Goose Hunting over water

36473 Views 40 Replies 33 Participants Last post by NativeCT, Jul 8, 2015

Duece

Discussion Starter · Jul 7, 2003

I rarely hunt geese over the water as it interferes with the roost. Anyone else feel this way? I think it varies on the region and styles of hunting but goose hunting in my area is field only.

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GoosinAround

· #2 · Jul 10, 2003

It depends where you hunt.

Goose hunting over water is a sin to my buddies, simply because the water in our are is nill so the birds key on what's available. When somebody shoots one of them up the roost is dead.

That's how goose hunting is in my neck of the woods.

G

· #3 · Jul 12, 2003

I rarely come across anyone hunting the roost here in ND, it's sort of taboo for waterfowlers. Spend an afternoon scouting and you should find plenty of LAND to hunt.

bighonker

· #4 · Oct 16, 2003

Here around where we hunt we don't hunt over water. We have seen people doing it and the next day there were no geese.

I dont know why people hunt geese in the water anyway. Why would you want to wade through 2 foot of mud in leaky waders when you could be in a comfortable field chair waiting for them to come in.

goosehuntingchat.com

· #5 · Oct 17, 2003

bighonker said:
Here around where we hunt we don't hunt over water. We have seen people doing it and the next day there were no geese.

I dont know why people hunt geese in the water anyway. Why would you want to wade through 2 foot of mud in leaky waders when you could be in a comfortable field chair waiting for them to come in.

I like your style.

goosecrippler

· #6 · Dec 5, 2003

I would tend to agree with not hunting the roost for the most part. If you must be smart about it. Shoot over decoys and I am not talking pass shooting them at 50 yards or even 30 yards I am talking in the dekes feet hanging 15-20 yard shots sure kills. take your limit dont smarten up every goose in the state and go home leave the rest alone. This is sadly from experiance as myself and a couple of friends found out and still remiss. We had permision for a nice pond and were out scouting after a misserable mourning hunt only to find this pond covered with 5,000 plus ducks we hit the jackpot or so we thought. We jumped them had a great 10 mins. and it was over. That pond has hardly had a duck on it since. This has been more than a year I firmly believe if we would have done it right we would be taking limits on this pond at will. The people who lease all the hunting ground around your erea are only going to hurt themselves by leaving you nothing but the roost to set up on. I would try harder to find land to hunt offer to help fix fence if you drive by and you see him out there working on it. Most of all show him respect and appreation give him a turkey or a ham around the holidays $10-$15 is cheap for good hunting ground.

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h2ofwlr

· #7 · Dec 8, 2003

I all depends where you live and regional conditions.

When I hunt CA, I strictly hunt fields for geese --both lights and darks.
But where I live, I hunt both water and fields, mostly water. Reason being the Darks stay in the city from all the duck hunting pressure and the fields are mostly spoken for already. So I do hunt them on the water, and do fairly well. Most of the the over water geese are heading from the fields to the roost areas in the cities.

HardCore

· #8 · Dec 29, 2003

I prefer to field hunt, but like h2ofwlr said sometimes you just have limited options.

okie

· #9 · Jan 23, 2004

I have found that here in Central OK.,if you hunt the small stock tanks (pothole's if your in SD or ND) you have a better than average chance of getting in the micro flocks without disturbing the roosting areas.This has been very handy if the geese are feeding in large numbers in a field we don't have access to,we'll catch the small groups that break off.Just a thought.

goosecutter

· #10 · Feb 6, 2004

here in illinois all i hunt over is water. i like it alot better than field hunting. we don't have a problem at all killin geese everyday. like i put in another post on here. i killed over 100 geese this year and 7 leg bands 3 neck bands all over water. not even 1 on the land. so there u go.

hound

· #11 · Feb 27, 2004

up here in ontario with so much water we take a lot of geese over the water. late season is mostly feild hunting ,but early season sept 7 farmers don't want you trampling through uncut crops so until there down cammo over the nitro lol

Live to Hunt & Fish

· #12 · Apr 29, 2004

How do you know if it is a roost?

nr_gooseslayer

· #13 · Apr 29, 2004

Live to hunt and fish,
Just watch the pond at dark. If the geese stay on the water all night then that is where they roost. Here, they mainly roost on the no hunting side of the refuge then fly to fields, then ponds. We have a couple ponds that we hammer em on every year.

