Downed goose tactic question - help!

cdncowboy

cdncowboy

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My hunting buddy and I have debated this goose hunting question year after year so your help would be appreciated...

After geese come into our corn field and we shoot a few should you quickly run out and collect them or leave them amongst the decoys to act as additional decoys??

This isn't a moral question but one of tactics. My belief is to quickly collect them because we have decoys and I feel that, even after righting them so they look like they are lying down, they may spook incoming geese.

My friend thinks that if you right them so they look lying down, they are now additional decoys.

What do you guys think/do????
 
We throw them under our other decoys. I know of one fellow who was inspected by a CO and had a "dead" goose come back to life and was charged with using live decoys.

Others sware by using dead geese as decoys, with 7 dozen in the field will one extra make any difference?
 
Yes we use a shell decoy but they are on a metal peg to elevate them off the ground... putting them under the decoy is not an option.

I need help specifically with: should we leave them in the field upright or remove them?

Thanks.
 
If you can't hide them just pile them up behind your blind belly down. Never been a problem for me. They are not that smart.
 
Pile'em up next to you ... simple! I've had a friend and then myself do this before ... stood straight up and didn't move with nothing around us(arctic tundra/no trees or bush) and called them in ... then shot several standing ... no blinds, no tree to hide behind ... just standing still ... geese aren't rocket scientists! :p

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
 
I will go out on a limb here, but under the Migratory Bird Act you have to retreive the game as quick as possible. However a actual time is not given.

So do you meet the requirement of picking them up and moving them around or do you not meet the requirement by letting them fall were they may?
 
Otokiak said:
Pile'em up next to you ... simple! I've had a friend and then myself do this before ... stood straight up and didn't move with nothing around us(arctic tundra/no trees or bush) and called them in ... then shot several standing ... no blinds, no tree to hide behind ... just standing still ... geese aren't rocket scientists! :p

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
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Yes, but Otokiak, by the time they get to those of us living in proximity of the US border, some of those geese have a MSc/PhD quality education in what a decoy spread looks like!

Most of the geese you are shooting at on the tundra (this year's young) have never seen a human before, nor decoys, nor blinds, nor shotguns. By the time they get here, they have seen them many times.

As for the OP's question, I don't know if it makes any difference, but the dog brings them to the blind, so that is where they stay (for us).
 
We generally go out and get them as soon as we can, unless more are coming in and wing locked. Some others Ive hunted with will put them in kinda a sleeper position, others will put them under decoys. Definately get the ones that hit the ground and start to wander off no doubt, they can cover some real ground real fast if not that badly wounded. We dont leave them lying on the ground because it never fails, 80% of the time they are belly up, but I dont know if that makes a defferance, but we dont wanna start finding out they dont like it. To be honest, I dont know if its legal to put them in a sleeper and make them look like other decoys, but for the most part they go under the big magnum decoys we got.
 
Cletus said:
Definately get the ones that hit the ground and start to wander off no doubt, they can cover some real ground real fast if not that badly wounded.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of a hunt a couple years back. Had an okay day, with a few geese coming in. Buddy shoots a goose and it falls hard about 50 yards out. More geese are coming in, so he waits and shoots a couple more. I am quite a ways off to the side as they were coming either side of a small hill. I could see the goose basically crawling, head down and wings tucked, heading for the grassy area along the ditch.

I figured he was dead and just didn't know it yet, and that he would hide himself in the grass (snow on the ground) and we would pick him up later.

Turns out the bugger crossed the road and walked almost a full 1/4 section along the canal! That is half a mile! We had looked around for over half an hour before I noticed his toenail marks in the ice hard snow.
 
Pudelpointer said:
Reminds me of a hunt a couple years back. Had an okay day, with a few geese coming in. Buddy shoots a goose and it falls hard about 50 yards out. More geese are coming in, so he waits and shoots a couple more. I am quite a ways off to the side as they were coming either side of a small hill. I could see the goose basically crawling, head down and wings tucked, heading for the grassy area along the ditch.

I figured he was dead and just didn't know it yet, and that he would hide himself in the grass (snow on the ground) and we would pick him up later.

Turns out the bugger crossed the road and walked almost a full 1/4 section along the canal! That is half a mile! We had looked around for over half an hour before I noticed his toenail marks in the ice hard snow.
Click to expand...

Wing tipped one last weekend at around 80 yards, by the time it hit the ground it was 100 yards out, I didn't catch it until it was 600 yards away. Some times they take alot of killing.
 
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