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I've always heard that going waterfowl hunting in Canada would ruin a fella from down South.

Guys, words can't describe what I saw up there.......you just can't imagine how many birds there are and how beautiful the skies are, when they're loaded with waterfowl, unless you've actually seen it yourself.

Those of you who have been fortunate enough to have hunted in Canada or ND/SD know what I'm talking about. Those who haven't been.......if you ever get the opportunity to go.......by all means, GO!

I grew-up in Southwest Louisiana, have hunted in NE La and parts of Arkansas......and have NEVER seen anything like this. On the way to Regina to catch our flight out, there were 3 bodies of geese less than 1/2 mile apart feeding in wheat fields. I estimated somewhere between 8-12K birds in each group. Up 'til then, the largest body of geese I've seen would only push 6-10K birds......and here was THREE bodies larger than THAT, almost in the next field over.

We passed by a roost pond every day that held in the neighborhood of 12-15K ducks and geese (including 500 honkers and 300-400 swans). We hunted the fields surrounding this hole and witnessed the 'lift-off' every morning. If you haven't seen such a sight, you just can't imagine what it's like. We enjoyed stopping by that hole to film and gawk at the birds. Oh, sure........we could've hunted it, and one guy in our group was just dying to bust'em.......but the rest of us enjoyed the spectacle too much to ruin it. Besides, you shoot that sanctuary and you loose your birds.

One morning, after the 'shoot' was over, I lay there filming the ducks trying to work the spread. At one point, there was a group of around 75 birds cupped, with another 100 following their same approach path. Above those 2 groups was another 150 or so and above them were 50 more........all looking at our spread. Flocks trading in all different directions in the pre-dawn sleet. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! I got one shot (video) wher I held the camera still and let a flock of about 300 ducks fly through the view finder.......one flock!

'Ever seen blackbirds (starlings) flock-up and look like black smoke changing shape in the wind?.........yeah, that's the way the ducks are up there......sometimes as many as 500 birds in a flock.

'Guess it sounds like the 'country bumpkin' gone to the 'big city' for the first time. I don't care! I jus wanted to share this with ya'll and let ya'll know that there are boo-koodles of birds in Southern Saskatchewan right now, and if the weather cooperates, we'll have plenty o' birds, this year. The local folks kept telling me that there weren't as many birds this year, and that the 'Northerns' hadn't started the migration yet. Man, I'd love to see it when they DO start piling in there.

I thought this trip would help ease my pre-season anxiety 'til November 23rd........ Boy, how dumb can you get? I'm really looking forward to our opener 'cause I can hunt the way I like to, here........but I'm gonna be totally WORTHLESS 'til I return to Canada, next year! ....just to see the birds!

It never was about the kill.......I stopped shooting after 5-6 birds (limit is 8, up there) and just savored being surrounded by so many whistling wings. We saw Sandhill cranes, Swans, ducks and geese, and 4 Bald Eagles in the same tree. Swans are really neat birds in the air.......I really don't have a desire to ever shoot one, but I sure would like to have some fly into my decoys for the thrill of seeing them cupped, up close.

Everyone should go to Canada, once. It's just another World up there. Now, I have to see if I still have a job. Happy Hunting!

Randy, I am glad that you had such a great time. I have never gone yet, but maybe next year. I would love to see something like that. When you get your pics back you have got to post a bunch of them on the site. Since this is my last year to teach, I will have next fall off. You will have to give me some info so that I can try and see what you have experienced. Jack

Jack.....I'm afraid most of my filming was on video.......and I'm not a videographer by any means. I didn't take many still photos but I'll try to transfer some shots from video (probably won't turn-out very good).

You've GOTTA GO! I'll help you get there. 'Will e-mail you sometime or meet you in Hattiesburg, oneday.

Send some of that vid to Webfoot, he is good with that stuff. Boy, I would love to go up to the Great White North someday.

Wingman

great to hear you had the opportunity to go.... may be a far fetched dream of mine, but i am glad to hear your adventure.... the starlin or cow birds sounds more like my adventures.... a memory you will never forget, and when we get to meet, i want to hear the whole story and picture me being there.....

judge jb

Randy -

What guide service did you use and what are the approximate costs for such a trip? Canada has always been a dream hunt for most, if not all, of us.

While it was not like Canada, my sons got a similar thrill last season one morning when we watched a lift-off of snows in the Delta. We were with Delta Duck and the boys still talk about those geese at daybreak. There were several thousand of them that morning but I cannot imagine the noise you heard with those numbers of waterfowl in one spot!

The guide we used only guides 4 weeks out of the year and he's perty-much booked from now, on. If you'll call Tourism Saskatchewan at 1-877-237-2273 and ask for the '2002 Fishing and Hunting Map', it lists over 160 outfitters in Sask.

A good start is to go to Saskatchewan Outfitters Asso. at Http://www.soa.sk.ca

There are several links on that site that will direct you to the information you'll need....including http://www.serm.gov.sk.ca

Cost depends on a lot of things, but we hunted 5 days for under $2k including transportation, air fair, outfitter, lodging, and meals.

Thanks for the reply Randy.

I was looking at next season as far as a potential trip. I'm flat broke this year so I may not make it out of the state of Alabama this year.

Wow, sounds incredible, I'm jealous. I have always wanted to go.

Did you take your own gun, any gun or border hassles?

Awesome narrative there Anat. Reckon that's why Saskatchewan's motto is "Land of the Living Skies". Have witnessed similar events, most recently in northeast Alberta. Am never less than amazed. What species of waterfowl did y'all shoot? Best regards.

And now you know why guys like me pay hard earned money to come to MS from SC. We just don't have birds here like you do there. I read your post and got that same rush that I always get when I see hundreds of ducks winging their way to whereever! Thanks for sharing the experience!!

