From Minnesota to Manitoba
By Charlie Seitzer, Drake Field Expert

1st morning - 30 geese in 50 minutes, a Manitoba 6 man limit. 2nd morning - 25 geese and 3 ducks up close and personal 2 guys in Drake - Keeping warm when inactive and not overheating while putting out or picking up decoys is aided by the use of the Drake LST Underwear as an outerwear garment, plus it looks good. 3rd morning - Pictured on top L to R - Ryan and John bottom - myself, Brian, and Kevan.

The 8 hour trip from St. Peter, Minnesota to St. Pierre, Manitoba didn't include a dramatic change in scenery that made our jaws drop; it was the number of birds on our first scouting trip that caught our attention.

Our original destination was Selkirk, Manitoba which is located closely to the Oak Hammock refuge. From the recommendation from a few friends who were also destined for the same area just days before our trip, we shortstopped our trip to the St. Pierre area. St. Pierre is located just 30 minutes south of Winnipeg and from the phone calls that we received before our trip the ducks outnumbered the geese. The trip was going to be a short one. We left on Friday October, 20th, would scout the next day and then hunt Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning. The hunting party consisted of 4 other hunters, 3 of which who were not accustomed to hunting on dry fields. We arrived in St. Pierre in the wee hours of the next day. After a trip downstairs to the town tavern we were able to learn that the local public did not care much about the waterfowl in the area.

Saturday morning we set out to scout. We did not have problems finding birds. The first field that we happened upon was a cut wheat field that was filling up with about 5000 Canada geese. After a little searching we located the owner of the field and asked permission to hunt. He told us that he had an even better field. We followed him to a corn field that they were in the process of cutting. He was correct; there were in excess of 8000 geese. The Canadas, snows and blues were all trading back and forth between the corn and a green field across the gravel. We made plans to hunt the field the next morning along with one of the farmhands of the operation. We were also able to locate other fields with geese during the day, but to our surprise we were not able to find many ducks in the area.

The next morning greeted us with a light snowfall that continued with us throughout the hunt and a Northwest wind. This weather couldn't be better conditions for hunting the "X". The day was filled with decoy, in your face shots. We had our 30 Canada geese on the ground in 50 minutes. The bag consisted in several species on Canadas however. From the small Hutchinson goose to the Giant Western goose and filled in the middle with mostly interior geese. However, we had not seen a single Snow goose the entire hunt. We decided to pack up and enjoy the day.

After scouting the afternoon, we located a corn field that had about 5000 geese in it. This would be our Monday morning hunt. We set out our spread of 13 dozen Canada decoys, 5 dozen Mallard fullbodies and 3 dozen Mallard silhouettes, and 3 dozen Snow decoys. This hunt would take a bit longer. There was someone pass shooting these geese not far from where we were set. We did manage to get our 5 man limit of 25 Canadas and 3 Mallards to boot. Once again we did not see any snows on this hunt. I really wanted to get into the Snows and there were about 1000 Snows in this field the night before. However, the morning was filled with shooting small groups. We had a bit of a problem getting them centered up because of the lack of wind that was present.

Monday evening we found a field that had another good number of geese in the field, mostly Canada geese. After setting the spread one last time in Canada we sat in our blinds and talked about what a great trip this was. About 10 minutes before legal shooting time we were greeted by someone interested in our spread. Our conversation was interrupted when a red fox stalked our decoys. We could not see him because of the low light but when he got within 10 feet of one of our blinds we heard the corn stalks rustling. We heard him, he heard us, and he than sprinted directly away from our spread. He must have been salivating at the thought of snatching an unsuspecting goose for an early morning breakfast. We all laughed at the thought of how close that predator came to us. When the sun rose we found that the geese were late to rise off of the roost. The temperature was bound for 45 degrees on our last day. We were able to bag 7 Canadas and 1 snow on the hunt which we called early in order to get packed up and home at a decent time.

Our trip was filled with laughter, goose meat and good music; all of which make for a good hunting trip. We killed 63 geese and 8 ducks in 2 ½ days of hunting, this was not the measure of the trip. The measure was the time spent with hunting buddies, the jokes, the snug hotel room, the tap water that smelled like our marshes back home, and the people of Manitoba. Their license plate in Manitoba has a caption on it that says, "Friendly Manitoba," and that couldn't be anymore true.

The majority of trip found me wearing at least my LST Underwear for the balance of each day along with my MST waterproof fleece lined Jac-Shirt and my Drake waterproof camo hat. Other members of the group also wore the Drake LST Underwear along with the MST fleece lined pullover, and the MST uninsulated Bibs. Drake Waterfowl gear isn't solely made for those who hunt in waders, I rely on my Drake clothing to keep me cool on warm early season days, dry on those days when snow or rain is present, free from the wind when the wind whips out of the Northwest, and warm on the late season days when all my other hunting partners are shivering from the cold. We all look forward to our annual migration to the North in upcoming years.