sandhill crane hunting saskatchewan

Vince, Yep, sorry to say I know all too well about herons and small ducks. I too read the article in DU about herons and small wood ducks. It hit me like a hammer. At one time I left water in our 20 area bottom until mid-May. Along the creek behind our house I have a number of wood duck boxes. The hens would bring their brood out in the shallow water of the bottom to feed. But with each day I looked the number of little ducks decreased. I wondered if it was mink, coon, or otter? The most important part of all this was there were always three or more herons in the bottom at the same time the ducks were there. And I read the article. I had thought the herons were just eating frogs. WRONG! After that I started draining the bottom in March, after goose season. The wood ducks do just fine staying in the creek.
One of the most amazing things I have even seen centered around a great blue. One of the wildlife refuges near us had an open house. Included were films on various wildlife. In one it showed a heron killing a full grown ground squirrel, then swallowing it with ease!
Out here we call these ground squirrels "gray diggers." They aren't small, larger than an eastern gray squirrel, or about the size of a fox squirrel.
Regarding sandhills, I sure liked the many mentions on just how good they are to eat. Several times Marge and I had a taste off. She would cook a whitefront breast, and a sandhill breast. To be honest, we gave the edge to the whitefront, but it was very, very close.
Hope everyone has an excellent season. I think it will be a good one. The reason? We have been given a reduced population count. In the years, like last year, when the numbers of ducks were off the charts, the season, at least in my part of western Oregon, was slow at best.
I seem to remember banner seasons when we weren't suppose to have many ducks. Best, Worth Mathewson
 
about 20 years ago bunch of us hired a canadian instructor and obtained our Canadian firearms possession licences or PAL. Since then don't need to register guns etc. at border. have a duck lease on the Canada side of the st. Lawrence river and cross frequently all fall.
Sask. 1900 mile trip and I like to line up all the stuff I can to make successful and fun. pretty much have local people help find birds but set up mainly myself. Fully retired, new aluminum pickup, enclosed trailer, good decoys, UTV etc.
 
about 20 years ago bunch of us hired a canadian instructor and obtained our Canadian firearms possession licences or PAL. Since then don't need to register guns etc. at border. have a duck lease on the Canada side of the st. Lawrence river and cross frequently all fall.
Sask. 1900 mile trip and I like to line up all the stuff I can to make successful and fun. pretty much have local people help find birds but set up mainly myself. Fully retired, new aluminum pickup, enclosed trailer, good decoys, UTV etc.
Click to expand...

Good call on the PAL.

One of the things that makes Saskatchewan popular with do it yourself hunters is that lease hunting is unlawful in the province. If lease hunting ever happens it will end the dreams of many. I know there are a few under the table deals going on but it remains fairly open to simply asking a farmer for permission at this point. I have yet to get told no when asking.

Funny thing happened when driving slowly along a side road scouting. A farmer called me over and asked me to hunt his back field and shoot the geese as they were making a real mess. That is typical of the way it is.
 
thanks paul, of course the trick is to find out who owns the field on the x. I use ihunt maps state side, any other hard paper or interweb maps that you know of to help in that regard in Sask. ?
 
I find this thread very interesting because I hunted Sask. in 1990 with some friends who had been hunting there since the early 60's. It was somewhat of a bucket list trip with one except my first hunting dog pup was too young to go. What caught my eye about this thread is that you might as well shoot an eagle or a loon as a sandhill. The locals could and called them "turkeys" because they were the traditional Thanksgiving/ Christmas bird there. Another side interesting point is when we came back across the border in Mont the border guard wanted to know why we went to Canada to hunt when Montana had everything here.
 
Worth - In regards to Great Blue Herons. I fished the Shenango River is western PA six days a week, for many years. There are two large heron rookeries very close by.They stay all winter long due to the bounty of Gizzard Shad that live and die in the river by the many thousands.

I have seen GB Herons stalk, kill and eat, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, toads, frogs, etc. Also they do land in deep water, to kill fish, after flying over and spying them. Very under rated predators in most peoples minds. I honestly think that only a Golden Eagle maybe a equal winged predator. They like their food Fresh. Where as the first Bald Eagle I ever saw was eating a "dead skunk... in the middle of the road" - LW the 3rd.


