Late Goose

[french_lake_kid]

Just got done organizing, gathering, cleaning, touching up dekes for this week. Only have school 2morow & 2sday. Late season geese, do you guys hunt fields, water, what kind of fields, deke set-ups, calling, deke #'s? Basically, what do you guys do 2 kill the later season birds? Tips? Just lookn for some last min. pointers 2 make the best of the week. Thanx

[Jimmy from Cottage Grove]

I wouldn't hunt water for geese this time of year. I would try to find a cut corn field, or a tilled corn field. They seem to work the best. I believe the later in the year, the more decoys you use. I start out with about 25 at the start of the year, and by the end of the year about 75 to 100. I typically set them up in a U pattern. You can use whatever kind of decoys you want. Shells make for a good filler decoys. I usually put my bigfoots the closest to where I want the birds to land. Then my smaller shells. Then at the back I put my magnum shells. I know some people will tell you they even use wind sock decoys, and silhouettes for fillers. And get yourself a nice goose flag. Calling kind of depends on the situation. If they are coming to me, I call very little.A hond every ten seconds or so. If they are not, I am very aggresive.

[Cheetah]

The lake I hunt has a lot of geese that come to it, but never the end I am on. I don't have a good spread of goose decoys though, only 5... Right now for where I hunt, I'd need probably 30+ to get any of the flocks interested. When they come in they already have a set plan on where they are going...

[french_lake_kid]

Thanx guys keep'em coming

[carpshooterdeluxe]

scout. look for smaller local flocks that are hitting fields. you will have a lot better success on these birds even if they are pressured already. also, this alows you to use less decoys; saving your spread for the times when you really do need to pull em all out. during last decembers late season, we had two days on a field in which we only had 11 decoys out the first morning and 24 out the second morning. the field only had 15-30 birds feeding in it but by the second day i dont think any of those birds were alive! they really ate up the small spread and minimal calling.

[HugoBox]

We have about 3 dozen floaters and have had decent luck from time to time on water but we've only had them decoy on bigger lakes when the small ones freeze up. I think the geese can be pretty decoy shy as well so we've even set the decoys 50-75 yards up-wind so the birds are looking past us. They tend to be pretty good at picking out boats and blinds this time of the year so by putting the decoys up so far you are taking attention off of yourself. The downfall of this is that if they don't come in right you end up not shooting which can be a bummer. I've also heard of guys using full bodies out on sloughs and real small lakes - check the ice though so you don't end up being a huntersicle!

Good luck this week!

[fish4cats]

The best success I have had in the late season is with a good number of sili's at the head of the spread (6-10 doz) stacked close together quartering into the wind. 20-40 yards wide and 10-15 yards deep. /\/\/\/\/\/\

Something like this in a semi moon shape /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.

Then I filter down both sides with full bodies to complete the half moon shape.

I have found that with this pattern the sili's do not disappear not matter what angle the geese are at. I place the blinds in the sili's. This pattern has worked everytime for me, with alot of calling and flagging.