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Goose
Hunting 101
By T.R. Michels, Trinity Mountain Outdoors
 An
hour and a half before sunrise I turned the truck
onto the road that lead to the hayfield where we hunted
geese. As the truck neared the center of the hayfield
I slowed down, and I heard my son Dallas say, "I
hear geese." I'd heard the geese honking too
and said, "Yeah, they roosted on the lake last
night. If the wind keeps blowing from the northwest
they should fly right toward us when they leave."
About an hour later a flock of seven Canada geese
came off the lake, heard our calling and saw our decoys,
circled the decoys twice, and came in to land. Just
before the geese touched down we shouldered our guns
and fired, and four geese plummeted from the sky;
we had our limit. A half hour later, after picking
up our geese and our decoys, we were on our way home.
It's very rare that a goose hunt goes that well, and
ends that fast. Sometimes it takes all day to get
your limit. Sometimes you go home with only part of
your limit. Sometimes you hunt all day without getting
a shot. And sometimes you hunt all day without even
seeing a goose. But, once in a while, if you do everything
right, you might go home with a limit of geese. The
key to hunting any animal is to understand it's basic
habits; when and where it moves most often, when and
where it prefers to rest and eat, what it likes to
eat, it's family structure, and how it communicates.
Goose Habits
Geese normally rest on lakes, river and ponds during
the night, and feed on grass, clover and grain twice
a day; shortly after sunrise, and shortly before sunset.
The best way to find out where geese are feeding is
find out where they are resting at night, and then
follow them as they go out to feed in the morning.
You can hunt the geese in the afternoon, but most
hunters wait until the next morning to hunt. If you
do hunt in the afternoon, the geese may not come back
the next morning.
Geese prefer to land and take off into the wind, and
they prefer to feed out of the wind. The also like
to feed in open areas where one or more of the family
members can see all around them. When you put out
your decoys place them in the middle of an open field,
on a hillside or low-lying area out of the wind if
you can. Most of the decoys should face into the wind
and not more than twenty percent of them should have
their heads in the upright or "sentry" position.
A goose with it's head up is either looking for danger,
or has already spotted danger. A lot of geese, or
decoys, with their heads sticking up is a sign that
there may be something dangerous nearby.
Family Structure and Decoys
Geese are very family oriented. Depending on which
species of goose they are the male (gander) and female
(goose) mate when they are 2-4 years old. The young
geese (goslings) usually stay with their parents for
the first year. They migrate with their parents during
their first fall, spend the winter with their parents
and migrate with their parents back to the area where
they were raised the next spring. The young females
will continue to return to the general are where they
were born every year. When the young males mate they
follow their female partner back to where she was
raised. Many of the goose flocks you see in the fall
are made up of related females and their families.
When you setup your decoys, place them in family groups,
with 5-12 decoys in each family. Separate the decoys
in each family group by a foot or more, and separate
the family groups from each other by a yard or more.
In order for geese to respond to your decoys they
have to see them. Five or six stationary black and
brown decoys in a dirt colored field are not easily
seen by high flying geese. You can make your decoys
easier for the geese to see by using bigger decoys,
using more decoys, placing dark decoys in light brown
fields or snow and light decoys in light brown fields
or dirt, and by using decoys that move. One of the
best ways to attract geese is by "flagging."
You can flag geese by nailing a 12 inch square of
black cloth to a broom handle, and then wave the flag
back and forth in the air. When geese see the flag
they will often fly closer to investigate. Then when
they see your decoys and hear your calling they may
try to land near your decoys.
Randy "Flag Man" Bartz decided he wanted
a more realistic looking goose flag, so he created
the Lander Kite, a triangular piece of dark cloth
with a tail, with a white crescent just above the
tail. When the Lander Kite is attached to a 20 foot
fishing pole and waved in the air, it looks just like
a flying goose. By lightly shaking the pole up and
down while you lower the flag toward the ground you
can make the flag look liea goose landing. Randy suggests
you keep flagging until the geese are within shooting
range. If you stop flagging they may stop coming,
or stay.out of range. By using the fast cluck of the
honk of the clucking landing
Communication and Calling
Geese use variations of several different calls, but
the calls you should use when you are hunting include
the social contact call, the landing call, the threat
call and the feeding call. Most of these calls are
honking sounds, but depending on how loud and how
fast the calls are, they mean different things. When
geese are worried or excited they call louder than
normal. The landing, threat and the lost calls are
louder than the social contact or feeding calls. The
faster the geese are moving, the faster they call.