In regards to crossing into Canada. We registered our guns as well many years ago. That, background checks, ammo, etc., was never a problem. When they check all waterfowlers, including the DU truck and trailer, in the long line and tear you apart. X-Ray everything and then stack shelves and the floor with all you have packed. Then say "Your OK now pack it back up". That gets a might old... but these days understandable. I asked one officer what they do with items folks forget to repack. He looked puzzled at me and said. "We take em home." Those issues only happened at one crossing, others were very good, and I do respect the jobs done on both sides of the boarder. I don't live that far away from it now. I guess pre 9-11 spoiled me.


If you want a wonderful trip and drive to Sask, or Manitoba. Cross the Straights of Mackinac (in high wind the bridge can swing 10ft.) up to Sault St. Marie and take Canada Rt. 17. Stay in Wawa, Ontario (meaning Goose), then head west. Never pass up a gas station, enjoy the sights and few folks you meet. Stop in Terrace Bay & Thunder Bay. Then on to Winnipeg and west, you will never forget the trip. It is well worth the extra miles, but on the return trip you can encounter very nasty weather.


Each time we crossed back into Montana from Sask., folks could never understand WHY we went to Sask. We never brought back birds as we ate them all. Cranes you have to fill out special paperwork. Not bringing back birds, when you say you were waterfowl hunting (for how long?) does raise eyebrows...

In my book, Sask. is world class DIY waterfowling. As is upland bird DIY hunting in Montana, for all those that like to and can spend lots of time. Less than 2-3 weeks each place bare minimum. The folks and the Wildlife Officers were always more than willing to help.

Tain't about the shooting, it's about the SEEING.


"The past never changes. You leave it and go on to the present, but it is still there, waiting for you to come back to it." - Cory Ford
 
Here is a snapshot of why hunting cranes over decoys can be so exciting versus pass shooting. These guys are using some type of group blind, likley on a field edge...subtract the blind and insert several ground blinds, well concealed. Shots well inside fifty yards are the norm. Note the "off" sound of the call he is using. The best decoys in the field are sitting in front of them. Deception Outdoors makes these. They are not cheap...but they are very good decoys.

Obviously, these guys care very little for their retriever's safety.

As I said, we use the upright pose Carry-Lites and I augment the spread with hand painted silos. in resting, two feeding poses, head-on alert, and sentinel. A hundred and twenty decoys will enable up to six ground blinds to be positioned in the spread. While I have never had a crane drop on me, I have retrieved several without getting very far out of my blind, deflecting one away with my gun barrel as it fell a hanful of feet from me.

We move all dead cranes to "re-pose" them near our blinds. I have had several instances where I could not work a flock into gun range, but they kept working the outer edges of the spread repeatedly, prior drifting off. The first time this happened, I finally slid under the fence and walked around a small depression of wetland cover and rocks in the adjacent wheat field about a 100 yards out, only to find a dead crane piled-up upside down. Each subsequent instance of the same flock behavior, eventually was resolved after finding and subsequently retrieving dead or badly crippled birds, most of them laying on their backs or just crumpled-up...they have high visual acuity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpZnqqaDr1A
 
Pass shooting vs decoy shooting is personal preference.

You can make it as complicated and costly as you like.

As to "exciting" per the definition, neither one is superior to the other. You earn the birds either way.

I carve and make decoys and am no way sanctimonious about their use. Hunting Sandhill Cranes over my own hand made decoys is no way anymore superior, or more exciting, then my working for them pass shooting. I don't need a youtube snapshot to show me that. Shots at 30-35 yards are good decoy shooting. Inside 50 yards? Well that's PASS SHOOTING, either standing up or laying on yer ass.
 
have duck hunted eastern Canada for decades and it has done nothing but improve, restrictive gun law, culture etc has reduced the competition from local hunters to almost be negligible. if anyone thinks gun control is good for hunting and conservation they are dead wrong ask canadians. 10 of us got 6 blk. bear this spring on public land in eastern Quebec for a week just yards off major paved roads and never saw another hunter!!! bagged moose every year hunting northern Quebec for 7 years, somewhat more remote, still never saw another hunter. Try that in Montana?
 
yeah they are 90 a piece? if my wife finds I bought a bunch I better stay in Sask. as face the much colder winter at home. can't one of you guys please buy the super vinci I have in the classified?
 
Vince, yes, I have seen your work. Shoot me a PM, and I'll send you a recording of "I've Been Everywhere". Would you prefer the Hand Snow or Johnny Cash rendition? Either way, you can play it in a constant loop while you type!
 
Alan, we pass shot cranes for our first two years, then by chance ran into a group of retired Minot Air Force guys who were set-up in a nearby wheat field. After exchanging recipes (seriously, most crane hunters I meet talk about how to cook them versus how to kill them.

