Rochester Goose Hunt

[Lowrider06]

Well its gettin to that time to head back down to Rochester for some late season goose hunting, something i look forward to every year, anybody else making a trip that way?

[delzz7]

I hoping to go saturday

[coonchaser]

whats a good guide service down that way ??

[jeepguy]

I have been with 3 different guide services over the past 5 years. I am yet to have a good hunt in Rochester. It seems like "yesterday was awesome" is the company line you get from certain guides. I know there is good hunting to be had there, I must just seem to go at the wrong time or just have bad luck.

[fsh4trout]

I don't hunt geese but you could always set up on the soccer complexes in town. There are always geese there .

[IceHawk]

Jeepguy don't feel alone I have had some bad experiances with some also. I was down there 2 yrs ago and we were at a guide service setup in a nice field with pits decoys etc. It was a nice location and I was excited. I had a group of elderly men I took with that love waterfowling and they were excited to at least see some geese and maybe fire a shot at a few. On that day the geese were going to another one of the guides fields and we didn't see or fire a shot at a goose group 0f 7. One of the guides from the hot field came over to us and said his whole group limited, I told our guide let's move to there field. He looked at me and blew me off. Frustrated we decided to head back home after paying for rooms food etc. Our guide service new we were frustrated so he opted to throw in a free hunt for another time so we thought let's try it again. This time we go down same thing happens and the other field is hot again the group limits quick I ask the same questions about possibly moveing to the hot area but ge blown off again. Later One of the guides helpers is sitting in my pit and he leaked out that the reason they wouldn.t move us is that the group of guys hunting the hot fields were from Las Vegas and were tipping the guides with new shotguns so I guess our hard earned money wasn't enough for them! I know there are great guide outfits in Rochester and not trying to cut any of them down it's just that I have been bitten to many times down there to go back. And as far as freelanceing I have done it down there and it's getting tougher every yr.

[Dilly]

I've done the Rochester thing as well. Man we really smoked them here yesterday was what we got too, I just think those birds are so pressured they know the program. They get out of that refuge each morning and fly out to feed and they see decoy spread after decoy spread and hear non-stop calling.

[Riverratpete]

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. We were down there couple weeks ago with a guide service, nice pits, seemed pretty knowledgeable..bottom line.saw birds off to west (we were North) after lunch, guide asked us what we wanted to do (move vs stay) ended up moving to west side.. birds right away and then of course the big flights came over from the west RIGHT at dark..they get pretty smart. I think its really a case of being at the right place at the right time. Helped that the guide was really good at flagging and calling.

[Lowrider06]

I too have been through a fair number of guides down there and as a group of us we havent been too pleased at any of them, for how much to pay them, and most that we went to were only half day, and what a bothered me the most when we did go to some of those guides the geese that you end up shooting you didnt get to keep, we get stuck with a bunch of other people and they threw all the geese into a pile and you pick or they handed you a few. But the last i say 5-6 years now ive been going to one guide service that i pay half of what the others charge for a full day to use his pits and field without a guide and its been great, we do our own calling and stuff, but the guy that i go to is very nice, he calls us when out in the field to find out how were doing, if bad he comes and gives us a hand to relocate us were the geese are flying too. But its a hit and miss, some years we come home with a limit and other years nothing. Its still fun for me either way.....

[leech~~]

Lowrider, we had about the same experience. I think the guides were nice and they were trying hard. But the thing I didn't like about the hunts, is that everyone jumps up blazing and you never know who shot what because theres 10 guys lined up. Then like you said, at the end you just pick some birds out of the pile on the ground and end up with 1 or 2 no matter if you shot all the birds for everyone in the pits or shot none.

[jdog]

is there any public hunting around rochester or it is mainly guided trips

[Riverratpete]

I do agree that it sucks when you have 10 people blasting away..we ran into that issue last time out..thinking about going with the unguided hunts next time.

[leech~~]

Riverrat, give me a howler when you go!

[SEwalleye]

Let me preface this by saying that I grew up in the Rochester area, until recently I had not hunted geese around here & am by no means on the "in" crowd of goose hunting in the area.

