When it comes to snow goose hunting, many people of depend decoys and decoys spread. I have seen people put up thirteen hundred to twenty hundred decoys. I have been using a much smaller spread for many years, and I have shot thousands of geese over the spread, and I only have about one hundred and eighty to two hundred decoys. I have been hunting with two guys including myself making us three, and we have killed over twenty thousand geese over the spread. A lot of people have been asking me what makes my snow goose hunting with such less amount of decoys so successful. Some of the answers to that question are what I have decided to briefly share in this article.
The biggest thing is knowing the presentation, setup. A lot of the tricks I have are winds and decoys. I do not always use a bunch of guys. I always hunt snow goose with not more than four guys. When shooting snow goose and setting up the hides. I watch the goose and sometimes I can say they tell me what to do. Where they land and the positions that I can place the decoys. Knowing how they fly, can be very important because, with their movement, you are able to guess how and where to position yourself, your hides and the decoys. Sometimes I move the decoys from one position to another. This is because I am trying to guess what the geese like and what they do not. The way they flow, the side they drift from, and what they see that make them comfortable is essential in the makeup to snow goose hunting. When they are coming to the decoy spread, and they are moving from one way to the other, that tells me whether I will need to adjust the spread or not. I learned about these because I have had a lot of experience in the field. This is not what a beginner snow goose hunter can just make up on his or her own overnight. It takes a good number of years or time to get to know every technique that is applied to have a successful snow goose hunting. Another thing is the sun. The sun can help you or hurt you depending on the position. But if it does hurt you, no worries, all you have to do is just move things around – adjust some stuff, and you will be good to go.
However, when I get the decoys set up, and I have got the wind, the next thing I do is to keep a tighter spread that is not so wide and to be honest, this is easy. I put the waterfalls in the areas where I think the snow goose eye will be hitting. And another thing is that I always want them to hit each other and that is where the birds are going to be landing. Sometimes I arrange my decoys in elongated pattern thirty to fifty yards from each other and up to seventy yards long. I do spread my decoys downwind. I string them into smaller families between ten yards apart. This will allow the decoy goose to fall into the feeding line walk up to the blind layouts which I positioned upwind of the decoys body. The aggression of the snow goose during is what will bring it up to the front of the line that I did prepare for it. This is exactly what gets the snow goose to commit to the setup. When this happens, I am guaranteed of going home with a bag full of geese.
During snow goose hunting, it is important to use goose hunting gears that are reliable. It is better to cry once than to cry all the time. Although, most shotguns for goose hunting are not as cheap as many people might be thinking. I have been using Benelli Super Black Eagle II rifles for snow goose hunting and also as my home defense weapon. I mounted one of the best shotgun scopes for short range shooting on it. As you may know, red dots performs great in the short range, and they are great scopes for home defense weapons. But most times when I go for snow goose hunting, I disconnect the red dot from my shotgun as I do not need to look through a scope when hunting the bird.
There are some common factors and things that every beginner or veteran snow goose hunter should always pay attention when hunting and they include:
The weather: there should be a difference in your setup when you are shooting in a snowing day, stormy day or bright and sunny day. When the weather is rainy, or if there is a storm, I always try to set my visibility to be high. I try to create a lot of movement that attracts the birds, and I call them also. There are a lot of goose callers in the market. Snow goose hunting in an extreme weather condition can be highly challenging, but can also be incredibly Always try to know where the snow geese are coming from as I had said earlier because it may contribute seriously to your success.- Lanes shooting: most times snow goose hunters overlook this simple thing. It is essential and adds to dropping a lot of birds from the sky when hunters shoot in their lanes. The rule is simple and has a high yield.
- Hides: to achieve a fruitful snow goose hunting, you must learn to hide away from them. During the winter seasons goose hunting, I wear white, and I always lay still to the ground. I sometimes hide within the decoys.
- To scout: this is crucial for any kind of hunting especially in snow goose hunting. Try as much as possible to make sure that you never hunt with the roost at your back when possible. Also, try to make sure that the geese get comfortable every time and any day they are feeding. Geese are one set of birds that never leave a place until the whole food in that area is finished.
