Let's go over these points and see if we can't put a couple of more geese in your freezer this season.

What makes geese fly south? For thousands of years the migrating wild Canada geese followed major river systems, in this case, the Mississippi. The geese browsed on the green grasses growing along its banks and found overnight refuge on the clean sandbars. As cold weather killed off the browse, the birds simply flew downstream until they found a new food supply.

With European settlement, things began to change. First, levees were erected to protect farms in the bottomlands from floodwaters, eliminating vast areas of wetlands that sustained the migrating geese. Wing dams -- installed to keep the current in midstream -- allowed heavy vegetation to cover the sandbars, forcing the flocks off their ages-old refuges.

The geese eventually learned to make use of the thousands of acres of croplands along the river edges, and waste grain replaced the grasses they once depended upon. Huge federal and state refuges provided shelter and safety from hunting pressure. Later, Interstate 55 and I-57 replaced the Mighty Mississippi as guides for migrating Canada geese.

The steady decline in the SIQZ goose population can be directly tied to the rise of enormous populations of resident giant Canada geese in northern Illinois. These homegrown flocks act as living decoys, and draw migrants to their luxurious suburban habitat where they find endless corn and bean fields -- and doting humans who provide tasty snacks of bread crusts, Fritos and doughnuts.

The only thing that would induce a goose to leave this lap of luxury is hunger. Cold won't do it. Only deep long-lasting snow covering their food sources will drive the big birds away. So here we find the first part of your SIQZ game plan. Don't leave home until the ground has been buried under a blanket of white for a few days. The geese will not flee at the first sign of trouble, but when their bellies start protesting, off they go.

Knowing the majority of geese have left the North Zone is only the first step toward a successful SIQZ hunt. The next part of the puzzle is figuring out where they went. Last season, when several nasty winter storms hit the North Zone counties just before Christmas, the geese did indeed fly south. But sadly for SIQZ hunters, the snow barely made it to I-80 -- the northern border of the Central Zone -- where the daily kill rate zoomed, and the season closed a week early.

Few geese bothered to fly all the way to southern Illinois, as the abysmally low peak count indicated. Still, something eventually caused decent numbers of birds to continue the journey south, and I suspect it was hunting pressure in the Central Zone. Whatever. It was a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire," as SIQZ gunners were quick to capitalize on their good fortune.

Let's scan the weekly harvest reports to see just what happened. On Jan. 10, after hunting in the SIQZ had been open nearly a month, only 1,913 birds were in the bag. On Jan. 17, that number had jumped to 2,656. It was 3,373 on Jan. 20, 4,326 on January 23 and finally 6,403 when the season had run its course on Jan. 31.

So, while the geese departed the North Zone around Christmas, they didn't begin to show up in the SIQZ until more than two weeks later. However, had those snowstorms pushed farther south, it is quite possible the geese would have reached the SIQZ much sooner, and the hot hunting would have been extended. So, while the arrival of heavy snow in the North and Central zones is important, you need a spy in the South Zone to tip you off that the geese have indeed arrived there. Since nearly all the hunting in the SIQZ is done on commercial clubs or public land, it follows that a club owner or refuge site superintendent should be your contact.