I am not defending laziness on the part of guides as some of you mention, but as with any type of hunting or fishing the "should have been here yesterday" line does apply in a lot of situations. You can't predict what any game is going to do day-in and day-out, but you can use historical information to try to do so.

For example, on Thanksgiving I did my first hunt with some guys that have permission on a field - there were birds everywhere for a little over an hour & we ended with 4 birds, but there were plenty of flocks that we worked. The next day, hunted the same field all day & only saw a couple of flocks that were too far away to even work. If I were a guide, after my experience on Thanksgiving, I would have put you in the same field I hunted the day before & you would have been disappointed.

The fact is that the guides pay top money to lease the fields they do & historically those fields produce because the birds fly by those locations (mainly on the edge of the refuge). If you don't want to pay a guide for that chance, then you are left to scouting on your own, which I would guess has a maybe 20% success rate of getting permission, requires your time/gas & still is no guarantee that the birds will fly out in the same direction tomorrow.

If you're gonna hunt with a guide, ask around (like on here) & look for people who have had good experiences with guides, which doesn't always mean that they shot birds. Unfortunately, I can't give a recommendation because I've never hunted with a guide.

If you don't want to pay a guide, it is going to take some scouting time & effort. I would try and focus on areas that are away from the refuge line, but still have water around - the further out of town you go, the fewer hunters & geese, but you can still find pockets of birds.

Just my $.02

[ikeslayer]

ahhh rochester goose hunting at its finest!!!

[delzz7]

I believe the one my brother uses lets you come back for free on another hunt if you dont get any. I went down last year, the group I was with only got 3 in the morning, then went back out after lunch and limited out. Of course I had to get back home, So I missed out on the afternoon hunt. I'm going down on Sat. with my brother and some of his buddies. My bother said the guide service got 68 birds last weekend, I will post our success

[delzz7]

We ended up with 13 birds for 8 hunters, definitely alot of birds flying in the area.

[zackthehunter]

13 geese is great were they close like on the zink video? were u guys shooting black cloud? that stuff is way deadly i shot a black duck last year and it was dead as a rock and it must have been over 50 yardsd awy

[2222]

Some of my friends when with a guide service last weekend. They limited out by 10 O'clock, they had 24 birds. Should get better with this snow. With it closing on Friday, then opening on the 19th it should be fun.

[GooBack]

what guide service? i've never hunted in rochester. sounds like you have to have a guide to hunt there.

[dabber]

Just wondering: what do you tip a goose guide in Rochester?

nothing if no geese? $20.00 if you fill out?

thanks

[Musky Buck]

Sounds like a few muskie guides, good tippers get better spots, no tippers and you'll get the minimum. Can't blame em, money talks as ACDC sings. I would hate to be a goose in Rochester unless I was wounded and couldn't make the flight out of town. Sounds like a lot of pellets hitting a lot of bodies. Good luck and lead em.

[band collector]

There is still places to hunt around town, you might need to do some door knocking. I have 20 years in to hunting these birds, it takes work, but it pays out. If you hunt on the "X" its way better then heated pits anyday!

IMO Preimere Flight is the leader in Roch as far as guides.

[Lowrider06]

Well just got back from rochester today, there was 7 of us and we came out with only 8. At first i thought the way the morning was going that we would of filled out before noon.....barely got set up and a single came in, then about an hour and half we had five of them, and another hour or so couple more. so we had half a limit before noon for us 7 so each one gets a bird. But by afternoon till the end of the day it was really quiet, we did get one more around 2 ish. after that we seen big groups but they didnt respond to no calling and no flagging, figured after a week of quiet and suddenly get shot at, they smarten up fast. all in all i had a great time, cant wait till next year!!!!!

[2222]

Was in Rochester all day yesterday. 1st field we were at didn't see a goose till 9. Between 9 and 10 saw a lot of birds but nothing came in. 10;15 we moved to other field. saw geese rest of the of the day off and on. We got 13 between 9 off us, should off been more , but one end had troubles hitting those little birds. But it was a fun time with Westline Guide Service. Thanks Todd see you next year.