# December Goose hunting tactics.



## Bloodyblinddoors (Oct 25, 2006)

The late goose season is upon us! I thought I'd share some of my ideas and tactics to possibly help some of you out who are interested. So lets get right to it.

Priority #1- TIMING-
When to hunt. This has proven to be probly the trickiest part of late season honker hunting. The birds schedule is so dang inconsistant that many hunters have left the field scratching their heads wondering why the 300+ birds that were in the field last night did not show up this morning.

When it gets this cold the birds typicaly go to once a day feeding and it's usually in the evening. However, Watch the forcast for cloud cover. Cloud cover will trigger bird movement even in the AM. Through the years of targeting these late season honkers I've become pretty efficient at predicting their movement and it has ALOT to do with cloud cover.

Example:
On Thursday I checked the weather before calling the guys for the following days hunt. Solid cloud cover along with flurries all day was the forcast. I elected to hunt the AM. Home run. The birds fed heavy and we won.
Saturdays forcast was to be clear in the AM with clouds rolling in for the afternoon. Just as I thought the birds did not feed in the AM. We were set up and hunting by 2PM. The clouds never came but there was a heavy evening flight. We won again.
Sundays forcast was to be clear in the AM with clouds rolling in between 11 and 1. I told the guy's to meet in town at 1:30. As predicted the birds did not feed in the AM. The clouds rolled in at about 12:30 and it triggered the birds imidiately. Pretty much the whole time we were setting up all the way till sunset the flight was on %100. We won again.

In conclusion- On a clear day hunt the evening. On a cloudy day hunt all day. Watch the forcast for mostly cloudy or solid cloud cover and be ready to hunt when the clouds roll in no matter what time of day.

THE HIDE-
By now most of us will be hunting in the snow. I, along with many other veteran goose hunters, LOVE hunting in the snow. For whatever reason everything the birds learned through out the hunting season seems to go right out the window and they get dumb again. But this is not a time to get sloppy or lazy or try to cut corners with your hide. 
Snow is nice cause those who cant afford to buy layout blinds can simply wear white and lay in the spread and probly do well. White is an easy color to match. But if you're gonna do that dont get sloppy. A white mask, White gloves, Jacket, Pants and Boots will all be neccessary. Not only you but EVERY ONE of your hunting budies.
White boots can be hard to find so I suggest getting either some white hockey tape or medical tape to wrapp around your boots.
A bed sheet to cover your body will only work so well. The last thing you need in the spread is a big piece of cloth thats blowing in the wind like an american flag.

Hiding the blinds. Snow covers are not always the answer. I've seen snow covers that were waaay brighter than the actual snow and have seen them flare geese. In this case dont be affraid to color match some spray paint and paint your snow cover to match the snow. How to color match you ask?
What I do is spray some snow spray (the cheap wal-mart kind) on my sleeve before walking into the store. This will help you find the correct color.

Dont have a snow cover? Niether do I. This is what works for me. Again, Spray some snow spray on your sleeve before walking into wal-mart. Go to the fabric section and find the color that matches. You can get the stuff cheap. When selecting a fabric, Press your hand behind it to make sure it's thick enough not to see through too bad. Other weis your white wont be white when pressed against the blind.
Buy as much as you need to cover your blind all the way front to back side to side. Make cut's where needed and then zip tie it to the stubble straps.
Make sure you dont have lots of loose fabric floppin around. Remember the American flag comment earlier? Yeah. Avoid that.

Make dang sure you have a white hat of some kind. The white blinds are'nt gonna do much good if every one is wearing a different color hat. Non of wich are white.

And make dang sure you cover your face. Exposed skin is poison to any hide. Snow or no snow.

CALLING-
Nothing different here form any other flock durring any other time of the season. It's up to you to be able to know when to be loud, When to be soft, When to shut up And when to be fast and or agressive. Good luck with that one. It's one of the toughest parts of goose hunting to master.

Dont forget that flag. Along with calling it will be up to you to be able to read the birds and know when to flag high, Flag low, Flag quick or long. In the right hands a flag can be as effective as a spinner is on ducks.

DECOYS- 
I like using large spreads in the snow because the birds can see them from a long ways away. Is it neccessary? I have no idea but I love doing it. Plus it's an exciting time of year for me so I dont mind doing the extra work to put out a massive spread.

As you probly already know geese love to lay down in the field when it gets extremely cold. Alot of guy's then love to use shell decoy's. I'm one of those guy's. Is it neccessary? No. I've had just as good of luck using %100 full bodies. I just like using them cause it ads to the overall appeal to us, The hunters. They just look frickin awsome in the snow.

Dont have shell decoys? Use floaters. I've done it in the past and wont hesitate to do it again. It looks awasome.

Hunting a heavy snow fall is a great time to use silouettes. They wont collect snow unless it's a heavy wet snow. Even then, They'll only collect on the upwind side. The birds will finish on the down wind side so you should be good. Or just go around and give each decoy a kick and you'll be good either way.

DECOY PLACEMENT-
This is another thing that seems to change when it gets cold. The birds seem to wanna be where ever the thickest concentration of decoys are. I put 99% of the spread in front of the blinds where as for the rest of the season I'll put about 60-70% of the spread in front of the blinds.

Feel free to ad anything I may have missed or to ask any questions. I'm very aware that ND geese may behave differently than the geese I'm hunting in MN.

Enjoy some previouse late season pictures taken in the spread. Notice the blinds and Blind placement along with decoy types and how they are arranged according to the blinds.


























Notice the color match of the blind to the snow in this pic.

























Notice in the next two pics how I've placed dead geese, Floater and shell goose decoys to mimick birds laying in the feild and how there are live birds laying next to those decoys and dead geese.

















Another decent look at the blinds.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

We've started painting blinds too. It sucks you can only use them a fraction of the year but you can't beat how easy it blends and how nice it is not to try to spray every hunt.


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## Bloodyblinddoors (Oct 25, 2006)

I've been debating doing that too. It would be nice to have painted white blinds. It would save the hassle of having to zip tie fabric to 6 blinds every year when it snows. Then if the snow melts I gotta do it all over again.


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## sno (Aug 18, 2009)

thanks for the tips also liked the plowed field advice


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

Nice write up.

A few other things that I do. Since I hunt a heavily pressured area(Rochester) I tend to mix things up. Its just like fishing if a bass has seen that bait before he probably isnt going to bite. In rochester the guides run huge huge huge spreads. I tend to down grade later in the season and when there is snow on the ground. I will run around 2-4 dozen deeks. The birds catch on to these huge spreads so down sizing can be a helpful thing. Last winter around this time I ran only 2 dozen shell decoys and killed birds like mad.

Another trick to hiding your layout blind and you will look just like the snow is to USE THE SNOW.

I take 2 liter bottles of water out with me punch a few holes in the cap or just uncap it half way and spray it on my blind then immediately throw snow on it. the snow will instantly freeze to your blind and hence you look like SNOW. This work only when it's cold enough as you already may know.

Good luck


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## Bloodyblinddoors (Oct 25, 2006)

templey_41 said:


> spray it on my blind then immediately throw snow on it. the snow will instantly freeze to your blind and hence you look like SNOW.


I gotta try that! Does it stick better than snow spray?


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