Goose decoy carrying in a Kayak?

[Travis12]

This season I have been hunting Ducks in Galveston in my Drifter kayak. I would like to get some Geese. I see Geese and can call them a little closer but never close enough to take a shot. My question is what would the best Goose decoys be in my situation? I can carry about 2 dozen large duck decoys on my kayak that seems to be more than enough to get the ducks to come in what about Goose. I am in about 2 – 3 foot of water. Would rags work? How do I make rags? Weight and size would be a big concern. I see most people setup dozens of decoys when shooting Goose. Would I be better off not using goose decoys just try to call them in?

[GoinCoastal]

I grew hunting ducks and geese on the bays and in the rice fields near Victoria. I have never seen geese come in to decoys on water. NOW that may be because we just never tried it. But we always hunted ducks on water and geese on land. We used to use white rags and/or newspaper for the geese. The more the merrier with geese. I had one friend that used white frisbees. Talk about easy to set out!!!! Then we would start callin'. The geese usually cooperated...

I am interested if anyone has had success with the geese over water.....

[Joe Guilbeau]

I grew hunting ducks and geese on the bays and in the rice fields near Victoria. I have never seen geese come in to decoys on water. NOW that may be because we just never tried it. But we always hunted ducks on water and geese on land. We used to use white rags and/or newspaper for the geese. The more the merrier with geese. I had one friend that used white frisbees. Talk about easy to set out!!!! Then we would start callin'. The geese usually cooperated...

I am interested if anyone has had success with the geese over water.....

Baby diapers is another standard, those diaper services can supply you with them pretty cheap.

Our rice fields down here are usually a good bet.

[Ne'r-do-well]

I use white plastic kitchen bags rapped around a 2 ft dowel rod and tied off with thick rubber bands to form a head. They look really good in a rice field or in a plowed field and 6 or 7 dozen of them weigh next to nothing. Of course you can't use them in 3 feet of water, but if you know a legal mudflat or field to paddle to, you could take lots of them in your kayak.

[Ner'-do-well]

Pardon the attachment but it's actually better for the dowel rods to be longer than 2 ft. (between 2.5 and 3 ft.) That's because there is normally some standing water in fields and flats and the decoys don't stand high enough if the rod is too short. By the way, you can fit 6 dozen in a duck decoy bag with no trouble.

[KiOR Maniac]

hey travis...you're going to have a pretty hard time shooting geese out in the middle of the bay with the number of decoys you plan to use or unless you're near a roost or between the roost and where they feed. i guess you could pass shoot them, but getting them to come down for a few dozen decoys at the most is dang near impossible if you ask me. i've hunted out in rice and maze fields with ~1500 decoys and electronic callers and they still just fly over. people use to be able to throw out paper plates and shoot geese all day long, but now they've gotten smart. you damn near have to use decoys that look like real geese to get them to come down close enough for a shot, and trust me....it doesn't always work . i will tell you this, i know they make inflatable duck decoys, so you need to find someone who makes inflatable goose decoys. get you a few dozen of those and an electronic caller.

[Ne'r-do-well]

I know that's right, 'Maniac.' Those white crows are getting smarter by the day. I did OK with my modest little set up last year because I was hunting a burned marsh where the geese wanted to be. A warden I know tells me he sees more and more outfitters using "stuffers" which are actual geese stuffed by taxidermists. You won't get many of those in a kayak!
(By the way, you really know how to hurt a guy posting a picture like that in April)

[Barnacle Bill]

I can't figure which is a funnier Avatar.. MM's or Skipjack's (2coolfishing).. LOL.

[Yaklash]

In reference to Marburger Maniac's mention of electronic calls. Last I heard they are not legal except in the extneded Snow Goose season. It's been a few years since I hunted geese, but I'm pretty sure that is still the case. Otherwise, I echo others' suggestion that decoying geese on the water is not done here. Most of my goose hunting has been "Pass" shooting or Rag spreads on the edges of rice fields adjacent to roosts.

[KiOR Maniac]

yaklash -- you are correct about the extended snow goose season. you are allowed to use electronic callers, no plugs in guns, and shoot as many as you want. it wouldn't surprise me if they did away with electronic callers all together. i wouldn't care, the geese have gotten to where they will not even come down to it.

but the thing i hate most about it is that by the time the extended season starts, all the geese are either already on their way back north, all the stupid juveniles have already been shot, or the geese are sky high from all the hunters sky blasting them through the earlier season. those geese that are still alive when the extended season opens are alive for a reason.

Ne'r-do-well -- about 5 years ago, we decided to raise about 2 dozen of those big white barn yard geese. i dont know that name of them, but they are the ones you find in park and such with a big knot on their beaks. well anyways, we took them out to a field, staked them down to the ground and held on for the ride. everytime a group of snow geese would fly over, our geese would start to flap and honk. you can imagine what happened next....

[KiOR Maniac]

I can't figure which is a funnier Avatar.. MM's or Skipjack's (2coolfishing).. LOL.

whats skipjack's avatar look like?

