoon - so lets assume they can do that 10hrs-12hrs of flying. 

if james bay became a snow goose meca, i could see some of those birds filtering through, however they are still programmed to go west... so its a long shot. i would be interested to know if the james bay birds actually migrate up NW into western hudson bay basin before heading south.

as for the white birds making noise -
snows make very distinctive, high-pitched "YIPE". they can sometimes sound like a canada or even sick duck too.


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## wavie (Feb 2, 2004)

thedude said:


> if james bay became a snow goose meca


I dont know about a mecca, but the 125,000 i observed at shipsand island in southern james bay at the mouth of the moosenee river was an impressive site. we boated another 7 hours to hannah bay which is the most southern tip of james bay and it was estimated to be holding 1/4 million snows when we were there. 

Mike L
Talking with some biologists who studied snow geese exclusively had told me that saginaw bay was used as a staging area before ag practices started to boom in the prarie provinces and and missisippi flyway states. If i said it was a major staging area i must have "mis spoke"

From Frank Bellrose, thee waterfowl biologist i found this:
"A somewhat larger number of blue and lesser snow 
geese use a corridor that extends through Saginaw Bay, 
Mich., southwestward to the Wabash River. This cor- 
ridor then follows the Wabash to its confluence with the 
Ohio River, follows the Ohio to the Mississippi River, 
and the Mississippi to its delta southeast of New Or- 
leans. 

The number of blue and lesser snow geese stopjjjng 
at Saginaw Bay has varied from 700 in 1955 to 2,100 
in 1956. Few stop elsewhere along this route, but many 
flocks are seen and heard passing down the Wabash 
River. 

.'\ flight corridor of approximately the same size en- 
ters Michigan east of Sault Ste. Marie. It proceeds 
south-southwest across Michigan, across the northeast 
corner of Indiana (where it passes over the Willow 
Slough Wildlife Areaj, and along the Kaskaskia River in 



Illinois to the Mississippi River. There it usually cuts 
due south across country to pick up the Mississippi again 
near Reelfoot Lake, Tenn. 

The only consistent stopping place for blue and 
lesser snow geese on this corridor is the Willow Slough 
Wildlife Area near Morocco, Ind. Numbers resting and 
feeding there have averaged at their peaks about 3,600, 
1954-1960."

When i stayed at FP lodge a few yrs ago, i was sitting on the back deck over looking the bay and saw 13 snows land along the shore. At dinner time i told everyone this and no one believed me. the next morning an older gentleman went out to a blind they had along that edge of the bay where the geese had landed and came back with an eagle head and a white one. you would have thought he won the lottery.


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## Beverly Hillbilly (Aug 30, 2003)

Every time I am up in the Fish 'Point area, I ask myself, why the heck don't the snows come though here en masse? It is perfect habitat (seemingly) a huge shallow bay surrounded by AG fields. Its a freshwater Chesapeake Bay, but even better. I don't get it. But then again, with all the water and agriculture here in this state , it amazes me how BAD the Duck hunting is compared to other states. Yes, we get the biggest migration of divers, but the puddlers are woefully inadequate for the amount of habitat we have. 

Maybe the DNR could get a couple thousand captured young snows from Canada during the summer, bring em here, release em, and just maybe some kind of pattern could be established. 

Up north in the spring, I see flock after flock going over a mile high, they just don't stop here.


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## AR34 (Jun 18, 2008)

Seen 1 today in Washtenaw Co. flying with a group of canadas. pulled 1 from the flock to the spread but not the snow.


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## firenut8190 (Jul 15, 2006)

AR34 said:


> Seen 1 today in Washtenaw Co. flying with a group of canadas. pulled 1 from the flock to the spread but not the snow.



I wouldn't mattered if it did come to us. The way we shot at geese today we wouldn't of hit the damn thing!


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## Mike L (Sep 8, 2003)

wavie said:


> I dont know about a mecca, but the 125,000 i observed at shipsand island in southern james bay at the mouth of the moosenee river was an impressive site. we boated another 7 hours to hannah bay which is the most southern tip of james bay and it was estimated to be holding 1/4 million snows when we were there.
> 
> Mike L
> Talking with some biologists who studied snow geese exclusively had told me that saginaw bay was used as a staging area before ag practices started to boom in the prarie provinces and and missisippi flyway states. If i said it was a major staging area i must have "mis spoke"
> ...


No ? You were correct, staging area, not major. Thank you very much for the info, much appreciated. I have a snow in the basement, it's always a treat around here to bag one. Eagle head is next on my list.....


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## Carpmaster (Apr 1, 2004)

I took an eagle head out of a field in west michigan last year, and I recently heard that the guys I was with took one out of the same field last weekend. I have seen one here or there but that is it....


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## MFPS (Jun 21, 2009)

Thanks for the replies. It has been a good read


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## Zorba (Jan 24, 2007)

When my dad hunted ducks and geese back in the 50's he told me the only geese shot in the St. Mary's were Snows and Blues. They would raft up on the flats such as the Tundra Swans are today. Back then you never could get a shot at a Canada. They were always a mile high heading south when you saw them. They never stoped.

Lately i have been seeing more Snows and Blues migrating down the St. Mary's. I think they are mixing in with all the Tundra Swans. Every once in a while I will notice a few with the swans.


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