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128 hours to early goose here in central California.
I will start scouting this week.
The last several years have been great.

Good Luck to you too Legband

I have been watching a very large group on private ground since Dove season , they don't go far from water as the
feeding grounds are on the same property ( chopped corn ) , returning to water then back out to the open fields .

The other spots of interest , they come from the Lake ( family groups ) to the low-land pastures in the AM , I haven't
seen them do the same in the late afternoon but once the shooting starts , maybe ? I'll know then !

3200

57-1/2 hours to early Goose
Scouted two fields today one had 10 honkers come and sit.
The other had About 50 or so , I counted 50 but I think a few more landed.
The kicker is we had a stiff wind and I think the birds stayed down longer.
I will go back Friday and check them one more time.
There was tons of feed left from the harvest (corn) and they reseeded with oats.
I think there's a good chance they may start piling up in there.

Legband wrote:57-1/2 hours to early Goose
Scouted two fields today one had 10 honkers come and sit.
The other had About 50 or so , I counted 50 but I think a few more landed.
The kicker is we had a stiff wind and I think the birds stayed down longer.
I will go back Friday and check them one more time.
There was tons of feed left from the harvest (corn) and they reseeded with oats.
I think there's a good chance they may start piling up in there.

Oats I know one thing I find every oat field around me . Because once they plant it OH they will come ,if you are there when they cut it OH MY every goose in the state will be there. I like oats better then sweet corn ..

In the low laying pastures as the green starts to show , birds seem to like to loaf when the shooting starts at the Lake
so , by the second day I should know where to be set-up as this is a yearly routine that we play on ! Having a hemi- marsh
in the bottom of the pasture is like a magnet with such open ground , and they will come , like always !

Early Goose 2014 California
First day of scouting was Wednesday not to encouraging saw 50 honkers
Back this morning and they had brought some friends along to play I counted 300 through the binocs margin of error 5% not bad.
Setting up blinds tonight could not count at least three times as many.
It looks very promising but you know how that go's .
Here are the blinds.
6 layouts 2 dog blinds.

Well it didn't pan out like I had hoped.
the birds have been going to water all week then in less than a hour popping over the levee to feed in the corn.
They broke pattern this morning and stayed down on the water probably due to a rise in temp.
They were locking up 1/4 mile out and bee lined for the ponds.
I managed to break off a few small groups and we shot well.
Took 24 this morning and hopping this evening shoots better.

Nice work!

Thx Nuff

Well it just stayed to hot to long the birds came off the water late.
There was only time for a couple of volleys
We picked up 15 for this evening
So we ended up with 40 in hand not a bad shoot.
On top of that we lost a few cripples from the kids that made it to government property before we could get to them.
Even with premium loads the little guys struggled with the big geese.
Good food
Good fellowship
Good wingshooting.

Still more geese on there to kill or did ha bust them all?
What's your guys early goose limit?

NuffDaddy wrote:Still more geese on there to kill or did ha bust them all?
What's your guys early goose limit?

Yea we passed the big groups , so as to not educate as many as possible so there are still a large number that don't know we were there , and then we tried to get them as they came back in smaller numbers.
Early goose is 10 per person
If the boys were older they also would have limited.
Our farthest volley was 30 yard and most were with in 20

Legband wrote:

NuffDaddy wrote:Still more geese on there to kill or did ha bust them all?
What's your guys early goose limit?

Yea we passed the big groups , so as to not educate as many as possible so there are still a large number that don't know we were there , and then we tried to get them as they came back in smaller numbers.
Early goose is 10 per person
If the boys were older they also would have limited.
Our farthest volley was 30 yard and most were with in 20

Nice. That's a lot of honkers to kill in a day. We have a 5 bird limit and only got there once this early season. But there aren't many 200+ bird fields. Most of the fields we hunted were holding 150 max.

I hear you , and the ones that are out there thin out fast.
theses local honkers have a great caution policy , if we get pressure we won't come back
After a few shoots they move on.
But after the opener it's normally just me and a buddy so we don't need as many birds.

This season was pretty steady for us. Little slow for a couple days in the middle where we couldn't find birds, but we were on 75+ bird fields 10 of the 15 days.

NuffDaddy wrote:This season was pretty steady for us. Little slow for a couple days in the middle where we couldn't find birds, but we were on 75+ bird fields 10 of the 15 days.

That takes some work , Good deal.
15 day early season that's great , we get 5 days.

Legband wrote:

NuffDaddy wrote:This season was pretty steady for us. Little slow for a couple days in the middle where we couldn't find birds, but we were on 75+ bird fields 10 of the 15 days.

That takes some work , Good deal.
15 day early season that's great , we get 5 days.

Lots of driving and coordination between guys. The 15 day season is nice.

My buddy called late last evening and couldn't go , a phone call to another guy that has been wanting to go proved fruitless so It was just me and Colt the wonder
Here are A few pics from the today's hunt.