Matt

Live to Hunt & Fish

· #14 · May 4, 2004

I have a really big pond and there are usually at least 50 geese on it. Do you think I should hunt it even if it is a roost? Or just hunt a feild nearby?

nr_gooseslayer

· #15 · Jun 2, 2004

It depends on what type you like to do better. I would go with the one that you can hide better in. I use 10 floaters (2 feeder butts) when we hunt ponds and a dozen shells on the bank. We seem to have better luck hunting ponds because we don't have any blinds yet and we can hide better.

Fili

· #16 · Jul 12, 2004

the land owner didn't want the geese on the pond i hunted on last year. we went in took a few out and the came back not long after.

h2ofwlr

· #17 · Jul 14, 2004

Live to Hunt & Fish said:
I have a really big pond and there are usually at least 50 geese on it. Do you think I should hunt it even if it is a roost? Or just hunt a feild nearby?

I would hunt the field they are feeding in as I would be able to shoot more birds that way. Find the field and set up exactly where they were the night before and chances are they will come right back to same spot and nail 'em in the morning. Watch them for a few days for their new pattern and hit them again, and so on. After a few weeks I would think that you should have them thinned out pretty good. And if the pond owner does not want the geese there explain your plan to him and that at the tail end you will hunt the pond. And best way to do that is wait until after they leave for the fields to feed and then set up your decoys and when they come back from feeding mid morning--they should glide right on in point blank. Remember that hunting the same flcok day after day will push them out the area, so hunt them no more than twice a week, that way they generally will stick around. Good luck.

Grinder

· #18 · Oct 13, 2004

Where I live, options are VERY limited.

Landowners are famous for not only saying no......but hell no. Sometimes you get even worse responses. Besides, most places we used to hunt have been turned into subdivisions. Urban sprawl sucks.

We have a few fields to hunt, but the corn wasn't cut until after the season was over. We have 24 Bigfoot decoys, 24 G&H Magnum Shells and Eliminator blinds.........all of which went unused this season. We are hoping to use this stuff later on in the late seasons.

Instead, we have a blind on a small lake that we use regularly. The local birds all go to the waste ponds outside of town, but tend to pass over the lake on their way to and from the fields where they feed. If they get busted up at the field, or whatever, sometimes they will come in and check out our spread on the flyover.

It's usually good for singles, or pairs coming in a couple times throughout the morning. We rarely hunt this spot in the afternoon. This past Sunday we called in a group of over 35 birds.........no small task for the last day of the regular season. We filled our limit. Unfortunately, the rest of the season wasn't as good. These were the first birds I've shot all year. I had a lousy season, the worst I've had in years. We virtually seen nothing until this past weekend. We seen over 200 geese opening day, but all of them were setting on the waste treatment ponds and none of them got up and flew over the lake.

We even have a gig at a local golf course, but the geese were not there this year. Last year was incredible.

Grinder

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Alexander_Hunter

· #19 · Oct 14, 2004

Grinder,
Sorry to hear about your not so good first season. I know what you mean about people building up large subdivisions. That is what they are doing around the lake that I hunt now. Just a couple of hears ago there were no houseing in sight of this lake with corn and alfafa feild all around it. Now everything in houses and the geese are harder and harded to hunt. Maybe try and find a near by feild to hunt if you can. Good luck.

okieshooter

· #20 · Oct 22, 2004

Guys, just because your hunting over water does not have to mean your hunting over a roost . Nor do you have to hunt big water to have a productive shoot . I don't believe that geese are all that less different from people in that they may act on impulse,i.e. they see the decoys and decide putting their feet down may not be such a bad idea.

I hunt water almost exclusively and can tell you I'm pretty sure I don't an active roost.

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