Mike Schwartz has witnessed the remarkable transformation.
Giant Canada geese, once nearly extinct in Minnesota, have rocketed to No. 1 in the bag for waterfowl hunters the past seven years -- supplanting mallards as the state's top waterfowl.
"I remember in the 1970s I had to go to Lac qui Parle to shoot a goose," said Schwartz, 54, of Excelsior, an avid waterfowler. "You got one and were happy."
Instead, he and friends will happily be in a field not far from his home at dawn Saturday -- the September Canada goose season opener -- scanning the sky for geese. The daily bag limit: five. He'll almost certainly see birds and will likely shoot some.
"We'll shoot 70 percent of our geese in September," he said. "It's kind of taken the place of duck hunting [for me]."
Schwartz isn't alone. He's one of about 25,000 hunters who hunt the early Canada goose season.
Harvest climbs
Of the quarter-million Canada geese that Minnesota hunters are expected to kill this year, 100,000 of them will be taken in the September season, which runs through Sept. 22. And hunters will shoot an estimated 25,000 just this weekend, said Steve Cordts, Department of Natural Resources waterfowl specialist.