When geese are flying or running they call faster
than when they are walking. While they are flying
geese normally call at the same time that they flap
their wings; the faster their wings beat, the faster
they call. When geese flap their wings fast in order
to slow down before landing their call is short and
fast; when they glide in to land, and don't move their
wings, their call is long and slow.
The social contact call is used to keep the family
together, whether they are in the air or on the ground.
Most of the slow honking that you hear when you see
a flock of geese flying, or while they are feeding,
is the social contact call; its usually a two note
call that sounds like herr-onk. Use this call when
the geese are far off and you are trying to get them
to come closer. The farther away the geese are the
louder you may have to blow the call, so the geese
can hear it. The landing call is a louder, shorter
and faster version of the social contact call, that
geese use when they are flapping their wings as they
land; it is usually a series of fast, short, one note
honks; honk, honk, honk, honk. Hunters often refer
to this call as fast clucking. Use this call when
the geese are close and you want them to come closer
and land.
The threat call is used by geese to tell other geese
to stay away, that they are getting too close. It
is usually a loud, short, fast double honk; honk-onk.
Hunters often refer to this call as the hut-hut call.
This is the call you hear geese on the ground make
as a flying flock of geese gets close to them. You
can use this call in combination with the landing
call to get geese to land, because flying flocks almost
always hear the threat call as they prepare to land
near another flock of geese. The feeding call is used
as combination social contact and threat call. It
helps keep the family together while spacing the families
out while they are feeding with their heads down and
they can't see. It is a series of deep sounding gravely
honks; onk, onk, onk onk. Use this call when geese
get close, to convince them that your decoys are actually
feeding geese.
To help you understand geese, and goose decoying and
calling, read the Goose Addict's Manual from Trinity
Mountain Publishing. To become a better caller, find
someplace that has geese nearby, and listen to the
geese; so you understand which calls the geese use
as they feed, fly, land, takeoff, and squabble amongst
themselves. Haydel's Game Calls has several excellent
audio and video tapes, and CD's. If you really want
to see how good you are, you can compare your calling
to professional callers and real geese by using the
new interactive Ultimate Calling System CD.
Goose Addict's Manual. Trinity Mouuntain
Outdoors, 41267 Highway 56 Boulevard, Nerstrand ,
MN 55053, Phone:507-789-8808, Email: trmichels@yahoo.com,
Website: www.trmichels.com
Lander Kites and T-Flags. Flag Man
Products, Box 301, Oronoco, MN 55960, Phone: 507-367-4782
Goose calls, videos, audio tapes and
CD's. Haydel's Game Calls, 5018 Hazel Jones road,
Bossier City, LA 71111, Phone: 318-746-3586 Email:
sales@haydels.com Website: www.haydels.com
Ultimate Calling Systems CD's, Stoney-Wolf
Productions, 124 Columbia Court North, Chaska, MN
55318 Phone: 1-800-237-7583, Website: www.gamecalltech.com
T.R. Michels is a nationally recognized
game researcher/wildlife behaviorist, outdoor writer
and speaker. He is the author of the Whitetail, Elk,
Duck & Goose, and Turkey Addict's Manuals. His
latest products are Hunting the Whitetail Rut Phases,
the Complete Whitetail Addict's Manual, the 2005 Revised
Edition of the Elk Addict's Manual; and the 2005 Revised
Edition of the Duck & Goose Addict's Manual. For
a catalog of books and other hunting products contact:
T.R. Michels, Trinity Mountain Outdoors,
E-mail:TRMichels@yahoo.com ,
Web Site: www.TRMichels.com
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