Keys to succeed on Canada Geese Hunting

Seen all those big Canada geese on their fall migration might lead to the wrong idea that it's easy to catch a lot of them; after all there's plenty of birds and they are so close one to another that it seems impossible to miss one with a single shoot.

But reality is something quite different. Experienced waterfowlers know that Canada geese hunting is a balanced mix of art, strategy and equipment. A little wrong detail on one of the above will be enough to keep geese away from your decoys, making impossible to hit one, no matter how many birds you see in the sky.

The fact is that Canada geese have an excellent sight and are able to recognize hunters after a few days the season has begun, then they will keep away of anything suspicious, no matters how tiny it is.

On this regard it's important to masterize the art of calling. A wrong call, calling so much or using an inappropriate call sign will alert geese about your presence and once they know you are there, take for sure birds won´t land near such a suspicious call.

Learning to choose the right call and how to use it adequately will take time, for this reason novice hunters must learn from an experienced hunter on a tailored fashion, that means, one to one teaching until the rookie hunter achieves the necessary knowledge.

Easier to learn but not less important is how to deploy your decoys. Decoys are the soul of waterfowling and learning how to deploy them remains a cornerstone for success.

Even when there are different setting options, overall a decoy deployment should contain around 80% of feeding decoys and 20% of active ones. It's also important to use the same type of decoys.

Geese are different from ducks where shells and full body decoys may be mixed; in fact it's a good strategy, but for geese this won't work good enough.

Decoys deployment for Canada geese hunting must be uniform, thus if you are using full body decoys, don't mix them with any other. Same with shell decoys, the best choice is always to keep the same style, otherwise geese will notice "something different" and will fly away from you.

Now you know how to set your decoys and call geese, it's time to know something about your own position: If you are not hidden, geese will see you and never will land near your decoys despite how realistic the set up was.

To avoid being detected try to set your shooting position on a natural hiding place such a hole or beyond some trees. Another good option is to set up a blind, but try to do it away of the landing line, this way it will be harder for geese to spot you.

Finally, go against the flow. If all hunters in the area are setting their decoys cornfields, go away and set up your flock on a pasture pond. Geese learn about hunters' strategies and will detect something suspicious easily, so if you are doing something different to what everyone else is doing, your chances to attract geese increase.

At the end of the day everything is about knowledge. Know your equipment, learn about geese behaviours and notice how experienced hunters succeed and almost without effort you will become a master on the art of Canadian geese hunting.