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Out of my league here, and need some input from those of you that hunt them regularly. Our local population of Greater Canada geese is reaching a point where they are worth targeting, and last year, I yelped using my mouth and pulled several to our spread to die. This year, I bought a few Canada floaters, and want to buy a goose call (made my throat sore from yelping last year), and am curious to see what you goose hunters would recommend. I do not need anything fancy or high priced, just something that will be functional, and save my throat. Have never even looked at goose calls, and am wondering if there is a difference between what you Speck hunters use versus what you Canadian hunters use. Is there a difference, or is it just a different call and cadence used between the two species? Been hunting ducks all my life, but feel like a greenhorn when it comes to geese.

Another nice surprise for our area, that typically holds mostly well educated Gadwalls, is an introduction of Black-Bellied Whistlers. I have seen them along the coast of MS in the past, and always wondered why we didn't have them here along the AL coast. Last year was my first sighting, when a friend took a picture of one standing on the roof of my stepson's houseboat, and another that was shot nearby. This year, one of my hunting buddies sent me a picture of 9-10 adults, and 30+ ducklings that have used his small private piece of property on the water's edge for raising their young. Glad to see that they've finally made it to AL, and hope that the population will flourish, especially after reading Rick's reports of how good they are in the pot.

I use an Olt 800 wooden call and have for over 30 years., New reeds every year, and it will bring them in. I can even bring them back after being shot with this call. Olt 77 is also on my lanyard, I switch up as I keep one tuned high and one low

The instructions I got when sent out to guide for Canada Geese the first time were pretty simple.
The boss handed me an Olt A-50, he took the exhaust end off, and said, "don't blow on it unless you have to".
Then he added that "you won't have to".

He pointed out that there were over $10,000 worth of decoys in the field and I had a $10-goose-call.
Then he asked me "what was more important $10,000 worth of decoys or that $10-call?" . uhhhhh

Pretty sure that I made one or two honking sounds for the two guys errr "guests" that paid so much to shoot 4 geese.
Too bad one's gun failed and the other's shot once then failed.
Yeah. Somehow two guys killed 4 Canada geese with one shell.
(wink wink)

Throbbin Rods wrote:I use an Olt 800 wooden call and have for over 30 years., New reeds every year, and it will bring them in. I can even bring them back after being shot with this call. Olt 77 is also on my lanyard, I switch up as I keep one tuned high and one low

You shoot a lot more geese than I do, but here is what I see and would say to someone new.

I think high pitch kills more geese than low. Low sounds better, but excited geese are higher pitch.

What I do better than most is reading the geese. My calling is not going to win any calling contests and I hear a lot of people that sound a lot better than me, but I tend to kill more geese than most of them. The birds tell you a lot if you pay attention.

The best thing is to echo back whatever they are doing if they are making any noise. If they show interest, keep it up and do not stop until you are ready to shoot. I used to make that mistake all the time when I was not confident. I was more worried about making a mistake and would stop which was a big mistake. If a flock shows no interest, sometimes very excited clucking can bust off a single, if one does start to peal off, dial it up as much as you can. You are fighting a tremendous pull of the flock so you have to pull harder. If the whole flock gets wound up, just keep it up.

This echo back is especially true of lonely singles. They typically give single cluck, pause, single cluck. Hopefully you see enough you learn to recognize the lonely goose. I hear it walking outside at work and I get excited Just match that. They cluck, you cluck, they cluck, you cluck, ... If they skip a beat, you don't. If they just check you out and move on, let them and don't chase them off trying to pull them back. A lot of times they will come back later and just sail in out of the blue 15 or 20 minutes later without making a sound. I don't know how many times I'm hunting with other people and they decide they need to "help" with singles and either flag or call and run them off.

The other end, if you kill at least one out of a flock, and especially one out of a pair. Beg them to come back. Long drawn out honkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, honkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, ... The pair bond is very strong and you will be surprised how many times you can bring back birds you just shot up.

A black flag is also a great tool. It doesn't have to be a fancy store bought flag. Just a flat black maybe 16"x12" homemade flag on a dowel rod. That's what all I used until I started hunting in pits a few years ago. Rolls up nice and fits in the gun case with the gun. If you are hunting a traditional duck blind, wave that flag in a figure 8 pattern when they are 200 yards or more out. They can see it from further away than you can believe. It's amazing how this catches their attention and then put it away so they don't focus on you. If you hunt from a pit or layout, you can flag a lot more and that's where a better flag is needed.

aunt betty wrote:He pointed out that there were over $10,000 worth of decoys in the field and I had a $10-goose-call.

But he is not going to have $10k in decoys. Three is enough. In that case, the $10 call will make a lot of difference. I agree with a spread like you are talking about in a location you are talking about, most people do more harm than good. That's where reading the birds comes in to play.

Just being able to say clearly "hey over here" in goose makes your spread a lot more attractive. I've killed a fair number of geese with just a few goose decoys. My main hunting partner aggravates me. When we are focused on ducks, he usually goes out the night before and sets out the spread. I like how he sets up for ducks, but he often puts out no goose decoys. Just one damn goose decoy is often all you need. He'll never learn. That happened opening day two year ago. I knew I should have asked and grabbed a few out of the back of my truck. I flagged at a pair about 400 yards or more away. They reacted, I got on the call, brought them in and they circled a few times at about 70 yards or so and then dumped in to the next blind over because they had a few goose decoys out ONE, just put out one every time even if you aren't expecting geese. I prefer 3, but one is probably enough.

