BRINGING SNOWS TO THE DECOYS

COX USES OWN SNOWSMACKER CALLER FOR SNOW GEESE

Bill Cooper


I could feel the steady spray of liquefied gumbo mud thumping against my back as I clung to Frank Cox, of Rolla, Missouri as he sped down a dirt farm road in Chariton County attempting to steer his four wheeler. A pair of teenage boys would have been in mud heaven. I simply held on tight hoping to arrive at our snow goose hunting destination, a mile off the main road in a cut corn field, in one piece and recognizable as a human being.
Slick mud and dark water dribbled off of my back and legs as I dismounted the four wheeler. At least I had managed to keep my camera and shotgun dry.
Frank Cox is into commercial heating and cooling in Rolla when he is not off chasing some kind of waterfowl. This time he chased snow geese. The spring migration was in full force and Cox had headed north a day ahead of me to drive the countryside and find where geese were feeding. Information from the Internet had indicated there were over a million snow geese in northwest Missouri. Many of them had concentrated around Grand Pass Wildlife Management Area near Marshall. This Missouri Department of Conservation Area along the Missouri River is a waterfowl magnet. A large concentration of snow geese had been using the area for days and Cox knew the birds would be flying out to private corn fields twice a day to feed.
My cell phone rang while I was stopped in Columbia, two-thirds of the way to Marshall. Cox’s voice echoed from the phone. “Bill, I’ve got bad news,” he had said. “Man, the geese have left. I can’t find any anywhere. I thought I would stop you before you drove all the way up here.”
“Not a problem,” I responded. “That’s snow goose hunting, Cox, and the primary reason so few people hunt them. I have things to do in Columbia and will be here for a couple of hours, so call me if the situation changes.”
Snow geese are notorious for moving around as weather and food sources dictate. Cox’s report didn’t surprise me. Hordes of snow geese moving out of an area is nothing new. Snow goose hunters burn more gasoline than all other waterfowlers combined. Friends of mine in the Bootheel drove 350 miles a few weekends ago and found one large group of geese to sneak up on. They did well. Four guys killed 82 geese in the first volley. Their hunt ended. They found no more geese that weekend.
I took my time wandering through the University Bookstore searching for textbooks on tourism and cultural and historical interpretation. I’m working with a couple of cities in Mexico on tourism development. I had taken my first sip of black coffee after climbing into my pickup to head home. My cell phone rang again. “Cox’s excited voice felt like a slap to my eardrum. Bill, get here as fast as you can. I have found geese!
Somehow, I knew Cox would come up with a place to hunt snow geese. That guy just doesn’t give up.
Cox gave me directions where to meet him. As I pulled off the highway I could see him roaring towards me on his four wheeler. He had been frantically setting out 600 decoys. We would scarcely get everything set up before the afternoon flights of hungry snow geese would begin arriving.
“How did you find this place to hunt,” I asked.
“I met this young guy at the gas station” Cox said, “and we started talking. He had just bought three dozen decoys and was going to try to hunt over them. I told him I had 600 decoys in the trailer and he invited me to come to his farm to hunt with him and his buddy.”
Orion Warren, the landowner, Cox and I were putting the finishing touches on the decoy spread and blinds when Dakota Wells, from Fayette, showed up to help with last minute changes. The spread looked very convincing. I secretly hoped the geese agreed.
Cox had been running wires from an E-caller he built himself. He scattered eight speakers through the decoys. When he turned the speakers on they sounded like thousands of feeding snow geese. The unit uses two amps that can play 2 separate MP3 or CD tracks at the same time. The contraption is appropriately called a “Snowsmacker Caller”. The sock decoys, full bodied decoys, kites with wings flapping and the squawking speakers created a loud, moving body of white, fake birds which looked very convincing.
“Everyone needs to put the last corn stalks on their layout blind and get ready,” Cox instructed. “There comes the first big wave of snows from Grand Pass.”
A high flying, ragged “V” formation of birds materialized over the Grand River levee a half mile away. Thousands of snow geese dotted the distant sky. The afternoon feeding flights had begun.
I peered through the mesh of my blind. I realized why they call them coffin blinds. I had never been in a coffin before, but the e3xperience of being in that linear, boxy blind stretched out on the ground with two hinged doors that closed in on top of me made me think about making final arrangement s for cremation.
Wind whistling through wings caused me to peer out of my blind. Dozens of mallards and pintails buzzed around our set. Duck season had closed three months earlier. The birds were now headed back north due to uncontrollable migration urges. They were a grand sight in their developing mating plumage.
Snow geese had flown over by the thousands, but none low enough to shoot with shotguns. My blind lay five yards behind the other three. I fired away with my Nikon camera and captured images of the flights. The other three guys would do the shooting.
Masses of snow geese began to swirl over our decoy set. Geese seemed to be headed every direction. I wandered which goose was in charge. They seemed to be in complete disorder. And ducks and specklebelly geese made the scene even more chaotic. Duck and specs were off limits, shooters had to be careful.
Lower and lower some of the geese circled. I could clearly see the black wing tips of several geese that swung to my downwind side. At that moment I wished I held a shotgun instead of a camera. I heard Frank tell the other two guys to take ‘em on the next pass.
I began firing frames as the trio of shooter did sit ups in their blinds and began firing straight up. I cringed when the first goose thumped the ground five feet from my blind. Cox’s shotgun malfunctioned so he didn’t get a round off. Warren and Wells managed to drop three snows.
Thousands of ducks and geese swarmed through the skies. Seldom have I seen such a concentration of waterfowl in one area. Thousands of acres of cut, but untilled corn fields provided plentiful food supplies for the hordes of waterfowl. Millions of goose footprints in the field provided evidence of the birds having been there.
Cox borrowed my shotgun and prepared for the next wave of snow geese. In unison the trio sat up and emptied their shotguns. Only two snows twirled to the ground like two miniature, white helicopters. The guys laughed allowed and moaned about only two geese tumbling out of the sky.
The afternoon sped by all too quickly. I lay back in my blind and enjoyed the sight of so many birds in the sky and the intense noise level. I caught movement low to my right. A dozen specklebellies had their wings locked and sailed 10 feet over my blind. Would have been easy shooting. They decoy much easier than snows, but are not as plentiful.
The end of shooting hours approached. The guys had a dozen geese down, but mumbled about the goofed up shots and the birds that should have come by a little bit closer.
The chore of tearing down the set took the four of us about 30 minutes. White geese and night fall surrounded us. The sights and sounds painted a waterfowl hunter’s dream. We chanted and laughed and gouged one another. We were a foursome of relaxed, happy and, very muddy men.
Frank Cox and his hunting buddies call themselves the Mid-Missouri Migrators. Anyone with questions about the E-callers may call Cox at 573-578-6180. Without a doubt the system is the best for a snow goose decoy spread that I have seen yet.