Small Spreads For Overworked Geese -By Neal Cote
Tired of hauling every goose decoy you and your hunting partners can manage out into the field for little or no return when those Canadas pick the spread apart? Five six and even ten dozen plus decoys and still the birds just won’t finish, it is enough to drive you mad. Not to mention the 4AM wake up call so you can actually get all of them set up, blinds mudded and brushed all before the first flocks catches you not quite ready. I have a solution that will make your life a ton easier and will get you more late season honkers, LESS IS MORE! Try a smaller, more realistic set up.]
The beauty of small setups is the ease of mobility and adjustment. If the weather changes, or the geese alter their flight plans, you can pick up and leave or change your spread quickly. To control their descent, geese always land into the wind. They also tend to move into the wind once on the ground. It’s not unusual for the wind to switch, especially after the sun rises and the warming air causes thermal shifts. In these situations, repositioning 300 or more decoys is a huge task, especially when geese are on the horizon. With the help of just one partner, moving 20 to 30 decoys takes only a few minutes.
Controlling the landing zone of the geese for an all out in-your-face
experience is another benefit of a small setup. A basic half-moon or hook shaped layout creates the perfect landing zone. Such an opening allows sociable geese to land in the middle as they descend into the wind. By downsizing to three or four dozen decoys, you can compress the landing zone into an “x-marks-the-spot” location. In contrast, a spread that consists of 14 plus dozen decoys enlarges the
landing opportunities for incoming geese and could put the birds out of range for the blind.Whether migrants or residents, Canada geese get wise to hunters’ tricks over the course of the season, especially by the time they’ve have been shot at a few times over large spreads. Fooling the eyes of the older geese in a flock with five or more dozen decoys is more problematic in late season. It’s less difficult when there are only 30 or so decoys to manage.
ADDING MOTION TO THE MIX
Motion can magnify the impact of a small setup on Canadas and make it more believable to wary geese. Flagging decoys are the choice of most veteran waterfowlers. Decoy flags are cloth silhouettes of geese attached to a stick that can be waved up and down beside the blind to simulate a landing goose’s flapping wings. This tactic can pull sightseeing geese in to a spread from very great distances. Also add ground level flapping to emulate a bird stretching its wings.
Most full body decoys on the market allow for the decoys to move in the slightest of winds. If you have Bigfoots, you might add some Avery full bodies as they are all equiped with motion stakes. Use some of your Bigfoots without their feet, placing them right on the ground to imitate resting birds.
TONE DOWN YOUR CALLING
As for calling, too much goose talk by callers can convey the wrong message to incoming birds. The new arrivals might be inclined to believe that all the loud, nonstop calling indicates the geese on the ground are preparing to depart. The fewer calls you make, the less chance you have of making a mistake. I call until I get the attention of the geese, then I cluck and moan to them as they get closer. Once they’re on final approach and heading toward me, I shut up and watch. If they begin to stray a bit I’ll cluck and double cluck just enough to line them up, but for the most part, I let them do the talking. Besides, I’m not trying to decoy large flocks, I’m more interested in decoying smaller groups of a dozen birds or less. If you shoot into a huge flock of 50 or so birds, and say get five or six, you will have to face forty plus educated birds the next time. Small groups are easier to decoy and less wary. There are fewer geese to become paranoid.
THE STANDARD LATE SEASON SPREAD
Toward the end of the season, it’s hard to fool the oldest and wisest geese, which have survived several seasons in heavily hunted areas. While many hunters believe huge field spreads are most appealing to smart geese, I believe that smaller decoy spreads draw the wariest birds best. That’s what I go with wherever local Canadas predominate.
From fields near NinePipes by Ronan to Fresno Resevoir by Havre, to the Bitterroot Valley, I have bee consistently successful. It seams like almost very one is now putting out huge spreads for Canadas late in the season, especially on private property where they can literally have hundreds of decoys and can leave them out overnight. Smart geese learn that big spreads are dangerous, so they shy away from them. I like to move often to different hunting locations and put out only a few decoys, never more than a dozen to thirty. A field set of about fifteen to thirty decoys is perfect, because it’s easy for three hunters to carry to a hunting spot. Plus, messing up decoy placement is harder to do with a small amount of decoys. The spread should be set rather loosely, allowing for plenty of landing holes for incoming birds. Geese rarely try to land in the biggest group of decoys. Position your blinds off to the side of the spread, so birds landing into the wind are not looking directly into the faces of hunters.
You’ll need just enough decoys to grab the attention of most local flocks. More than that and you’ll begin to lose control and mobility of the setup. If you use any less, passing geese might not feel secure enough to land. I like to mix different types of Canada decoys. Shells, full-bodied decoys and silhouettes all add realism to a spread. The majority of the decoys should be in the resting or feeding mode, with a few scattered sentries among them. Put them in a high spot in the field or wherever they can see far in all directions. Or if facing strong winds, just the opposite, in the lower spots out of the brunt of the wind.
NO WIND SPREAD
This is a more narrow and oval shaped spread that I favor when there is little or no wind. It’s difficult to direct where the geese land due to a lack of wind. Bunched decoys help put
approaching geese exactly where you want them over the spread. Two vitally important aspects of this spread are
family groups of goose decoys positioned in straight lines just downwind of your hide, with sentry, resting and feeder
decoys positioned properly. Ducks will work into this spread, too, provided there are fairly large landing holes. All sentry and feeding decoys should be positioned facing the wind. Be sure available food in the field is in the upper end of the spread, with head-down feeder decoys massed there. These finish the deal, drawing geese that want to land short of the feeders, where open holes in the decoy spread are located within shotgun range of the blind.
BITTER COLD SPREAD
This spreads most notable feature is a large number of decoys emulate
resting and sleeping geese. Take many of your full body resters and set them right on the ground with the legs folded up. Bunch them up tight. Add about a dozen sleeper shells, Then set several sentry decoys on the fringes, suggesting to incoming birds that this is a guarded place. A large landing area downwind of the blinds is the important element in this set. Geese always try to keep themselves in a spot where another goose is between it and danger, especially late in the season or during cold weather. The Sleeper decoys tell incoming birds that most of the geese on the ground are full from feeding in the field. This is an important communication, showing that there’s plenty of feed in the area.
Whether they’re late-season birds or we just go through a period with no cold fronts and no new pushes of birds and we’re stuck hunting the same birds for weeks, it’s time to get creative. Scout refuges or private land holding birds and mimic their behavior. Pay attention to how live birds are laying out and duplicate that. A lot of times if you set your spread just like the birds looked yesterday, right where they were, that smaller spread will give you some of the best shoots of the season.