Do you hunt goose? Are you interested in hunting goose? Would you like to be more successful when hunting goose? In this article, we share tips to help you take more goose home during the goose hunting season.
1. Goose Decoy Set Up
When hunting goose, one of the best ways to attract them is by using goose decoys. When you set up your goose decoys, always set them up about 10 feet apart and set them up so that they face each other in random directions. This makes it look more natural and relaxed for incoming birds that land inside the spread.
Additionally, this goose set up makes the incoming birds have no suspicion of the goose decoys they see from high above as they all look like a regular goose gathering. It also allows you to use fewer decoys which makes it easy to set up and take down.
2. Good Shots
Never pass up good shots. In a scenario where the geese are right over your blind on a calm day in which they can easily look down at you from 30 yards up, don’t pass up the shot. If their vital organs are exposed, take the shot if you are using BBs or larger pellets.
3. Angle Your Blinds
Always angle your blinds to get a better shot at geese. If you are right-handed, position your layout blind slightly to the right of the landing hole. This set up will give you more shooting chances than if you were facing directly downward. Similarly, left-handed hunters should position themselves on the right end of the line so they can intercept any geese that slides on the left side.
4. Snow Geese
Snow geese tend to fly high and circle straight down which makes it difficult to shoot them in any other place than over the spread. This poses a challenge for the geese hunter. One option is to snowy locations with ditches or hedgerows that are about a few hundred yards from the fields where you can quietly creep into position to take down low-flying snow geese as they fly by without alerting the main flock.
5. The Flight of Birds
Most often when you see birds flying, don’t trust what you see 100% all of the time. Looks can be deceiving. Canada geese are slow when flying when you compare their flight to that of ducks.
Similarly, Pheasants appear to be slower than they really are because of their long tails.
To take these birds down most of the time, always swing your firearm to lead the birds and continue swinging as you pull the trigger. If you don’t follow this routine, you will realize that you will miss more of the shots.
6. Find The Feeding Sources
When hunting geese and you locate a feeding flock, wait until they fly back to roost before you go into the field to identify their feeding area. When you think you are in the feeding area, look carefully for droppings and when you find them, take a GPS reading or mark the spot to make it easy for you to identify the area when you return there the next morning when it is still dark.
7. Decoys & Good Cover
When you are setting up your decoys in open fields, make concealment your primary focus. You will be more successful hunting geese by hunting where you are concealed. Look for rows of tall grass, piles of crop stubble, or a dip in the terrain where you can conceal your layout blinds.
8. Don’t Overcall
Don’t make the mistake of over calling. Some goose callers confuse speed and volume for emotion. Don’t make that rookie mistake. Geese calling is more art than science. Observe and learn how the birds are responding to your calls and always make adjustments to continuously improve. Learn to master the art of conveying a message in all of your calls and you will be more successful in calling birds.
9. Be the Contrarian
If the area you are hunting in has a lot of hunting pressure, you want to implement slightly different hunting strategies to stand out from the rest of the other hunters and attract geese. Don’t try to match the decoy spread you see out in the fields, especially during the late season.
Instead, do the opposite of what other geese hunters are implementing. If they are using bigger spreads, then use one or two dozen decoys and do the calling. You want your strategy to be different and stand out from the rest of the geese hunters. This will also seem different to see and they will come to check it out.
10. Multiple Callers
When hunting geese, you can have a higher success rate if there are multiple callers than just a single caller. Multiple callers doubles or triples the notes which increases the excitement and attraction of the passing birds.
It should be noted that the callers need to work together for the calls to sound as natural as possible. They should practice calling together to synchronize their cadences and learn to avoid piling note on top of each other. There is more to just many callers calling and making noise. There is a method and strategy to making calls that make them effective.
Too much calling can spook the birds. If the flock starts to fly away, one or more callers should stop calling to reduce the pressure.
Conclusion
Goose hunting is exciting and rewarding but can be challenging. Goose can easily be spooked and you want to carefully implement your strategies to successfully take them down. In this article we shared goose hunting tips to help you take more geese home during the geese hunting season.
