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THE FIRST HOUR OF GOOSE HUNTING.

By Dennis Hunt

 

This is the time that the goose hunter has the odds in his favor. Most legal shooting times for goose hunters is 30 minutes before sunrise. That is the time when you and your hunting team have to produce. The odds will be against the geese and ducks until the sun comes up and things return to normal. That first hour would be like having a screen put over their eyes. The images they see are not as bright and they cannot determine whether your decoys are fakes or not. The shiny spots on your shells, silhouettes or heads of your windsocks will not glare as they do when the sun is out and shining on them. Most geese and ducks will bust into your decoy spread instead of giving the dekes a 2nd or 3rd look and/or sliding off  and going to some other field. This is when you have to “cash in”.

Your time must be programmed so you will be out to your field on time to get your decoys set up so you are in your blinds 15 minutes before legal shooting time to have a safety meeting and go over your game plan. To do this, you must know how long it will take:

• To leave your motel or hunting camp and get to your hunting field.
• To pick out your spot of concealment in that hunting field.
• To unload the decoys, blinds and equipment.
• To set your decoys up properly.
• To set the blinds up.
• To gather up guns, shells and misc. equipment and set in blinds.
• To move vehicles from hunting area.

The Captain of your hunting team must know the answers to all of these questions and have the time figured out perfectly. I have a friend in Houston, Texas that bought a talking wrist watch from Walgreens a few years ago. He will set the alarm to go off 45 minutes before legal shooting time. When the alarm goes off, the watch will start talking which will indicate that – time is running out! The Captain will hurry his hunting team along to get their duties completed.  He knows the importance of being in your spot of concealment relaxed and waiting for that first wave of mallards to bust into the decoy spread  followed by the first flock of geese.

The geese are in their roost pond awake at least one hour before sunrise. They are hungry and waiting for the command from their flock leader so they can take off and find something to eat. They are hungry and anxious to start their day. There might be many flocks of geese in the roost pond but the geese will be with their families. The families of geese will be grouped together waiting for signals from flock leaders. If you can have flocks of geese take off from the roost pond in 5 minute intervals and head for your decoy spread then, you will have “a perfect world”. You will have constant action until the roost pond is empty. If your shooting is good and you stay concealed, you will cash in and be done early. If you are getting up to retrieve downed waterfowl and shaking hands while not paying attention to oncoming flocks, you will have blown one great opportunity. This scenario has happened to me and probably has happened to you. It is a learning experience!