Thanksgiving Goose Hunt - Finally some geese

[RoscoeT]

Finally we got some geese but not the usually kind. We usually never see snow geese near Calgary but when I was was scouting and came across 500 of them I just had to give them a try. I'd never gotten the chance to hunt snows before and this was a real treat. The geese here are doing some strange things this year. There are snows and lots speckle bellies where you usually rarely see them. The Canada geese are not bunching up the way they usually are and they seem to be feeding after dark, or something.
I've been scouting like mad and only ever find small groups of 50 birds. Not enough to get out of bed for. I've seen more specks this year than in all my years combined but I never have any luck with them. They seem to scoff at our Canada spread and just keep flying. I don't mean they flare off, they just never even take a serious look. I'm not sure what we do wrong for them.

When I spotted this field I estimated several hundred mallards, several hundred specks, a few dozen canadas and at about 500 snows. We had lots of specks fly past us and a few circle but none came close enough to check us out. The only geese we got were the snows but that was ok with me because that is what I was looking for. The only group of Canada geese we saw were just circling when my partner shot a mallard and off they went never to be seen again.

Here is 1 happy pup. She has been waiting for weeks for the geese I keep promising her.

[youtube]C3HxcHYcXVw[/youtube]

 

[cam1936]

Good job! I've never shot a snow before. I got out 2 weeks ago and 4 of us limited on ducks and shot 12 Canadas. figured we would have limited on Canadas if we has some dang wind we saw soo many. Since them none of us have even shot because scouting trips have all been busts.

 

[RoscoeT]

Good job! I've never shot a snow before. I got out 2 weeks ago and 4 of us limited on ducks and shot 12 Canadas. figured we would have limited on Canadas if we has some dang wind we saw soo many. Since them none of us have even shot because scouting trips have all been busts.

I know exactly what you mean about scouting being a bust. It seems that the geese are on the water when they should be in the field and vice versa.

I can't pattern them very well this year and I blame the warm weather. It should get better soon and I'm looking forward to a killer Oct/Nov.

 

[the spank]

Congratulations on a fine hunt. Nice quality video! very nice indeed.....

If those Mojo's were running when the Specks came by it may explain why you had a hard time getting them to work you or look you over seriously. As a general rule geese don't respond well to Mojo's running. I have all mine on remotes and shut them off when geese approach.

 

[RoscoeT]

Congratulations on a fine hunt. Nice quality video! very nice indeed.....

If those Mojo's were running when the Specks came by it may explain why you had a hard time getting them to work you or look you over seriously. As a general rule geese don't respond well to Mojo's running. I have all mine on remotes and shut them off when geese approach.

Thanks.
You know I've been hearing that a lot and I believe it. They decoy spread belongs to a buddy and he is pretty set on using the robo duck.
We do get lots of shooting from the ducks but the geese are spotty. Canada geese are about 50/50 Some flare and some finish. Specks avoid the things it seems. The ducks get murdered. We could have shot 10 limits of ducks but we were holding fire hoping some of the specks would finish.

 

[cam1936]

Thanks.
You know I've been hearing that a lot and I believe it. They decoy spread belongs to a buddy and he is pretty set on using the robo duck.
We do get lots of shooting from the ducks but the geese are spotty. Canada geese are about 50/50 Some flare and some finish. Specks avoid the things it seems. The ducks get murdered. We could have shot 10 limits of ducks but we were holding fire hoping some of the specks would finish.

We keep the mojo up early when the ducks are flying, but as soon as the geese are flying that mojo doesn't just get turned off, it comes right down. Specs won't go near them I find.

 

[Cinch]

I too have my spinners on remote and they are all paired to the same remote, they all turn off/on with one button. Prior to having remotes for spinners I would set them up right behind the blind so I could reach up and manually turn them off when dark geese were setting up.