He was tied with big-hitting AlvaroQuiros, who had a 73.

Fred Couples, the 51-year-oldwonder at Augusta, somehow gotinto the mix, bad back and all.Couples shot a 68 and was in thegroup at 139 that included formerPGA champion Y.E. Yang (72), 22-year-old Rickie Fowler (69) and LeeWestwood, the runner-up atAugusta last year who got backinto the mix with a 67.

Experience never hurts at theMasters.

“I’m playing my 12th one. I don’tknow how many they are playing,but I don’t think it’s that many,”Westwood said. “I’ve been in thesituation before, probably morerecently than anybody around thisgolf course. I think it’s a big advan-tage.”

Then again, Colin Montgomeriesaid the same thing when he waspaired with a 21-year-old Woods in1997 going into the weekend.

Woods blew him away with a 65and was on his way to a 12-shot vic-tory.

It doesn’t figure to be that easyfor McIlroy, even as easy as he hasmade it look over two days.

His swing looked strong as everwhen he pounded a driver on thefifth hole, leaving him a wedge thathe hit to 6 feet for birdie, andanother big tee shot set up a sandwedge to the back pin on No. 9 to 4feet. He bounced back from hislone bogey with a 6-iron into about10 feet for eagle on the 13th,though he missed the putt.

McIlroy never put himself undermuch pressure. He was having somuch fun that he wasn’t even pay-ing attention to Day, one of hisplaying partners, who was slashingout of the pine straw and firing atflags, piling up one birdie afteranother.

“We had a lot of fun out there,”McIlroy said. “I didn’t even realizeJason was going so good. I saw hewas 6 under on the 15th andthought, ’This is going to be a

decent round.’ We just fed off eachother. The crowd got behind us.”

McIlroy, Day and Fowler werequite the group — ages 21, 22 and23. The more important numberwas 18 birdies they made. McIlroy’sonly regret was not making asmany putts as he would have liked.

“I can’t really complain,” hesaid. “I’m in the lead going into theweekend at the Masters.”

He’s just not in the clear.Woods made sure of that with

three straight birdies around theturn — all of them inside 4 feet — aclutch par save on the 11th andthree consecutive birdies startingon the 13th, again all of them fromclose range.

“I played myself back in thetournament,” Woods said. “I’mthree back, and we’ve got a longway to go. It’s going to be fun.”

Phil Mickelson has far morework to do.

The defending championplayed more aggressively, butfailed to save par too often whenhe missed the green. Mickelson

also failed to birdie the par 5s onthe back nine and had to settle fora 72 that put him eight shotsbehind.

“There’s a lot of golf left in thistournament, and I’m going to bemaking a run at him and the otherguys ahead of me,” Mickelson said.

Asked what gives him confi-dence he can make a move,Mickelson replied, “Three greenjackets.”

The cut was at 1-over 145,matching the lowest ever atAugusta. Among those going homeare the last three major champions— Martin Kaymer, now in danger oflosing his No. 1 ranking; LouisOosthuizen and Graeme McDowell.

Woods’ 66 was his best round atAugusta since he shot 65 in thethird round of 2005, which also isthe last time he won the Masters.The two players in front of himhave only three wins betweenthem, none in a major.

But that’s the thing with somany kids. They don’t seem tocare.

Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan ■ Saturday, April 9, 2011www.yankton.net PAGE 9

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BY GARY HOWEY

Peering through the mesh ofmy laydown blind, hundreds ifnot thousands of Snow geesewere moving in our generaldirection. Thewindsocks, laidout in front ofus, dancedseductively inthe wind, as fiveVortex spinningdecoys swirledaround to ourfront. The bois-terous electron-ic caller calledout to the geese,this was justenough to turnthe flock as they cruised over ourdecoy spread.

As Snow geese always do,they made several wide circles,loosing altitude with each wingbeat. With wings set and legsdown, they glided into the land-ing zone, set up directly in frontof us, when our guide John Neuyelled, “Take Em.” In one swiftmotion, the lids of our lay downblinds blew open as seven camohunters rose to meet the incom-ing flock.

The Snows backpedaled; try-ing desperately to put distancebetween themselves and thehunters, as they attempted toavoid the volley of incoming vol-ley of steel shot headed theirway. When the smoke finallycleared, the departing flock was-n’t quite as large as it’d been afew moments before, as we’dreduced the flock by a six geese.

It was the final days of Marchand we were located just south ofAberdeen, S.D. where we’d trav-eled to film and hunt with guideJohn Neu, Neu Outdoorswww.neuoutdoors.com out ofYankton, during this years springSnow Goose season.