'took my own gun.....no border hassles, coming or goin'. You fill-out a firearms declaration form and pay $50 to get across. Keep the form in your possession while hunting and present it when you buy ammo. [I bought the new Drylock 3" 1-1/8oz loads for $10 American (exchange rate is $1 Am = $1.56 Ca)]

You fill out a wildlife declaration form when you enter the US.......nuttin' to it!

'Killed pintails, mallards, teal, wigeon, gadwalls. Limit is 8 ducks.....only 3 can be pintails. Snows are too frustrating to fool with but ducks will come to a rag spread.

First day we set-up a honker/duck field spread and hid among the honker deeks. I had a 8-bird group of honkers coming to the decoys about 6 feet off the ground after their downwind 'swing', but they flared at 85yds. I was really dissappointed that I couldn't finish them but the outfitter reminded me that it's hard to hide 10 folks (several of'em non-hunters)among 2 dozen shells. That would turn-out to be my only chance at a honker, the whole trip.

I really wanted to concentrate on 'honkers' but the party I was with were mainly interest in ducks, and the outfitter wasn't really geared for honkers.....plus, that area is not a major route for honkers.

My wife and I will spend the next 11 months gearing-up and planning a trip back up there to freelance for honkers. I've got a lot to learn about hunting those birds, so it's liable to be frustrating, the first couple o' year's......but waterfowling is what we live for.......so we're goin' for it.

I had 3 specklebellies cupped with 2 groups of ducks that were gonna 'do-it' and somebody shot at the first duck that came in range........I wanted to ring his NECK!.....( 'Pass-up 3 sure specks for a lowsy duck?.......sheesh!)

Double_R......I hear there's more honkers in Alberta.......'will probably start in SW Saskatchewan and work our way NW 'til we find a good concentration. Whadda you think?

You know, the most enjoyable part of this whole trip is some of the folks I met up there. There was a couple o' guys from MO and KS that set-up just for geese. Another group was from ND and a couple of groups from CO.

But the most unique was a gentleman I happened to meet at the gas station one afternoon. He was in his late 60's.....had a truck with dog box piled high with goose shells and heads.........2 dog crates with a Golden Retriever in each one........and a trailer fulla all kinds of stuff, strictly for honker hunting.....just him and his dogs.

He'd been in town and hunted that area for 2 weeks and was 'gassin'-up to head 3-1/2hrs North, to try to find a heavier concentration of honkers. He was gonna be on the road for the next week and would return after we left, so I didn't get to spend much time with him.

I asked if his dogs were 'Topbrass' stock 'cause they were relatively small Goldens. He said, "NO, but I judged Topbrass Cotton in one of his last runs......and I've known Jackie Mertens for a long time." He's got his own line of Goldens out of the 'Razmataz' line and named a couple of his dogs (Rip and Something, I think). He's a dog man to the CORE.....and a trialer and a judge......and knows a few folks from the Memphis area.

We exchanged e-mail addys and he told me to write him when I get home. Man, I was ready to jump in the damn truck with him, RIGHT THERE!........and go wherever he was goin'! Hell, I'da ridden in the kennel crate and let his dogs ride up front! Man, the stuff you can learn from an old hand like that........ain't many o' his kind around, any more.

I apologized for taking-up so much of his time......that I knew he wanted to get-on down the road and find some honker ground. He said to me......"Well, I been trying to get away from here for damn-near 3 hours.......what's another 15 minutes?" Whadda HOOT! Heck, he spent 10 minutes of that time looking for a business card to give me........talkin' the whole time. That was worth the whole trip to Canada right there, buddy!

Name was Bill Connor from Colorado Springs.......any you guys know this gentleman? Man, I'd just like to sit at the dinner table with this fella oneday.....KNOWIN' he's got some stories to tell!

'Ya'll ever met anybody like that?

Double_R......I hear there's more honkers in Alberta.......'will probably start in SW Saskatchewan and work our way NW 'til we find a
good concentration. Whadda you think?

We go for the dark geese and always manage to shoot plenty of ducks. Last trip shot 4 or 5 races of Canadas, whitefronts, Ross' and snows. Some of the best hunts we've had was locating fields of only 300 or so greaters. The lessers can be gotten, but are almost as big a hassles as light geese. Maybe because they too are so gregarious.

Western Sask. and Alberta either one for honkers. Fewer snows in Alberta for sure. We're seriously contemplating a self hunt up there ourselves. If so, I'm thinking find an area I'm already familiar with and scout 100-200 square miles area from there. It's such a big area. The waterfowl don't just cover the landscape, they're in certain places and those places have to be located and secured with permission. The down side of a self hunt will be afternoon scouting forays as opposed to shooting. Scouting 100 or so square miles will take at least the entire afternoon!

Met some farmers near Quill Lakes last summer and might go that way. It'd be cheaper than elswhere and I'd have some local input as to which direction to head, but it's also the most competitive in terms of non residents. I'm particularly interested in the Peace River area of Alberta. It's the northenmost agriculture and the birds are fresh from the North. Outfitters have a lot of prime land tied up throughout the province, but I'd guess that a minimum of 1/3 of area is open only to non outfitting, regular guys. The farmers cannot accept payment for land access and many I've met resent big outfitters making money on their property.

Long term, I'm thinking Canada is the place to retire, or to get a vacation home. It's like stepping back in time to teh 40's or 50's in teh US. Saskatchewan, for example, encompasses a land area roughly the size of about 1/2 - 1/3 the continental US yet has the population of Mississippi. Of that, 90% live in the cities of Saskatoon and Regina. A nice, small house in a rural community can be purchased for about $3,000 to $5,000 US. Divide that by a few folks, throw in the exchange rate, the weather and the waterfowl...