Early Season Water setup?

[Fish_Off]

Haven't hunted for gesse on water in the early season before and I was wondering if I should use the same set up I do in fall or if I should have a completly different one ?

[Fish'n guy]

What I have always done is set up two different groups one close to shore and one out a little ways just at the edge of shooting range (which should make somewhat of a diagonal line gradually pointing towards shore.) The gap between the two groups should be wide maybe 10-15 yards then I will take one or two decoys and put them in the middle towards the outside a little bit and they will sort of work to dirrect the geese into the landing zone. Hope this helps!!!

This worked well for me last early season.

GOOD HUNTIN!!!

[Tyler Holm]

Just take a look at how geese normally sit in that area. My guess it that many times you will see the standing right on shore on a point or sandy/grassy shoreline. Don't be afraid to put some standing geese on shore. The geese will certainly land in the water as they decoy into you. It's hard to say exactly what to do unless I know more about your exact setup and shoreline. You don't need many geese. I'd say 30 is plenty and 50 is too many. Don't do anything out of the ordinary for this time of year. Geese are not grouped in flocks of over 30 in early season.

[ironman]

How about the big rivers...seems I'm always seeing small flocks flying or swimming up and down...like the mississippi or Minnesota? How would one set up for this? Pass shooting...maybe a few deks on the down stream side of an island?

[IceHawk]

As for hunting big rivers I like to set-up on islands in the middle of the rivers if possible. The best scenerio is if you have a shallow sandbar sticking off of one side. If I found this situation I would set up some silo's and full-body's on the sand bar with a few floaters around the edge in small family groups. If there are any geese flying with in distance of this set you should be able to pull in a few for a closer look.

[Roosterslayer05]

Hunted SW MN. Me and a buddy got 2 geese saturday morning, and 3 of us sunday morning shot 2. We missed plenty of easy shots, we could have easily came home with 10 geese instead of 4, preaty decent hunting saturday. Had some guys hunt a gravel pit that was holding a couple hundred birds and they shot those birds off the roost saturday and they all left. That really hurt the hunting for sunday.

[woody1975]

I agree with roosterslayer, the water hunt for geese really screws things up. The geese that usually find refuge on the water during the day, get chased off and never come back. I have seen fewer and fewer geese get shot by the majority of groups as a whole than years past. By the middle of the first week, most of the geese are gone.

Just my two cents,

[poutpro]

What time of the day is best for over water hunting? Do they prefer to feed in the afternoon and return to the water at night? Or do they just leave whenever?

[IceHawk]

Most geese will go out at daybreak to feed and will return around mid morning or so to the water, they will once again go out twoards evening to feed and usally arrive back to there roosts late. Your best chance of killing geese on water is on a mid morning day hunt.

[poutpro]

When youre in water, should you still use family groups during this season, or do geese tend to bunch up more in the water? What type of setup would work best for in water?

[tacklebox7FF]

I think it primarly depends on how big of water your actually hunting.. the smaller the slough the less amount of decoys you need. we hunt about a 10acre slough and use 1.5 dozen in two groups it works pretty well.. just give them room to land...

[Fish_Off]

Thanks for all the tips guys. I hope to try this out this weekend.