Three of our group were active USAF master sergeants at the time, all stationed out of Minot AFB. Obviously, they hit it off with these gentlemen, who eventually showed us some really nice sandhill silhouettes cut in multiple poses drawn by one of their wives, a commercial artist. They were kind enough to meet us back in Minot at a grocery store, where we obtained some large pieces of cardboard and transferred the outlines of their silhouettes onto these. I mentioned the variety of poses in my previous post. The advantage of these is, like all other individualized decoy spreads, you break-up the "wooden soldier" aspect of your spread, much like what you have already achieved by buying several different crane decoy styles.

We set-out our most realistic decoys on the downwind side of our decoy spread, augmenting total numbers with the rest at the back edges with a pocket on the high point in the terrain.

IF you get addicted to crane hunting, one trick I will pass on to aid your mass production of silhouette decoys is to clamp several sheets of whatever material you opt to use together after you lay-out your silo. pattern outlines on the top sheet. Using a sabre saw, you can obtain a clean edge by cutting through multiple sheets, as well as significantly speed your progress. I coat them with a 1:1:1 mix of boiled linseed oil:spar varnish:mineral spirits via at least two applications. I soak the red oak leg stakes in a boiled linseed oil bath for a week plus in a one end capped PVC tub, prior removal to drain-off excess and apply the flat black paint.
 
RL - I've been EVERYWHERE (the Cash version) is a lot better than I KNOW EVERYTHING (RL version). So thanks for the compliment. So you have been to Sask. many times for cranes I take it, and decoy shooting IS within 50 yards in RL world? Man you DO know Everything.
 
really looking forward to the sask.trip and taking a crack at the cranes, plus deer, moose, elk, ducks, geese, sharptail, hogs, walleye etc.
I went thru my DIY decoy/blinds phase several years ago, although I am very interested in reading about it, I'm afraid most of it is otherwise wasted on me. I cannot sing, dance very well nor carve anything that gives me any satisfaction. But I am happy, happy, happy hunter.
 
IF you find it as rewarding a pursuit as I did when we first started, you can add to your decoy spread in "dribs and drabs". I have a friend who works as an anesthesiologist in Anchorage. Joe and his dad used to hunt ducks and geese with us. After moving up there and getting established, he has shifted his waterfowling effort around to focus on sandhill cranes. The big issue for them is transporting decoys around the state, since so much of their travel is via plane. He is slowly establishing "decoy depots" through out the State!
 
Alan - Have a safe and good hunt, but mind your manners.

At one of the weekly dinners, a Sask. town has for visiting hunters. A woman Sask. Wildlife Officer, told a story about a group of non resident Crane hunters shooting over decoys, she and her partner were watching.

After several misses, one of the hunters shot a Crane. Ran out to retrieve it. When he went back to their blinds, he turned and FULL MOONED his buddies, then the decoys, and swung the dead bird like a mad man. YA-HOO!

She looked at the red faced man, sitting at one of the tables. He stood up and apologized profusely, and was the Butt (sorry for the pun) of many jokes the rest of the night.
 
finally got around to opening the crane decoy boxes, the big $$$$ deceptor do look great as do the blowup feather flex, the real decs are ok too. so I'm going to go with the 30 decoys, saw an article saying that setting up a flock of Canadians alongside but not too close to the cranes to help? have some movement stakes, anyone try to add some motion?
 
If you have a fence, wind break or other weedy island in a field it also does not hurt to hide as well as spread the decoys into the breaks. Birds will hold tighter to weedy areas as long as they can see over the area in open spaces. The idea of the Canada spread next to the birds is a great idea. Did the same with snow goose spreads in Texas. You can blend them randomly into the cranes as long as the spread of Canada or snow geese is less than the number of crane decoys you are using. Keep at least 10 to 15 yards between the Canada/Snow spread from the cranes. This about has me tempted to load-up with you and go but unfortunately with a new move to another state and settling in the wife I do not believe that would go over well.
Regards,
Kristan
 
Our experience gained from hunting cranes over decoys, they don't finish well when they have to fly across goose decoys to land. We do hunt with FB geese out, set in a spread upwind and off to the side of the sandhills when geese are in the area.

Alan, if you find that this is not something you enjoy or want to pursue long-term, I am interested in purchasing your Deception crane decoys. Just send me a PM down-the-road.
 
thanks on locating the goose decoys, got a feeling that this SHC thing will be sort of a Don Quiotski kind of obsession for me, and the package I have lined up in Sask. is like winning the super ball lottery every fall.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top