Finally witnessed the flu in snows. Mostly in Juvies but quite a few mature rossies and a couple greater snows were suffering from it as well. Started on a feed with 300-400 canadas and roughly 5k snows in it. Set the trailer, 15 doz canadas, 5 doz snows, 5 doz speck full bodies. Fully expected 4 man limit of canadas with some bonus snows. Was way wrong, honkers cut us 2 fields short (they were in this field last 8-10 days) day late and dollar short on them. Only 1 flock did it right away and killed 5 out of the group. Then we had the snows show up. HUGE spin and landed roughly 4k snows in the spread. Checking legs and necks and not a single one of us could find a collar or leg band. But all of the snows looked beyond healthy. Finally cut loose, shot 55 birds with 4 guns. Ended the hunt with 60 geese.

Got greedy and knew of another little valley, not too terribly far from these birds, that holds 20-40k snows year after year. Have access to pretty much all of it except the main roost pond. Been trying for years, but no one is allowed to hunt it. So, with all the success on day one, we scout the evening, find exactly where they wanted to be the night before and set the trailer next morning on the "X". First flock of the morning is 12 birds, they float right in, and the second they land, they lay down. Almost instantly, both me and my hunting partner say out loud "These birds are sick." Watch them for about 30 seconds before we tell my buddies youngest daughter to shoot one in the decoys and we will clean up when they lift. They were stumbling drunk, could barely keep their heads up off the ground, it was quite sad to watch. She shoots one, I clean up 3 when they lift, my buddy cleans up 3 as well and she was actually able to hit another one as well.

The elusive snows in this valley flew right over the spread and landed 200 yards away. Not terribly uncommon to get the middle finger in this valley as this has happened so many times to me trying to hunt snows here. But we had 3-4 more flocks come in, and they all did the same thing. Land, sit, act drunk, stumble backwards, and we shoot them. What was quite worriesome was a flock of about 8 mature rossies come in and act the exact same way. They weren't juvies by any means. Ended the second day with 25 birds and I am pretty sure every single one of them was flu plagued. Knew of a few other loaf ponds around there, did a quick drive around them before hitting the road, and all the banks on these loafs had dead snows around them. Nature is taking care of nature right before our eyes unfortunately.

I figured if they are flying normal, in a flock and working, they are not sick. I’m talking duck, I really don’t care to shoot geese. I passed on some Canadas this weekend, flew right over my spread.

I figured the same thing. I was pleasantly shocked when I saw geese committing that looked normal in the air but like drunks once on the ground. Sad sad sight to see.

Yeah, geese seem to float and not really work. So hard to tell with them, but yeah figured when sick, they could not even fly, most of the sick ones have been seen on the ground and not flying, so that is interesting info.

I shot a limit of GWT on sunday, and I was thinking about bird flu, and I was thinking no way these teal have bird flu flying like littler fighter jets. It seems to just be snows that are getting it, but I'm not completely keeping up. Maybe because they congregate so much.

I made this post last month, not sure if you saw it..

https://texashuntingforum.com/forum.../Avian/Search/true/avian-flu#Post8752279

Well I can tell you, I did talk with a farmer who showed me video on one of his ponds of snow geese doing the circle of death swim. And I will say this, the flocks that landed in the decoys came right in. Not the usual spin around 3-4 times and then decoy type of behavior you usually see with snows. It was full commitment the second they saw decoys and came right in.

I read your post again, you said 12 came in, and they were all sick? I would think the sick ones could not keep up with the healthy ones so maybe the sicks one fly together, and maybe when 1 bird gets sick in a flock they all get sick, would be an explanation. The lake I hunted thid pdt weekend, saw thousands of snows in the middle of the lake roosting and flying around yappen.

Guy, we killed a total of 25 birds that morning. The first flock of 12 came in, they all landed instantly. No spinning or squawking and the second they touched the ground, breasts were in the dirt and heads were bobbing around. As the morning progressed, we were able to pull 3-4 more flocks off the masses coming out and all of them acted the same way. Now I am not saying every snow goose we saw that morning was sick because the big mass we watch go down a few hundred yards away from us seemed healthy. Real healthy, but everything that decoyed for us was a sad sight to see. Like I mentioned we even had mature rossies land and they were stumbling around drunk as can be in the decoys. All of them came to the field from 2 major roosts, all of them were flying into the decoys.