Dog Days of Goose Hunting
By Russell Tinsley
 

After more than four decades of chasing geese, my many hunts over the years have been pretty much the same. While all were fun, and some more productive than others, only a few were uniquely different.

This one made the short list.

Even so, some details are sketchy. Over time, memory blurs. It was in the late 1960s and we were hunting near Eagle Lake-just exactly when and where, I can't say-but I do know Marvin Tyler of the Blue Goose Hunting Club at Altair was our guide, it was the last day of the season and the weather was uncharacteristically springlike-mildly cold, a high sky with not a cloud in sight, almost calm, not enough breeze to move the pieces of soft white plastic we were using for decoys.

From what I had heard and experienced a couple of times, with those conditions our odds of success were not all that great. In clear weather the big birds tend to fly way up there, plenty safe from shotguns. When there is significant wind, geese fly closer to the ground, and at the same time the breeze moves the white plastic and makes the spread seem alive-geese on the ground, feeding. Late-season geese-especially snows-are spooky birds, wild from being hunted, and they are not inclined to decoy under even the best of circumstances.

Well surprise, surprise. Hunts don't always go by the "book." At precisely 8:39 a.m. our party of five limited out. I remember the time because I looked at my watch when the last snow goose hit the ground. I'd never experienced goose hunting quite like this. As the old saying goes, "The birds covered us up." A winter snow goose storm, it was. They flew low and right to us.

At the time, I sometimes took success for granted. Limits were not that rare back then. I was more impressed by how quickly we had put that many geese down, despite the "uncooperative" weather and the geese being as wild as you would expect near the tail end of the season.

One thing I had learned after more than 40 goose hunts-including one stretch of 23 straight years when I didn't miss a season-is that hunts like this are not a gift of luck. According to Clifton Tyler, they are the result of knowing the birds' routine.

Clifton is the son of Marvin, now retired. I've hunted with one or both since Clifton was a star lineman for the Columbus High School football team and was one of his dad's guides when he was available. Today, Clifton is the owner of the Clifton Tyler Goose Hunting Club in Eagle Lake. (Marvin sold the Blue Goose Hunting Club to John Fields and it is still based in Altair, not far from Eagle Lake.)

Anyway, as Clifton explains, there is one mitigating factor that can make or break a hunt, no matter the weather conditions or the time of the season. On the hunt I have been describing, we located in the right place. Marvin knew where the geese were feeding.

The next morning, before the birds left their roost, we were arranging the so-called "spread" of white out in the field, some distance from a fenceline. Geese will shy away from the fencelines because they want to use their eyesight to avoid danger. By legal shooting time we were ready for them. The geese were determined to return to the field in which they had been feeding the prior day. They came directly to the spread, within easy shotgun range.

Location, that's the key. "It is no different now than it was back then when you hunted with my dad," Clifton says. "If you find a field where the geese are feeding and you have access to that field, you can get in there early before the birds are flying, set up, and count on getting some shooting. The birds want back in their feeding grounds.

"Forget the weather and the fact that it is near season's end and the birds-especially the veteran snow and blue geese-are supposed to be wild almost to the point of being paranoid. The other hunting-setting up on a flyway and trying to decoy geese as they fly from roost to feed-is much more iffy."

Establishing location 30 or more years ago was much easier. This is because there was little interest in goose hunting before Marvin, along with a few others such as the legendary Jimmy Reel, started commercial hunting on the Eagle Lake, Lissie and Garwood prairies. As Clifton explains, few farmers back then leased their lands for hunting. Marvin knew most of the farmers. If he located feeding geese and he wanted to hunt that field, all he had to do was pick up the telephone and ask, offering to pay about 10 bucks per person for hunting privileges. Thus, he had the benefit of prime location almost every day.

Today, however, virtually every acre of huntable land from Beaumont to Bay City is leased, and a guide can't go just any place where geese are feeding. Access is the key to a successful hunt, as much as location.

Which brings up a point: If location is so important, why don't more goose guides nowadays pay attention to it?

They do, when the opportunity is there.

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