5 Tips How To Goose Hunting With A Bow

Introduction How To Goose Hunting With A Bow

As the season gets closer, everybody needs a few tips on how to perform well with the bow. Whether you are new to this kind of sport or an experienced hunter looking for some new tricks, in this article we will explain the five best tips on How To Goose Hunting With A Bow.

1.Practice first when Goose Hunting With A Bow.

Although this may sound obvious, it is recommended to practice the use of the bow before you go in the wild and to spend time perfectioning your aiming skills with the bow in natural and calm conditions. Practicing your shooting is fundamental to ensure successful fits, but the familiarity that you have with the bow can be especially crucial if you’re going to wear thick and heavy clothes. In particular, wearing thick gloves can affect the way you handle bow and arrows.

You may not be as quick or as accurate if you’re not used to it, so you definitely want to try it out in a natural situation first and get used to it beforehand. When the situation gets tough and you have very low chances, being prepared and having a perfect aim can make the difference. Once you mastered your aim, it would be ideal to also practise shooting arrows in different situations: from a pit, layout blind, while moving, with windy weather, with fog, and so on. Every bit of effort you spend on it beforehand will turn out to be very useful on the long run.

2.Prepare different goose calls.

Especially when weather conditions are adverse, if you want the geese to come to you, you will need to call them out with specific methods. That’s why sounds named “goose calling” were ideated: they recreate the sound of other geese to attract more of them. There are several different kinds of goose calling sounds that you can easily find online or learn to recreate with your voice, with the difference that some can be more realistic than others.

The wisest thing to do is to make sure you have different types of sounds to try out, so you can judge for yourself which ones work best in different weather conditions, seasons and hunting sessions. Usually, the more realistic it sounds, the better; these kinds of sounds tend to be a bit deeper and softer than most. On the other hand, during windy days you will need to come up with louder, sharp and high-pitched sounds in order to make sure the geese can hear them despite the noise. It is very important to make sure you develop your own system and figure out for yourself what kind of methods work best.

3.Use decoys wisely.

Another smart way to attract the geese to your target location would be by using decoys. There can be several types of decoys in the market: some are standing still whereas others are meant to be left floating on the water. When using standing decoys on land, one thing that often gets overlooked is how close to each other the decoys are placed: in fact, sometimes geese will just hover over the decoy and simply get away because there is not enough space to land.

Some geese can even take up to six-feet room to land. Some decoys can even make realistic movements, either small or visible depending on how close the goose is. However, the movement you get with floaters will lead you to better results and attract a lot more geese. A good combination of decoys on land and decoys on the water would be the ideal method to adopt. There are also feeder decoys that, as the word suggests, will trick the geese into thinking that there is food in that area. Also sleeping decoys will attract geese who will think that the area is safe.

4.Adapt to the weather.

The weather conditions can set several limitations during your hunting sessions, so it’s essential that you learn to adapt to the circumstances in order to make the best of it. During windy days, for instance, goose hunting can be particularly hard: geese always try not to be on air for too long when the wind is strong, so they will land in less predictable ways, in spots away from the wind. That is why you should set up in quieter spots, such as behind a bunch of trees.

Another common behaviour is that when the days start to get colder and temperatures drops to under 20 degrees, they lay down right after they land. This is something you should imitate with decoys in order to make them look realistic and more convincing for the geese to approach. Finally, during foggy days, if loud goose calling is not helping out, you should try by calling geese with flags. There are many goose calling flags on the market, and you can raise them when you first hear them coming towards your direction.

5.Try to be quiet

One last overrated suggestion is to stay perfectly still and not make any sounds. It takes a lot of self-control and discipline to not make any sort of movements when haunting on the blind, but it does make a difference. Geese can spot you better than you’d think, so wearing the right set of clothes is also crucial to blend with your surroundings. It is also recommended that, if anyone comes along, they should never be looking at the goose without a face mask as that could help them see you.

Many precautions are required to stay hidden. It is not until the goose is down that you can move again. Even walking needs to be as silent as it can be: it would be ideal to take a few short steps and then stop again before you keep going. A trick to make sure you go slow enough is to take a half empty package of Tic Tacs: if you can hear your Tic Tacs as you go, it means that you are moving way too fast and need to slow down.

Conclusion

Goose hunting with a bow can be a very fun sport for everyone, although it requires a lot of dedication for better results. Goose hunting seasons can vary depending on your location, so make sure you are always up to date and check the lates related news of your area.