Rick & Sean Spoerl with their snows

"Kill um". The guide called the shot on the flock of some 500 snow geese. The seven of us popped out of our lay-out blinds and unloaded each of our five shots per gun. After the flurry of shots rang out from the seven of us only two geese hit the ground. "A little high don’t you think", I said to Tony, our guide for the day on a spring snow goose hunt in Missouri. "Well, I don’t think they would have given us much more" he replied. I asked him how he decides when to call the shot.

He explained that because of the amount of hunters (seven), the size of the flock, and the conditions (cloudy and calm) that usually the birds will spiral down to about 50 yards and than start getting nervous. That’s when you have to decide to let them go or take them. Also we were using wind socks. Wind socks require a little wind to be realistic at close range. Even though we had fifteen hundred wind socks out, we needed a breeze to make them move.

What Tony had done was analyze the situation in a matter of seconds using his knowledge of the conditions as well as past experience. Tony Toye owns and manages Big River guide service in Wisconsin. He has Mississippi river duck hunts as well as operates a spring snow goose hunt in Missouri. After letting a few flocks work all the way through we found out he was right. The birds would only get to about fifty or sixty yards and then head out. Being it was the first snow goose hunt we have been on, we needed the guides help in calling the shot. We were shooting at birds we wouldn’t even consider to shoot at back home in Wisconsin. But we were killing them at ranges of forty to sixty yards.

We have all called the shot, missed the bird and than second guessed our decision to shoot. We have also let the birds go and thought, "Man we should have taken them". Both instances teach us a little more about when to shoot. We have to take several factors into consideration when hunting and planning the shot before the opportunity presents itself.

The most obvious consideration is distance. The type of shotgun, the load you’re using and the most important, your abilities and the abilities of the shooters with you. Most waterfowl hunters nowadays use high velocity magnum loads in three or three in a half inch. These loads shot out of ten and twelve gauge shotguns are lethal out to sixty yards. A far shot in most waterfowlers books. Best case scenario is shooting them in the face at twenty yards. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Sometimes were just not going to get that shot.

We certainly don’t want wounded birds flying off only to die back in the marsh somewhere. We want to take high percentage shots and always watch the flock we just shot at to see if anything looks like it might go down. Shooting ducks and geese over land does allow you to take further shots. If you drop a bird out at two hundred yards it’s not impossible to pick up. A wounded canvasback duck dropped out at two hundred yards on the Mississippi river is another story. Even the best trained retriever can’t get that bird.

I won’t take anything but an extremely high percentage shot in that type of circumstance. There has been many times that I’ve passed up diver ducks zipping down wind at thirty yards high and some hunters think I’m crazy for not shooting.

I will however take the shot on geese fifty yards high over land, and kill many of them that way.

Take for example the time of year. Early Canada goose hunting is the perfect time of the year to let them come all the way to the ground. If they pass slowly down wind, chances are they’ll turn into the wind for the final landing. On occasion they might get a glimpse of something on the pass and decide to keep going. Its frustrating knowing you could have probably dropped a couple on the pass, but the season is young and the geese haven’t been hunted hard yet. They’ll be back.

Than again, later in the final days of the season you might want to call the shot earlier. Its late in the year, chances are good you have been burned several times already and the geese are well educated. Take them on the first pass if there within your shooting abilities.

Equipment is another factor in deciding when to shoot. If you only have twenty or thirty decoys and your seeing late season flocks of no less than fifty yards and your decoys are a little ratty looking, chances are the birds aren’t going to land on top of you. They’ll figure out the spread is fake and be gone. If you’re using wind socks and there isn’t any wind to move the socks, they will bug out as soon as they see them lying limp.

Concealment like layout blinds or boat blinds seem to work better in the earlier part of the year. Natural blinds seem to work better later on. If the birds have been shot at from these boxes before, they will flare out at fifty or so yards. You have to decide to call the shot before they flare.

Weather and time of the day can affect the call of the shot. Darker days like rainy or foggy days are good because they can’t see you’re blind or the spread as well. You can let the mallards circle many times before calling the shot in this type of scenario. On the other hand on a sunny day you’d want to take them a bit earlier as they can see pretty well on a bright day. Snow geese like it sunny and windy and seem to work closer down to the ground on the bright days. Early morning darkness is another time we like to get them down close before calling the shot. Canada geese that sneak into your spread early in the morning are prime targets to let come all the way in.

Calling is the last factor to consider. If you’re an expert caller with lots of experience, than you might be able to pull a flock in a little closer. If you’re a beginning caller you might have to shoot at them a little further out. You may not have the knowledge or skill yet to give them that landing call. If the calling suddenly stops, some birds get suspicious and move out.

Sometimes you can just look at a flock of birds and know if they’re going to land or bug out. Most times however it’s a guess. Look at all the factors and after setting up discuss it with your hunting buddies. When should we call the shot? And who will call the shot? Even if you take turns only one person should call it. All the hunters should discuss the time to call for the guns. Everyone will be better prepared to shoot if they know you’re going to call the shot early or let their feet touch the ground.

Some days you may want to take them close and others you may want to get on them on the first pass. But analyzing the situation and discussing it with your partners before hand will make it a more successful hunt.

Two friends of mine John and Jeff and I had been scouting a field near our house for late season geese. Finally the birds started moving in. It was the first week of December and on one evening there were over five hundred birds in the field we would be hunting the next morning. I could hardly sleep the night before knowing we would surely have our limits early. Friday morning at o’dark thirty we were in the field setting up. We talked about when to call for the shot. Since we only had about forty Canada goose decoys, a mix of full bodied, silhouettes and shells and thirty field mallard decoys I thought we should probably think about shooting early. I continued, and told them that flocks of thirty to fifty geese came in several minutes apart the day before and we should have a lot of opportunities to shoot. Another plus for the "call the shot early" theory. It was decided, I would call the shot at fifty yards or closer.

We laid in the frozen field for the first hour not seeing a goose. It was 14 F degrees with a steady 20mph wind gusting to 30mph. As we lay with our whites on in the snow covered field I hoped the birds would hurry and fly as I didn’t think we would last past eleven o’clock.

Finally an hour or so later I noticed three geese coming from the south. "Here they come get ready". The birds cupped at thirty yards high about sixty yards out then turned into the wind for the landing. They hooked and at fifty yards I said "take um". We were bundled up and couldn’t move very quickly, slowly I got sitting upright but because of my thick clothing I couldn’t get the stock of my gun on my shoulder and had to shoot off my bicep. "Ouch". The shotgun blasts seemed unbelievably quite in the strong wind. The geese barely flinched and slowly flew off. Well that was only the first few birds.

At ten o’clock we picked up the decoys. We couldn’t believe we didn’t get anymore chances. I turned to John and Jeff and said "maybe we should have let those three come in closer".

I’m not condoning "sky busting", but with the right conditions you can harvest birds at fairly long ranges of fifty and sixty yards. Just remember, you must be able to retrieve a wounded bird at a long distance.

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