Impossible Geese

[mulvany]

This Spring I moved and found myself in a less goosy area. There are a few locals and I am about 30 minutes from a power plant lake. Unfortunately there has been no freeze so no geese went to the power plant this year. With less than 2 weeks of season left I have had a terrible year with geese. These geese roost in a different spot each night, I have seen them on over a dozen ponds this year that they roost or loaf on. They are never on the same pond more than 2 days in a row, if they do go back. I have been able to catch them flying around the last 3 days and they've gone to a different field and pond everyday. I have set up under them, beside them, around them, near them and they never react to calling, flagging, nothing. I've thrown ffd's, painted, shells, large flocks, small flocks, floaters at them and they never react. I sit where they were the previous day and they fly right over like they don't even care. I always have my blinds hid, so I know it's not that.
Any ideas to make the last 2 weeks a success?

[Lonegoose]

Your hunting local geese. They are smart. They do their own thing. The local birds know the area and know what is safe and where the food is. IMO true local birds are the hardest to kill....unless you pull Foiles.

[goosechaser125]

Here's your answer, before you read it, remember that everthing else you tried did not work, that is key, because this is going to be hard to do, but again remember nothing else has worked. When you see them roost, loof or feed again in one of the spots you can hunt, be there the very next day. WITHOUT any decoys, just hide yourself, no calling, no flagging, no decoys. It will be hard. Treat it like a deer hunt. Let us know when you kill some. After you have hit them two or three times, then start using decoys again, but only a small group, and only call if they call.

[huntin again]

Verrry interesting Goosechaser.......have you done this? Seems worth a try, especially if there's good cover to hide in.

[speckleberry]

Yeah, pass shoot 'em!

[mulvany]

Thanks for the replies. I will give that a shot goose chaser.

[goosechaser125]

Simular things, when they want a field, but want to be first in. Some birds just become so decoy shy that they will not land even with other geese, or will land in same field but far away. Sometimes you can use your decoys to "block off" part of a field when they do this.

[Lonegoose]

Simular things, when they want a field, but want to be first in. Some birds just become so decoy shy that they will not land even with other geese, or will land in same field but far away. Sometimes you can use your decoys to "block off" part of a field when they do this.

Thats kinda what I was getting at with local geese. My buddy has locals on his lake that will not land with other live geese. If they do hit the same field they will use the opposite side, same goes for water.

[DSM16428]

Simular things, when they want a field, but want to be first in. Some birds just become so decoy shy that they will not land even with other geese, or will land in same field but far away. Sometimes you can use your decoys to "block off" part of a field when they do this.

Thats kinda what I was getting at with local geese. My buddy has locals on his lake that will not land with other live geese. If they do hit the same field they will use the opposite side, same goes for water.

I use that same strategy alot on a couple of the spots I hunt that get nothing but locals. They just will not land in with other birds but will slide off to one side or pull up short and the ONLY thing you can do is place your spread where you don't want them to land and get where you think they will. Works most times.

[goosechaser125]

Mulvany any luck yet?

[mulvany]

Here's what's been happening...

Saturday night I took 3 other guys and we went to a field they hit 2 days in a row. We got set up at 1:30 and at 2 they came in. I am not going to lie, unless geese are landing I don't shoot, so we had 2 groups go over us a little less than treetop high but I didn't call the shot...but looking back now with the season we've had, I should've. They went and landed behind us 100yards. We scared them up after a little bit of nothing flying but nothing else came in.

Tonight though I decided I had enough. I've had permission to the roost pond all season long, but obviously you don't want to hunt it. With exactly 1 week of season left I figured tonight was the night. They've been dropping in the last 20 minutes of shooting time so I took my cousin and we had some fun. We hid in a treeline on one side of the pond but the geese kept pushing to the other side, so we left the decoys and went to the other side and laid in bushes. They ended up coming right in and we pounded 4 of them, the dog had some fun retrieving and I ruined my phone picking up the decoys, but as you can tell from the pic...it was awesome. We're going to let it rest then go back out saturday morning with some layout boats and try the last weekend.

I'm hoping to get into a field or two I saw them landing in last night and tonight.

[goosechaser125]

If it's been a tough season like you have been having, you just do what you gotta do to get some birds as long as it's legal.

Been having a good season here, so we have been trying to just set up different spreads, try different calls, no calls, motion, pulling traffic birds. This morning had one group of three come in high and we "knew" they were not going to land so the pit boss called it and I connected on one of them.