[Fishing Elvis]

Ne'r-do-well -- about 5 years ago, we decided to raise about 2 dozen of those big white barn yard geese. i dont know that name of them, but they are the ones you find in park and such with a big knot on their beaks. well anyways, we took them out to a field, staked them down to the ground and held on for the ride. everytime a group of snow geese would fly over, our geese would start to flap and honk. you can imagine what happened next....

LMAO

[flatsrat]

here's a tip, find out why they are coming to the the part of the bay you are on, are they roosting there or are they coming to the area to get gravel for there craw(i hope that is the way it is spelled) farther down the coast the geese will feed in the fields during the day and every 2 or 3 days they have to get gravel to digest there food and a lot of times they will be attracted to the reefs and shorelines that are exposed on low tide that show this exposed gravel. use full body decoys 2 dozen or so and set up around this area you have to do a lot of scouting to time it right but it does work. been there done that,ain't no b.s! good luck. i have never done this out of a yak but have duck hunted out of my drifter though,ain't it a blast! e-mail me if you wanna hook up this fall i hunt during the week mainly and am always looking for new partners maybe we caqn shaqre some tips

[marsh paddler]

Ace: Did you paint your drifter to get camo brown? If none of you goose/duck hunters have seen Blackwater Decoy's FTU model folders, you need to check them out. They are incredible for land or water. Tip on snows: if you get then in good pass shooting range, SHOOT. They ain't comin' in anymore. Not sky bust, but pass shoot. If you don't know your limitations, don't shoot. You owe it to yourself to check out FTU's

[flatsrat]

my drifter is wheat color and i spray painted it with the camo spray paints i bought at home depot etc. the wheat color blends in with the salt marsh grass and i cover up with fast grass that i spray paint to match the marsh grass (very important), this really works well. that fast grass is amazing stuff.also, if you get access to the long palm fronds that people discard when the trim there palm trees, tie wrap them on a 2-3 foot stake and stick them randomly around your blind, they work well to break up the sharp outlines of your blind. just 6 months to duck season!

[marsh paddler]

It's interesting that most yak hunters posting use drifters. Me too. I'm gettin' a new model tho' and the only color they make that is not bright is olive green. Not too bad for a marsh mud match but way hot to the touch in the summer. Wish they still made a brown or even a gray. I'm able in our La. marshes to just pull into the Spartina cordgrass and fold it over the yak. Lay back and watch out!

[Hunters Advocate]

Travis, I have great success when hunting marsh or shallow bay using 1/2 dozen floaters and or silhoutes( Outlaws ). It helps when they hear the call and see geese.[/quote][/code]

[Ne'r-do-well]

Goin Coastal,
We used to hunt geese on Mc Cormack reservoir (now 2 Bayous Hunting Preserve) using full bodied floater snow goose decoys mixed with white plastic jugs on 4 foot sticks. It worked pretty well on young birds and small bunches. We combined the goose decoys with duck decoy spreads and big bunches of pintails would swoop in on us from way high. I still like to mix white rags with my duck spread if the water is shallow enough. I think it helps bring in high fliers. On a really shallow bay flat after a norther it might be just the ticket for a kayak hunter, but I've never tried it on the bay itself.

[Coastal]

Geese are tough to decoy over water down here on the coast. You can pull specks but snows are tough to decoy over water more often than not here on the coast.

When we have a lot of specks in an area we are duck hunting I will use a few speck floaters and we pull some birds but rare is the time they will lock up and decoy over water, it's usually a passing shot on a bird you get to take a look.

For windsocks forget the trash bags, they shine, forget diapers they absorb water, forget all that stuff, the Texas Hunting Products Texas rags are cheap, like $20/100, they don't shine and they are easily tied up into windsocks. I hunt over 600-1200 of them when I am goose hunting in fields, which is 99% of my goose hunting.

For hunting out of the yak over water I'd also recommend looking at the FUD's from Blackwater Decoy. I hunted over some duck FUDs two years ago and I think they would work. I especially like how much motion you get from them in even the lightest breeze and they are compact and lightweight.

Another option is silos on v-boards. The v-board floats and you put 3 regular goose silos on each one. You can check out some of the waterfowling websites for info on v-boards and how to make them. I don't use them, just know it is one technique that allows you to use silos on water.

Silos are fairly compact but they are heavy. You could probably still take a couple doz on your yak.

[Ne'r-do-well]

I've done well with decoys made from plastic bags. They lose that shine after a day's exposure to the elements and you can get a hundred of them for $3 at Walmart. I think we're all telling Travis--if he's still listening--that hunting geese in the bay proper is well nigh impossible. But geese can be hunted in the salt flats near the bay. They behave much differently there than they do inland in the agricultural areas and it is possible to decoy them with smaller spreads in the marshes along the bayshore and intracostal canal--- if you're in a good spot. Maybe that's because they're not hunted as hard in the salt marsh, so they're not as wary there as they would be over a rice field in Garwood. Last year we were still decoying birds at Mc Faddin in the conservation season with 5 or 6 dozen plastic rags with some full body heads mixed in.