Spread Help...Please!

[Kile Jones]

My friends and I went goose hunting on saturday. We used 12 FFD lessers and 12 over sized pro grade goose shells. I set them in a small hook, with the shells in the curve with some more lessers finishing off the taill end of the hook. We had blinds but we did not have snow covers, but we dug them in fairly deep and stubbled them fairly decent. What I'm trying to get to is that we had single and small flocks commit early but wouldnt finish. We have more FFD's but couldnt haul them all. Its like the geese saw something and just keep going. They wouldnt flare but they would "unset" their wings and cruise away. Thanks guys!!!!

[callem'andkillem']

My guess would be the blinds, but I could be wrong.

[hardcore dekem]

I would agree that would be my first guess, not having good enough hides.
Kelcey

[Kile Jones]

Thanks guys. I am getting a snow cover for my power hunter. Now, would you guys use more decoys or less?

[Jeremy Abbas]

Kile, Late in the year we will pull the blinds from the kill hole and put them on the corners. Get a few loose decoys out in the hole, go back to the basics on callin, belly up some of your actives and most likely you will need to go back to your early season set up of small family groups searching for food as survival mode usually kicks in during the cold temps. This not knowing what your weather is and how stale your birds are.

[Jeremy DeVries]

Your hide was most likely not good enough.

The best way to find out if that is the case, is to walk out of the field, bring your blinds, decoy bags, and try to "repair" your divots and watch a couple flights with NO blinds in the decoys.

If they still won't finish, you are too close to obstacles like trees, ditches, cars, road, fences, power lines or something esle. Move to a larger area of the field.

If they still wont' finish, you may not be in a piece of ground that is high enough. That is, geese don't like to finish into a valley, they'd rather set on or near the top of a rise.

You may simply have too many people/blinds. How many were in you party? You could easily check that by removing 2-3 blinds. If it a tough hide, and by you saying you were diggin in I guess it was, I go with as few people as possible. A tough hide, 2 is my max # of clients. In an easy hide, sky is the limit. Otherwise your blinds really stick out.

You may not have enough decoys to take attention off your hide. In other words, your 2 dozen decoys in a hook are simply an arrow pointing at your blinds. If that's all you have, try to break them up into 4 groups of 6 and hide blinds in one or two of the groups on the upwind side of the field.

There's lot of other variables, but these are my initial guesses.

Good luck.

Jeremy

[Robert Nelson]

Kile,
I have a couple of thoughts there, and jeremy and kelcey touched on many good points.

1) are you flagging these birds at all ? For the last week, even with a great hide on the edge, with 100 to 200 decoys out, we are still having to run the flag on the birds 1 out of 2 flocks as they make the pass over and sweep out to turn. We are not flaggin hard by any means, rather giving a 1 to 2 second flap and laying it back down.

2) we only hunt the edges here in idaho. If you can find a rise in the field like jeremy said, or a good ditch line to break up your hide you should find better success. I have personally found that the HIDE is 95% of shooting geese most of the time.... There are a lot of other variables that go into the mix, but your HIDE should be # 1 priority every time. We have put killerweed on all of our blinds and it makes for fast stubbling in every time we go out.

Heres a pic from todays hide... and it was brutal, it started snowing with our trucks and trailers over our hide, and when we got ready to put out blinds, our area was virtually brown, in a sea of white.

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/1128/thespread1608192decoysir7.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thespread1608192decoysir7.jpg)
Notice the big brown spot in the spread pic where the guys are stading in a sea of white... not the best hide, but it got the job done.

Focus on your HIDE, use some flaggin if your not, and dont be afraid to hunt the edge.

Good Luck
Robert

[dahmer]

I'm hunting the Michigan late season also. Snow covers are a must for sure, we also set-up to cross shoot them so the geese are looking at the decoys and not the blinds, we also set out 3 dozen FFD's lessers and honkers due to the flock that were hunting. We had 1/2 of the geese finish where they were suppose to. I also think these geese are very wary and your going have to change it up to fool them.

[Kile Jones]

Thanks guys for all the help! Robert, we were flagging. Thanks

[Andrew Bremseth]

Everything everyone said thus far is good advice...
I agree with them that the most important thing would be the hide. Don't have the blinds right in the "kill zone" where you want the birds to finish, especially with a small spread so they can't key in on the blinds. Another thing I have noticed, later in the year as the geese have seen all the decoy set-ups, the u's and the c's and everything you throw at them they get nervous and will land on the sides of the spread and avoid the opening you have left them completely. This can make for some frustrating hunting if you aren't set up so you can take shots at the sides or if your decoys are too spread out. Keep experimenting, throw something at them they have NEVER seen, they might like it!

[David Rearick]

Thanks guys for all the help! Robert, we were flagging. Thanks

Also be very careful as to when you flag. If the geese are on the hook and or in close and you flag, they will pinpoint you. At first they may not flare, but as they approach and they are focused on where they saw movement, they may see the flag, your blind, your face, or something else they just don't think is "right".

[Lance Ohnmacht]

Andrew brings up a good point. Late season geese have seen every conventional spread from August till now. I know it's cliche but "think outside the box", or J hook in this case. Several years ago my hunting buddies and I were discussing how we were going to set up, none of us could agree so we just threw out a blob of less than 50 fullbodies and shells. No set up we tried the day before on that field worked, and we tried them all! That blob worked wonderfully, and to this day in fields we don't set up "cookie cutter" spreads. Like Anderew said "They might Like it"!

Good luck!! Post up the results!!

[Allen Riggs]

What we see here in the late season are usually lots of smaller family groups. We don't necessarily use certain shapes, but do like to funnel the birds in a certain direction to get good, clean shots. The most important factor in your case is probably utilizing a better hide. Dig deeper, use more stubble, get that snow cover. We use snow covers and they really work. Hope this helps.

[Webbedconnection]

What would HAWK do!!!!!!???????


Hunting in snow...? He'd get a snow cover! And probably start blowing ZINK Calls!





sorry kile, couldn't resist.

[E. Smith]

Just something to try out maybe set your decoys out give them a whole to land in and set your blinds back a little ways from the decoys in snow like that it is really hard to cover those blinds up without snow covers so just try it out and see what kind of luck you get. Well good luck and safe hunting.

[Andrew Bremseth]

Exactly what the guy above me said ;)