Conservation order draws hunters south
Troublesome geese numbers in Arkansas
CORNING, ARKANSAS - The agricultural fields of northeastern Arkansas stretch out like a vast cafeteria tray, flat sections divided by dikes and levees.
The tallest features on the horizon are generally trees and silos.
But there are exceptions, spectacular, living, flapping exceptions.
Shortly after sunrise on Jan. 29, our hunting party was greeted with the sight of a mass moving low through the western sky near Corning.
It seemed a snowcapped mountain range had settled into this part of the Razorback State.
Miles away, the white and gray horde pulsated and swirled.
It also produced a chorus of honks, shrieks and whistles unlike any mound of rocks ever could.
"Some are getting closer," said Adam Wisniewski of Dousman. "We better get covered up."
With that, our Wisconsin hunting party — Dave Christopherson of Mukwonago, Pat Gerbensky of Genesee, Jim Lechner and Jake Lechner, both of East Troy, Conner Shepardson of Kaukauna, Jim Valentine of Sherwood and me — jumped in our layout blinds and pulled the lids shut.
We had been drawn to Arkansas by one of North America's grandest wildlife spectacles.
The movable mountain in the sky was light geese, mostly lesser snow and Ross's. Millions of the birds migrate each year from their Arctic breeding grounds to winter in the southern U.S.
But we weren't only going to observe. We were participants in a "conservation order" issued by the Arkansas Game and Fish Department.
The order provides additional hunting opportunities for the public while attempting to curb the population growth of the birds.
For more than two decades, research has shown the geese have increased in number so dramatically that they are destroying the ecosystem they and many other species need in the Arctic.
Our group was guided by Wisniewski, who works most of the year on road construction in Wisconsin but breaks away for a couple months to join the crew of Nue Outdoors, a South Dakota-based outfitter.
A spring snow goose hunt is not easily done on a "do it yourself" basis.
John Nue, owner of the outfitting business, and his guides had secured permission and placed blinds and decoys in more than a dozen farm fields in northern Arkansas and the "boot-heel" of Missouri.
Our group lay in a harvested rice field surrounded by 2,200 decoys.
After we got situated in our blinds, Wisniewski switched on an electronic caller which broadcast a loop of light geese notes.
Within two minutes, the sound of live birds overshadowed the recording.
A flock of 200 geese circled above our field, craning their necks and inspecting the spread.
As they split and mixed, four birds spiraled down rapidly, wings set and landing gear out.
When the geese were about 40 yards out and still closing, Wisniewski gave the command. Blinds flipped open, shotguns sounded and the birds thumped into the soft soil.
We had our first geese — three Ross's and one snow — of the hunt.
The story of light geese is one of feast and famine, conservation success and challenge.
Snow goose hunting in the eastern United States was stopped in 1916 because of low population levels. The protections worked and hunting was allowed again in 1975 after populations had recovered.
But in part due to the birds successful adaptations to new farming practices, the populations have swelled to troublesome levels.
In common parlance, the birds are eating themselves out of house and home in the Arctic.
At 10-year intervals, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the mid-continent population (MCP) of lesser snow geese at 1.4 million in 1975-’76, 3.3 million in 1985-’86, 6.3 million in 1995-’96, 12.0 million in 2005-’06 and 11.9 million in 2015-’16.
The 2018 estimate was 11.9 million, up 29% from 2017, according to the service.
Beginning in 1999, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed certain states to hold additional snow goose hunting under a "conservation order," a special management action authorized by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act to control wildlife populations when traditional management programs are unsuccessful in preventing overabundance.
Several states in the Central and Mississippi flyways were offered the additional hunting opportunity in 1999, as were the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In November 2008, a similar order was put in place for some states in the Atlantic Flyway.
The goal is to increase the harvest of light geese across the continent with the hope of reducing the birds' pressure on the habitat in the breeding grounds.
Regulations in the spring hunts encourage high harvests.
In Arkansas, there is no daily bag limit and no possession limit on light geese. Hunters are allowed to use unplugged shotguns and electronic calls. The nonresident license, really just an online application, is free.
The special light geese season draws thousands of out-of-state hunters to Arkansas each year.
Our group ranged in age from 19 to 60something.
Gerbensky has been traveling from southeastern Wisconsin to hunt light geese for more than 20 years.
"It's addictive," Gerbensky said. "You normally never see this many birds of any type. And it's a heck of a challenge."
I joined the hunt for two days in late January. We set up both days in harvested rice fields.
Plenty of waste grain was left in each, leaving no mystery as to why the birds were hanging around the area.
"If you chew on (spent grains of rice) long enough, it tastes like Budweiser," Christopherson said.
The average adult snow goose has a 54-inch wingspan and weighs about 51⁄2 pounds.
The Ross's are smaller, with an average wingspan of 45 inches and weight of 3 pounds.
To my eyes, the snows and Ross's are extremely handsome. They also make excellent table fare.
Just because you have birds over the field doesn't mean they will descend into your decoys.
The geese are likely hunted harder than any other migratory species in Canada and the U.S. Most flocks have hunting pressure from September through May.
The conservation hunt in Arkansas runs through April 25.
As a result, the geese become wise to decoy spreads, calls, layout blinds and lines of prone hunters peering skyward.
And this year's hunt had an added degree of difficulty - poor nesting conditions in the Arctic in 2018 produced a relatively small year-class of geese, meaning most of the birds on the wintering grounds were hunt-wise adults.
On more than a dozen occasions, we had large groups of birds turn and drop toward our location. But most often, they would hover in the breeze and scrutinize our spread about 150 yards overhead, well out of shotgun range, until one goose or more saw something that didn't pass muster.
They would then work their strong wings and gain altitude and stream out of sight.
"If you look closely, the flock formed an 'L' as it flew away," Gerbensky said with a chuckle. "Think they were trying to tell us something?"
Both days we had huge "feeds" — flocks of more than 5,000 geese — within 2 miles of our set-ups. The birds would jump up at some unseen disturbance and then settle back down.
It was awe-inspiring to see the white and black dots swell like clouds of smoke on the horizon.
It also provided opportunities. Ever so often a group of 20 or 200 birds broke away from the mass and set out for a new feeding opportunity; several dropped into our spread.
At 3:30 p.m. on the first day of our hunt we got "the show."
A flight of what Wisniewski estimated at more than 3,000 geese circled our field. Over the course of 10 minutes, the massive group spun off waves of birds.
Most stayed at least 1,000 feet overhead, but others would set their wings and descend a few hundred feet before resuming a holding pattern.
The pattern continued as the group winnowed down to a dozen birds about 100 yards over our blinds, then six made the final drop into our decoys.
Wisniewski called the shot and moments later we jogged out to make retrieves.
In all, we took home 13 birds on the first day and 23 on the second. It was a privilege to see and hear tens of thousands of others in the skies of Arkansas.
Hunters have played a leading role in American conservation for more than a century.
The light goose hunt is one of the latest chapters of that continuing story. Hopefully harvests through the conservation order will not only provide hunters additional opportunity but lead to improved health of the Arctic ecosystems in the years ahead.