Keep driving into Canada and you will see waterfowl hunting like you could only imagine. Licenses are cheap and people are accommodating. I usually have about a month of fantastic goose hunting if everything cooperates (especially getting the crops off the fields - often the weather screws that up). This is a small area and getting competitive since moose hunting has been exploited to death. Bush hunters are shifting their game. Last year goose hunting sucked. They just didn't come and no one knows why. The flyway is definitely shifting around. This year I may shift further north of here or west to Manitoba. The country north of Winnipeg is fantastic. Great bear hunting, trout and walleye, and deer and elk. Lakes large and small everywhere. Fields are rolling hills broken by potholes and timber pockets. Prettiest place on earth I think. I suspect travel restrictions will be lifted by October. Getting your guns across is no problem if you're going hunting. Declare them and fill out a temporary possession license. Get a US ATF Form 6 done ahead of time to bring them back to US. I don't think you'll need it but good to have if some US border person gets full of himself. I understand they can be done on line and three day turnaround. US will only allow you to depart the country with 5,000 rounds of ammo. That should be enough unless you are a skybuster. Anyone who comes up here and does that should be in a rubber room. It's just not necessary. You can (and almost certainly will) shoot upwards of forty ducks and geese a day and take back as many white geese as you can shove in a reefer semi. Here the possession limit on black geese is also unlimited (daily limit is five and doubles the first ten days of season).
The only thing that could put a wrinkle in Canada hunting is a criminal record and even that can usually be overcome if one jumps through the bureaucratic hoops early enough (and offense is not serial murder). Any record for possession of grass would undoubtedly get rubber stamped okay quickly because it's legal up here now.
Also, if you're pricing it out, keep in mind the exchange rate on Canadian dollars is very favourable for you ... and getting more so every day since our latest federal budget was tabled this week.
I only know of two outfitters for waterfowl. One in Manitoba and one in Saskatchewan. I would not reccomend the SK guy (though hunting was good) but the Manitoba fella is great. Only fished with him as a friend but saw how his operation was run and of course fell in love with the country there. It is unbelievable. Best kept secret in North America. He had just finished up spring bear season. 27 clients left with 27 bears. Always said I would relocate there when I retired but my wife and son are buried here and my grandson, who is spitting image of his uncle, has a very special bond with Papa. Like his late uncle, he's autistic. I'm needed here.
View attachment 181102This is late great Pearl on her last day waterfowl hunting five years ago. That's two limits of honkers and a lone snow ... taken from one flock. Note the patches of missing hair from IVs on both front legs. She was battling autoimmune disease. She beat it (and glioma brain cancer the previous year) but kidney disease took her following March. Tough dog! She retrieved all but one of the eleven geese from a weed choked slough. Opal retrieved one before Pearl told her off.
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