Southern New Jersey holds upwards of 150,000 snow geese during the fall and spring. Most of these birds are in Salem and Cumberland county. Generally the birds show up in late October and leave in mid-March. New jersey snow goose hunting presents two unique challenges. First,these birds sometimes will fly over to Delaware to feed for the day. Another second factor to contend with here in New Jersey are the huge tidal marshes where the birds roost. Generally the birds will not leave the marsh preferring to stay and feed on the salt hay fields that are so numerous in New Jersey tidal marshes. But once the weather turns cold that is when the birds head inland from 2- 20 miles to find higher protein food like corn, soybean or wheat. We have farms in both Salem and Cumberland county. All or our farms are inland anywhere from 2 -12 miles from the roost areas for these birds. As mentioned above, our best hunting is the first cold snap when the birds head inland for high protein food. Snow geese prefer large farms and our farms vary in size from 60-415 acres. We have leased these farms for over ten years so we have a good idea of when they will use them. And of course we scout daily and have area farmers looking for us also. Snow goose hunting requires a huge amount of decoys. We use mostly silosocks and some full bodies. More so than any other waterfowl, huge spreads of decoys are an important part to harvest snow geese. Being on the ‘X” is most important but we have had a lot of good hunts (25-50 birds) just getting under the birds and hunting traffic. 200 decoys was deadly ten years ago but today 500-1500 decoys are needed for those same results. Generally our best hunting is when it gets cold and the birds head to the fields to feed. Another good time for us is February- March season for a couple reasons. The conservation season begins and the e-callers really help decoys birds especially the small bunches and it also helps tremendously on traffic hunts. Tens of thousands of snow geese move into our area this time of the season. They are starting to stage to head north and gradually move north along the tidal marshes as they stage. And lastly, like all waterfowl, windy days really produce especially when using Silosocks. Remember we are hunting snow geese that are about as predictable as the weather. These are very skittish and finicky birds that have no real agenda when it comes to decoying. The rule with snow geese are there are no rules. Let the fun begin!