The outfitter told us to be cool and wait -- we'd get our shot at the geese. About 30 minutes later, thousands of them decided to get off their roost and fly in our direction. The flock heading in our direction contained, I'd conservatively estimate, 2,000 birds, but it could have been more. When they made it over a treeline, they spotted our decoys and did exactly what they aren't supposed to do -- or, in this case, what they were supposed to do: They flared away from them and flew right toward us. Up until that point, I had never heard of using decoys to scare geese toward hunters -- but that time it worked very well.

"I like to use a few dozen, maybe four dozen decoys spread out in the field, and I like to mix in a few specklebellies and, of course, some blues in there," Robicheaux offered. "I find that if you can make it look like you just have a few stragglers out there feeding, it does not get the big flocks as nervous. What happens is, this time of year, so many people put out huge decoy spreads -- and they are used to being shot from them. Huge spreads work well, but not so much for trying to get a shot at a couple of thousand of them."

For duck hunters who may not want to specialize in geese at this time of year but would like to diversify their bag, putting out some goose decoys in the marsh could be beneficial. A number of goose decoys mixed with the ducks won't scare the ducks away, and in fact might help in some cases, as ducks know geese to be highly wary. Some realistic goose decoys could be confidence decoys for the ducks.

As for the geese themselves, they're certainly not immune to landing in the water, and a mixed duck/goose spread could be the ticket to luring in geese pressured from other areas.

Besides the fun (and meat for the frying pan) the best part about snow goose hunting is that hunters contribute directly to conservation of the species. According to USFWS officials, populations of light geese have become so numerous that their arctic and sub-arctic nesting habitats can barely support them.

"The breeding population of mid-continent light geese exceeds five million birds, which is an increase of more than 300 percent since the mid-1970s," says a USFWS release. "The population has increased more than 5 percent per year for the past 10 years. In addition, non-breeding geese (juveniles or adults that fail to nest successfully) are not included in this estimate, so the total number of geese is even higher. Light goose population indices are higher than they have been since population records have been kept and evidence suggests that large breeding populations are spreading to previously untouched sections of the Hudson Bay coastline."

"Although anecdotal historical records refer to large concentrations of light geese, they do not indicate that the populations have ever been higher. The unprecedented numbers are not only a problem for the light geese themselves but also for other wildlife and plants that share their habitats.

At these high population levels, parts of the fragile tundra habitats where light geese traditionally nest are being seriously degraded and/or destroyed. In addition, complaints about geese damaging agricultural crops are on the rise in states and provinces that lie between the nesting grounds and the wintering grounds."

Over the last few years, the use of electronic calls and unplugged shotguns at the end of the general season has helped to bring the population back into better balance, but more work needs to be done: We need to aid the work of conservation by shooting more snows.

Conservation is always a beautiful thing, but it's especially attractive when the result is a nice pile of deep-fried strips of goose breast next to some buttermilk biscuits.

That is conservation of the highest order.