Top 3 Snow Goose Hunting Tips

So you want to start hunting snow geese or maybe you've been hunting them for years with little success. Maybe you've been killing them for years and now all of sudden things aren't going well anymore. This write up is designed more for the Texas Gulf Coast hunter, but can apply to other parts of the country as well. Lets face it, these are smart birds (unlike ducks...j/k, but not really!) that can reach 20+ years of age and have been shot at for at least 6 months out of the year. The bread and butter years are during great hatches when an abundant amount of juvenile birds are mixed in the with the adults. These are the years almost anyone can go from a zero to hero, and the years you should be out in the field the most. But it's all about the sunrises, right? (I didn't think so).

So what are the In's and Out's of Snow goose and hunting and maybe some Tips and Tricks that can help you bag more snow geese?

1) Location

Seems logical, right? Hunt where the birds are. We've all heard it a thousand times. But what does it really mean? Unless you are an outfitter, it is impossible for most hunters to be where the birds want to be the majority of the time. This all comes down to cost, since access to property in Texas is mostly private and without an inside connection to someones land for free, you must pay up. This is usually done through a gate fee or lease fee.  The former meaning you pay a standard fee after each hunt and the latter means you pay a lump sum amount to have the sole hunting rights to a tract of land for a season. The average snow goose hunter probably spends around $1,000-2,500 on goose leases each year. This may get you 1 to 4 tract leases or it may get you a membership to a hunting club with 20+ fields (and 10x's the amount of hunters). This doesn't even count towards costs associated with decoys, ammo, transportation, and other equipment. It can add up fast.

So lets break down the typical types of leases.

Tract Leases, Sub leases, and Private Leases

These types of leases are usually either purchased from an outfitter, farmer, or hunting club for you or your group to hunt on exclusively. These are the most ideal types of leases because you make your own rules as far as when to hunt, who will show up, and how the hunt will go down. You purchased the hunting rights to the field and no one else will be hunting it. You will not have anyone show up unannounced and potentially ruin your hunt or force you to hunt around someone that you do not know which could be unsafe.

Outfitter Season Leases and Club Memberships

These are the leases you will likely see in the newspaper offering 30,000 acres of land with fields all over the place. It sounds good in theory and you get to hunt in many counties and chase the birds right? Not really. Unless you become friends with the outfitter or club manager, you will not be able to hunt when and where you want all the time or necessarily get to choose with who. The reason they have so much land is 1) They have a lot of lease members to pay for it; 2) the Outfitter is usually running guided hunts on the same land the lease members are hunting. They will be catered more toward duck hunters and scout the fields each day. The best you can hope for most days is to tag along with the outfitter as he takes day hunters in on a lease field the birds are using.

Obviously this will vary from place to place, but the main takeaway is that it's usually a large operation trying to satisfy a bunch of people and that usually comes with some headaches. Club leases are usually better than outfitter leases if you have to choose. Some of the best hunting can still be found on club leases.

What's Next?

You'll have to decide which type of lease fits your style and budget. The ideal type of situation for most snow goose hunters doing this in their spare time is to find fields in key wintering areas of the gulf coast so that you can move around with the birds. The birds may not be in your field every day or hardly at all, but you have a better chance of being close to them somewhere if you leases are spread out. A lot of times just being relatively close to where the geese want to be is good enough.

One of the most important things to remember when leasing land is that something will always be available for lease. That's also the problem because the vast majority of available land is not worth leasing. You'll have to determine through experience or word of mouth what is worth leasing and what is not. This usually comes with years of experience seeing certain areas during good and bad years, crop rotations, roost pond locations (or lack thereof), and even bird migration shifts overtime.

2) Weather

Weather is ranked only slightly behind Location, but not by much. This is assuming that the objective is to kill as many decoying geese as possible on any given outing. Now,  being successful at goose hunting means different things to different people. Are you happy with not being at work and enjoying a morning outdoors killing a few birds, or is your goal to kill a bunch of geese? If it's the latter, then factoring in weather is a must.

What is the best weather? WIND! And lots of it. If you're objective is to kill geese every time you go out, then you should not even be entertaining wasting your time in the field until there is a good wind forecasted. Before I go any further, I'm not insinuating geese can't be killed on a clear calm day or good hunts don't happen with no wind present, they do, but they are few and far between. This also goes back to what defines a good hunt for each individual person. Is it a handful in the bag per hunter, around 10 per hunter, or even a limit? If you asked a group a hunters you would probably get a lot of different answers. If you want 10-20 snow geese per hunter, then weather is a must. Monitoring sites like Wunderground and www.weather.com for the best time to be out in the field should be a top priority.

Fog is another situation that can present good hunting opportunities. The issue with fog, especially a thick one, is that birds will not fly much and in some circumstances even walk off the roost. Most people having good hunts in the fog are right next to a roost where the birds can just hop over and not fly far. More often than not you will find snow geese using plowed ground during a fog. Most likely so they can better see predators. If you are not near a roost and it's a thick foggy morning, it will likely be extremely slow until the fog lifts and the birds finally expand out a little.

Weather and other factors that are a must during regular season, can mean very little when conservation season starts and e-callers are allowed.

3) Shooting Ability

There are other factors that can easily be listed at #3 (like decoys or concealment), but to have a good hunt (10-20 snow geese per hunter) you have to be able to shoot good. There are just not enough opportunities on a typical regular season snow goose hunt to miss a bunch of shots and still have a large bag of birds. Because of this you have to make your shots count. Letting birds get in range and taking a shot you are comfortable with can only be perfected with experience. Your first shot is usually the best shot before the birds flare off, so it must be a good one. If you are hunting with a large group of people, this can be difficult because once people start shooting you'll see it become a mad house or spray and pray type atmosphere (one of the downsides to hunting with a large group).

The more you shoot, the more proficient you will become at being successful with your first shot and following up with your second and third.