Guide Life: Mike Callian and Snow Geese in the PNW
Walker Davidson for SPLIT REED
Mike Callian, with Big Guns Outfitters, is based in Washington state. He started waterfowl hunting at the young age of 12 and hunted with his family and friends in California and all over the West coast. When he was in his 20’s he moved to Idaho and was really bitten by the goose hunting bug. “We’d hunt almost every day,” said Callian.
In 2009 Bill Saunders asked Mike if he would come help with spring snow goose season in South Dakota. For his first spring, he was a scout but learned the ropes when it came to hunting spring snows. Mike said, “I got to see all of the cool stuff that goes with hunting white geese: robo-decoys, e-callers, huge spreads. All of that stuff.” Mike has been guiding for Bill since.
Big Guns no longer operates in South Dakota, but the white devils have been showing up to Washington and doubling in numbers every year for the last five years. In fact, the Washington Department of Wildlife is calling for a limit increase from 6 birds to 20 birds this next year. The flocks of geese seen in Washington are generally coming from Wrangel Island, Russia. The interesting reason for Wrangel Island’s snow goose population explosion is that the main predator for geese on the island, foxes, have been killed off by the wolves. This year an estimated 1 million geese came off the island as compared to 300,000 four years ago.
Hunting snows in the Pacific Northwest is much different than other places. They aren’t allowed help from electric calls and decoys like other places. In turn, they use smaller more realistic spreads to mimic little feeds and loafs. Hunting out of a pit blind most of the time, it takes away much of the worries about the hide. By using a spread of 150-200 super realistic Dave Smith Decoys and one guy using a mouth call, it just appears way more realistic, and it works.
Consistently killing white geese is tough and takes a lot of work, but Mike and the guys at Big Guns Outfitters in Washington have it figured out!
Click on Walker to find him on Instagram