He and his other guides hadbeen pursuing the Snow geese

since the opening of the springseason. They’d begun hunting insoutheastern Missouri, workedtheir way northward through thestate and then jumped into SouthDakota, following the birds asthey migrated north.

Hunting with Neu and hisguides were a group of 40 to 50hunters. With each group beingequipped with approximately twoto three thousand decoys, lay-down blinds and electroniccallers.

In order to effectively drawSnow geese into range, large num-bers of decoys are needed. Thisis why guides such as Neuchoose windsocks for their decoyspreads as they’re easy to trans-port, don’t take up much space ina trailer and add motion to thespread when the wind is blowing.Some folks believe that the windalways blows here in the upperMidwest, but on those rare occa-sions when it doesn’t, the Vortexand SOS motion decoys add

enough movement to give thespread the realism needed toattract the Snows.

Facing into the wind directlyin front of the landing zone, thecamo lay down blinds, allowedthe hunters to relax as they wait-ed patiently for the next flock tobe sighted. Once the birds werespotted, the two-piece doors onthe blinds were flipped shut, con-cealing the hunters, still allowingus to keep an eye on theapproaching birds through amesh screen.

Since spring weather can beunpredictable, the lay downblinds had to be camouflaged inorder to match the field we werehunting. Prior to our arrival,there had been snow in the field,so snow/white camo was thecolor of the day. As the tempsrose the white camo had to beremoved allowing the blinds tobetter match the environment wewere hunting. The warmer theday became, the muddier it

became around the lay downs, soour blinds no longer blended in,standing out against the muddyfield. This is when John muddiedup the blinds by smearing eachwith a coating of the sticky mudfrom around the blinds.

Despite hourly changes in theweather and the mud we had toput up with, it was a great huntas we observed numerousspecies of waterfowl including;Snow geese, Blue geese, Rossgeese, Specklebelly /White Frontgeese, Canada geese, Mallards,Pintails and Bluebills staging inthe Aberdeen area as they waitedfor snow to receded so theycould continue their northwardmigration.

Flight after flight of Snowsmade their way overhead, withdozens of larger flocks comingwithin 80 yards. Not close enoughfor a shot, but close enoughallowing us to pull small groupsfrom the large flock down withinrange, enabling us to pull 4 or 5

out of each.Since the Snow goose popula-

tion had become so large, they’veliterally destroyed the habitat inthe Tundra where they mate. Thisis the reason for the specialspring season, allowing huntersto hunt as they returned north inthe spring, helping to bring thepopulation to manageable levels.

Since Snow geese migrate insuch large flocks, with many ofthe birds being the older maturebirds that have seen every decoyand decoy spread imaginable,Snow geese are the toughest ofall waterfowl to decoy. Becauseof this, during the spring Snowgoose season, there are liberallimits and hunters aren’trequired to use plugged shot-guns, so extender tubes on shot-guns are quite common, allowinghunters to have as many as 7 or8 shells in their shotgun. Thisalong with the use of electroniccalls, has given spring Snowgoose hunters the opportunityto take excess birds out of thepopulation during the spring.

John, his guides and clients ofNeu Outdoors are doing theirbest to remove those excessbirds from the population.During the 2011 special season,they’ve taken over 8,000 birds.On this trip, our group did itsbest to help alleviate the over-

population as we pulled 118birds out of the flocks.

While we were hunting withNeu, there was a mixed bag ofhunters in camp from through-out the U.S. including those fromGeorgia, Washington, Utah,Nebraska, South Dakota andIowa as well as numerous otherstates.

Spring Snow goose hunting isan exciting hunt, with thousandsof birds in the air, giving you theopportunity to observe thewaterfowl in their springplumage. In the spring theplumage of the waterfowl isbreathtaking, giving you theopportunity to enjoy some of thebest that Mother Nature has tooffer. If you’re looking for aSnow goose guide that does itright, give Neu Outdoors a callas they have Snow goose hunt-ing dialed in.

Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb.,is the president of OutdoorsmenProductions LLC and the produc-er/host of the OutdoorsmenAdventures television series thatairs on Fox affiliates throughoutthe upper Midwest. For moreinformation on the outdoors or towatch the show, go to HYPER-LINK "http:/ /www.outdoorsme-nadventures.com" www.outdoors-menadventures.com.

OF THE OUTDOORS

The ‘Neu’ Wave Of Spring Snow Goose Hunters

T R O P H Y S P O T L I G H T

Second day hunt: John Neu (second from left) is pictured along with Howey and hunters from Georgiawith the geese taken during the hunt..

GaryHowey

TEAM OUTDOORSMEN ADVENTURES PHOTO

PHOTO: CAPTAIN NORMʼSNate Loecker caught this 65-pound Grass Carp on Lake Yanktonearlier this spring.

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