Jerry Carlson

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

When it comes to outdoor activities, hunting geese is probably at the top of my preference list. Because of this, I usually make a couple of winter trips to more southern states to chase the wily goose. Such an adventure happened recently.

It was an early morning start for the 600 mile trip to Kansas. Long time hunting partner Roger Lydeen and I wanted to get there in time to do a little scouting before the sun went down.

When we arrived at our destination, we still had an hour to do some looking around to see which way the geese were traveling out of the refuge. The incredible numbers of snow geese and Canada geese were nothing short of impressive!

The next morning we were up early looking for birds in another location. By the time my brother arrived with the decoys from his home in Springfield, Missouri, we had pinpointed a couple of fields that had potential.

By 3 p.m. that afternoon, we had a spread of nearly 1,500 decoys placed in the field. Because the Canada goose season was still open, we had a mixture of dark geese and light geese spread out over a large area.

It was a last minute and unexpected wind switch that foiled our plans to some degree. However, the evening shoot was still successful as the birds continued to work our massive spread.

Over the years, Lydeen and I have hunted a lot of geese together. As we made the trip back to the motel, we discussed the many difficulties associated with goose hunting.

First of all, geese get hunted heavily in states like Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri. They have seen countless decoy layouts and are not easy to fool. The fact that these birds are smart and have a keen memory complicates the process of bringing them into gun range.

Still, people like us truly enjoy the experience. At our motel, we met hunters from Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona and Missouri that were looking to create the same memories we were finding.

Spring goose hunting is big business for outfitters and motels in the goose belt. Fortunately, there never seems to be a shortage of hunters looking for a unique experience.

This is the opinion of outdoors columnist Jerry Carlson. Contact him at jerrycarlson@cloudnet.com.

Catching a glimpse of whitetail deer