Small Town News

On hunting snow geese

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A recent press release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) commission describes restrictions on the use of lesser snow goose decoys when hunting on Fir Island in Skagit County.

Canada geese, both the golf course variety and the migrants (honkers), are found throughout the state. Lesser snow geese are strictly migrants, breeding within the arctic circle and migrating south in the fall, many wintering and feeding in fields and tidal waters of the upper Puget Sound basin. They are easy to spot from a distance, appearing as if someone has dumped a bucket of whitewash paint in a field or sloughs of Skagit, Port Susan or Padilla Bay. Canada geese will occasionally be mixed in with the white geese and stand out like a sore thumb. When they take flight, their raucous calls can be heard for miles.

In the past, hunting snow geese has either been done with decoys (made of plastic Clorox jugs) in fields or pass shooting from behind or on the dykes. Others have hunted from small boats, or from behind huge cedar stumps that have been embedded in the mud for decades.

Hunting the "salt" is tricky. You need a tide book that will tell you the time when the tide is high, low, rising or falling. On a high tide there is "water, water, everywhere." As it recedes, the flats are exposed and at low tide it appears you can walk for miles. On an incoming tide, the small ditches that you easily jumped across an hour or so earlier are now covered. Falling into one you could fill your boots/waders, experience a thorough soaking, twisted ankle or... . Experienced hunters know where to beach their boat so it won't become high and dry for the remainder of the day.

Remember: High/low tide today will be approximately one hour later tomorrow.

There is public and private land inside and outside the dyke. Digging a pit in a field inland of a dyke is often impractical as it may fill with water at high tide. Hunting is usually regulated by the tides. Waterfowl normally rest on a low tide and fly into the fields to feed on a high/incoming tide. The only change to this sequence would be a strong storm, which will disrupt normal feeding patterns. During storms I have seen flocks of "snows" in the air that appear like flying popcorn as the wind pushes them from one field to another.

Back to the press release: The special restrictions are too lengthy to go into here. The meat of the release is, "It is unlawful to hunt snow geese on Fir Island in Skagit County unless each hunter sets up a minimum of 24 snow goose decoys which may not be left unattended." Other restrictions apply. In years past I have seen a few hunters located in strategic spots get all the shooting in selected fields.

The purpose of this rule is to make hunters participate in a true waterfowl hunting experience by using decoys rather than by chasing down, either by foot, vehicle, or boat and disturbing flocks of geese and ducks as they are going to rest or feed.

A discussion about a sale of "vintage clothing, purses and other accessories" in the Spokesman-Review recently mentioned, "The clothes are true vintage, from the 1980s and earlier." Whoa there!

You know that September has arrived when the weather turns colder and the doves pull out and head south.



Copyright 2010 The Star, Grand Coulee, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2011 The Star Grand Coulee, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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