Only two days left in our early goose season.
I was talking to a young man at our church who lives on a local river.
This area is impossible to get to with out crossing large sections of private ground or making a long long boat ride.
It's a area you wouldn't expect to find geese in.
So he was telling me all about it and it sounded like it would make a neat hunt.
A New Look at some nice country.
And then he finishes up the story by adding and one of the geese has a collar on it.
We see our share of legbands around here but collars are very unusual.
Now according to him there can be hundreds of geese here on a given day so the odds of the collared bird being there are slim.
But they are better odds than from my house, so I'm going.
It's like I always tell the guys I hunt with " you can't kill them from the couch " unless you have a couch in your blind of course.
And by the way we did that when I was younger (Don't Do It ) the rats find the cushions to be a great home and in a few short weeks the whole blind smells like rat piss.
I will let you know how it turns out.

"You Can't Kill Them From The Couch " is a registered TradeMark * of Hughson Waterfowl.
Lol

Beautiful set-up Joe, and the shadow over your blind is perfect

Legband

In my hunting area , the moon light was a factor as the birds feed at night and all they wanted to do was loaf in the
field . Oh yea , there were a few late arrivals that I was able to call into the decoys but most just flew over ( looking
serious ) but kept going . Yesterday am , I took out the 10 ga as with these birds will still be here during the season and
more will join them as time goes on . I shot a few to fill my needs on Sunday and Monday leaving Tuesday ( today ) as a
rest day . Tomorrow I'll kill a few more closer to the lake ( at mid morning ) when they come back for water ! hopefully .

It has been a Great season so far with the HOT weather.......thank goodness water is close by .

Those are some great pictures , Thanks

Deltaman wrote:Beautiful set-up Joe, and the shadow over your blind is perfect

Thx Deltaman.

3200 Man wrote:Legband

In my hunting area , the moon light was a factor as the birds feed at night and all they wanted to do was loaf in the
field . Oh yea , there were a few late arrivals that I was able to call into the decoys but most just flew over ( looking
serious ) but kept going . Yesterday am , I took out the 10 ga as with these birds will still be here during the season and
more will join them as time goes on . I shot a few to fill my needs on Sunday and Monday leaving Tuesday ( today ) as a
rest day . Tomorrow I'll kill a few more closer to the lake ( at mid morning ) when they come back for water ! hopefully .

It has been a Great season so far with the HOT weather.......thank goodness water is close by .

Those are some great pictures , Thanks

Between the heat and the moon I haven't been able to get on a pattern yet.
Even this morning the geese that have been there consistently didn't come I think they could have been shot up coming off their roost as well but either way they were a no show so adapt and over come lol.

Headed to a friends ranch this morning , I have been watching it for a couple of seasons now for waterfowl.
The geese have been coming in every morning like clock work.
Not today though.
Its is a gorges location and you can drive right to the waters edge with a huge canopy of trees to hide your truck under.
I took a couple youngsters and they had a blast , it was beautiful country but no feather cutting.
Defiantly a spot to return to in the future as it holds a lot of birds regularly.
Oh well it just means I can kill a more tonight.

Our early goose season was great this year due to the cold front that came in the beginning of September. In one field alone, we pulled 237 geese between 6 of us in 3 days. This was the first early season we could actually hunt traffic rather than hunting the X, which is way more fun anyways. Most definitely our best early season to date for us bagging just shy of 400 geese in 25 days.

Eric Haynes wrote:Our early goose season was great this year due to the cold front that came in the beginning of September. In one field alone, we pulled 237 geese between 6 of us in 3 days. This was the first early season we could actually hunt traffic rather than hunting the X, which is way more fun anyways. Most definitely our best early season to date for us bagging just shy of 400 geese in 25 days.

What is the daily bag limit in our state ?
Is your early season honkers only ?

Legband wrote:

Eric Haynes wrote:Our early goose season was great this year due to the cold front that came in the beginning of September. In one field alone, we pulled 237 geese between 6 of us in 3 days. This was the first early season we could actually hunt traffic rather than hunting the X, which is way more fun anyways. Most definitely our best early season to date for us bagging just shy of 400 geese in 25 days.

What is the daily bag limit in our state ?
Is your early season honkers only ?

Wow , those numbers are impressive for big geese ! I only shoot what I can use , even with our daily bag at 10 per/day
with a 5 day season but with 50 birds in 5 days I don't need that many . I know our birds will be here during the regular
season so I take some later .

Legband wrote:

Eric Haynes wrote:Our early goose season was great this year due to the cold front that came in the beginning of September. In one field alone, we pulled 237 geese between 6 of us in 3 days. This was the first early season we could actually hunt traffic rather than hunting the X, which is way more fun anyways. Most definitely our best early season to date for us bagging just shy of 400 geese in 25 days.

What is the daily bag limit in our state ?
Is your early season honkers only ?

15 a day and its goose only.

Eric Haynes wrote:

Legband wrote:

Eric Haynes wrote:Our early goose season was great this year due to the cold front that came in the beginning of September. In one field alone, we pulled 237 geese between 6 of us in 3 days. This was the first early season we could actually hunt traffic rather than hunting the X, which is way more fun anyways. Most definitely our best early season to date for us bagging just shy of 400 geese in 25 days.

What is the daily bag limit in our state ?
Is your early season honkers only ?

15 a day and its goose only.

That's a very liberal limit you must be having problems with local geese.

That a lot of damn geese. Didnt realize you guys had that kinda population problem out there. Do you get a lot of hunting pressure?

We have a lot compared to most. I'm definitely sick of shooting the things though.