Thanks for the feedback! I was surprised at how expensive goose decoys really are when i started looking, and noting the fact that most goose hunters use large spreads, made my wallet cringe I only bought 8 of them, but figure that since they are not specifically targeted by most duck hunters here, am hoping I can pull a few more in using a few realistic decoys this year.

There ain't no way of getting me to lay on frozen ground in a little tiny coffin blind unless there are at least 100 goose decoys in shooting range. You're right about how one can do it but you're talking about curious geese. Where I'm shooting at them they are not one bit curious.

How it works:
The geese (1000's of them) roost on the Chanute AFB golf course around Christmas. Some stay on the new pond in town. 50,000-100,000 noisy ass geese. Everyone hates em.
Each day they fly out but usually most head in one direction. They're either headed for Gifford or Thomasboro. They all get up and trickle out in big bunches. You can call til your lungs fall out and they won't react until the main flight is over. That's when you get lost singles and pairs that slept in flying around going "hey where'd everybody go?". Those are the geese to target. They're easy then.
Bam bam done go home.

The gift: The location of Chanute AFB is Rantoul aka "Little Chicago" aka "Rantucky".
Get a pile-o-cash and head there in late-December. If you could lease about ten sections and organize you'd have something worth fightin' for. Try and get every field along the south and east edge of the old base. Should only take 30 or 40 thousand bucks to get started.

Warning! Rantoul is the DUI capital of the world. You will get stopped and there will be a dog.
I think the population is around 13k in that town but only 14 people have a driver's license.

Deltaman wrote:Thanks for the feedback! I was surprised at how expensive goose decoys really are when i started looking, and noting the fact that most goose hunters use large spreads, made my wallet cringe I only bought 8 of them, but figure that since they are not specifically targeted by most duck hunters here, am hoping I can pull a few more in using a few realistic decoys this year.

To pick up an incidental Canada while hunting other things, 8 is more than enough.

aunt betty wrote:There ain't no way of getting me to lay on frozen ground in a little tiny coffin blind unless there are at least 100 goose decoys in shooting range.

Agreed, but I don't think there is a lot of frozen ground hunting in the Mobile, AL area.

Deltaman wrote:I do not need anything fancy or high priced, just something that will be functional, and save my throat. Have never even looked at goose calls, and am wondering if there is a difference between what you Speck hunters use versus what you Canadian hunters use. Is there a difference, or is it just a different call and cadence used between the two species?

Once won a bet by calling our limits of big, resident Canadas with a squeeze bulb bicycle horn I bought at a neighbor's garage sale for a quarter. Then did it again the following morning, "just 'cause I could". You'd probably be better off with something like RNT's "Goosezilla" or Buck Gardner's "Canada Hammer," but the point is that it really doesn't take much to trip them up tone-wise if your tactics are sound.

Though you can torture Canada tones out of a speck call and the guts are quite similar in appearance, the reed to toneboard set-up is quite differnent, with Canada reeds working just inside the end of the tone channel and speck reeds just outside of it. And their operation varies, as well. Best to have a dedicated call for each - not that some specks won't come to Canada calling and vice versa.

Have seen specks come to Canada goose calling.
Am not so sure a Canada would come to a speck call.
Maybe. 50/50

Mastering a speck call is pretty much at the top of the food chain of calling.
It's not easy at all.
Canadas are easy compared to specks if you don't count putting out the spread and putting it all back up.

Don't have nearly as much experience with specks but from what I've seen they'll decoy to six Canada decoys and one snow.
Legal baited field helps a lot.
Arranging that is not easy. Weather has to be just right on the right day. The combine has to break down just before the storm.

Getting the GW to say OK was a whole lot easier than we thought. Called him and said take a look. He said as long as we're not driving the 4-wheeler out there to scatter the grain (soybeans) that it was fine. Oh boy what a year the bait-field year was.

I will start off by saying ulness you're willing to put in the time... DON'T buy a short reed goose call! Trust me you'll regret it.. it takes a long time to learn how to appropriately manage your own back pressure with your hands.

For quick goose sounds for beginners and those to don't have the time or the need to learn a short reed a buy a goose FLUTE! The elongated barrel will create the back pressure for you and all you have to do is add air... much easier for the beginner and they make some nice sounds. Sean Mann I believe makes some nice flutes... but I killed honkers in my earlier days with a $20 plastic no name flute...

Just get an old Olt model 77.
If you're feeling adventurous bid on these.
There's at least one 77 in there along with the model 66 duck call that has the original lanyard.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Duck-An ... 2422297392

While you're at it pick up an antique shotgun to go with the antique calls.
You'll be the coolest duck hunter kid on the block.

aunt betty wrote: While you're at it pick up an antique shotgun to go with the antique calls.

I'd recommend an old Belgium made Browning Auto - 5 Twelve...

DukMan wrote:

aunt betty wrote: While you're at it pick up an antique shotgun to go with the antique calls.

I'd recommend an old Belgium made Browning Auto - 5 Twelve...

Dangit. You take that back.
Had him right where I could reel him in and sell him an obsolete Model 1897 Winchester sweeet 16 gauge...for geese rofl.