It’s been just over three months since hunters have been able to chase winged critters, but that will change starting Sunday, as hunters will be taking to the field to chase geese. The 2019 early season for Chautauqua County hunters runs until Sept. 25 and offers a liberal 15 birds-per-day limit.

The geese that we hunt here in Chautauqua County are used to hearing calls from hunters hailing from Canada to Alabama, which means our birds are well educated –notwithstanding the local population or resident birds we chase during the early season. This is not to say that they are dumb, like many believe, because the elder in the family groups we hunt do migrate.

While decoys are an important part of goose hunting, good calling will finish the birds off.

There are many different calls a goose makes, but I prefer to use the six they use 99 percent of the time. The key to calling geese — like turkey, deer and ducks — is not to over-call. Listening to which calls the birds are using, and mimicking those calls, will fill out your limit.

A cluck is the foundation of all sounds produced on geese. All geese sounds, in one form or another, are based on the cluck, so it’s important that we all master the cluck. By lengthening, shortening or using the different notes, you can make every note is a goose’s vocabulary.

Here is a short refresher course: As always, it’s best to listen to the birds and learn to mimic them. Mother Nature’s critters are the best teachers.

A cluck can be broken down into two parts or notes, consisting of a low first note (grrrr) and a higher-pitched second note (ittt). By lengthening or shortening either of the two parts you’ll produce different clucking sounds or honks.

The murmur is just one portion of the cluck and will, if reproduced properly, produce a feeding murmur. The first part of the cluck, used in succession, will produce the murmur or the feeding call. Try using words like grrr, grrr, grrr in succession and you’ll begin to produce a murmur or feed call.

Slightly changing the second portion of the cluck will reproduce the moan call a goose makes. In a moan, you need to drop the first portion of the cluck and highlight the second note so the sound doesn’t break over, but drags out the call. Instead of saying (ittt) on the second portion of the cluck, say (ihhhhh), (awwww) or my favorite (whooo).

The hail call is the most overused goose call I hear hunters make every season. The hail is used to get the attention of the geese when they are off in the distance. The hail call is a cluck that has a short front-end and drawn-out second note (her awwwwwwwwnk) with the emphasis on making the call snap or break over.

A must-use call and one to master is the greeting call. The greeting call is to be used once you get the attention of the geese and they start heading in your direction. Once the birds get closer, call faster and more excitedly as the closer the distance the more excited they get. Throw in a greeting call mixed in with a few clucks, and double and some longer greeting-style clucks.

The laydown call is used to close the deal and create confidence and make the geese feel like your decoy spread is a safe place to be. This call is used to get the birds those last few yards. This is where the short/soft clucks, moan and murmurs are important. Mixing up these three in soft and short calls will finish up the most suspicious of geese.

Learning how to call geese and when to use these calls will make your time in the field and on the water more enjoyable. Keeping your calling to the basics will help you not only impress your hunting buddies, but also the geese.

Each call design delivers a different tone and offers a caller the confidence that one needs.

Like all things in the wild, listening will help you improve your bag limit. Listen to what the geese are saying and when they are saying it, and mimic the same sounds. Keep listening and keep working on the same.

Having ground to hunt is no more important than the early goose season. Why, you ask? Well let’s look at geese life and feeding habits. Waterfowl, including geese, roost/sleep on water, often times big water such as lakes or large ponds. Once birds leave their watery bedroom, they look for food.

Now in part of goose heaven, food sources are and could be cut corn, oats wheat and/or alpha fields. Now herein plays the importance of scouting, and having many fields that fit the need for flocks of geese. Yes, I say flocks.

Resident geese flock to the first harvested fields. If you scouted for goose hangouts earlier this summer, all the better for honing in, because local birds typically select fields near their established areas. As the season progresses, it always important to be on the lookout for new fields. Keeping up with what farmers are cutting and when they plan on cutting will help you find protective fields.

There is an old saying that is as true today as it was when it was first spoken: you want to hunt fresh fields. A field can get shot out really quickly, often times after one or two hunts. Remember, just because they have pea-size brains doesn’t mean they are stupid. While the majority of the birds we are hunting during the early season are “local birds,” which are made up of family groups, the mature birds will not continue to hit fields that have been shot at.

We have found sometimes if a field is left to rest, birds will start hitting a field you have hunted before. Generally, this will take at least a few days. When setting up on this type of field, we prefer to mix up the decoy spread a lot. This often means increasing your decoy spread and possibly adjusting your calling to a point of where you are not talking as much.

There are different ways to change up your decoy spread. A couple ways that have worked in the past with some success is either using a different type of decoy. Full body- shells/wind socks often times is all it takes to give a spread a different look.

During the first part of the season try to downsize spreads. Using fewer decoys tends to be more realistic in the early season, when geese travel in family groups rather than large flocks. One to three dozen decoys is usually plenty. However, if you luck upon a massive flock hitting a field, by all means, mimic with added decoys.

Remember the average family group, which is basically what we are chasing this time of year –is four to six birds and they like to stay in their family groups when traveling, feeding and at rest. So, try and arrange family groups of five to seven decoys. And leave plenty of space between families. Summer honkers are non-competitive honkers.

Regarding decoys, there a bunch of different companies producing good, quality decoys today and nothing more is true than you get what you pay for. I tell new goose hunters when discussing decoys to invest in the best decoys you can afford at the time. Personally, I’m a big fan of full-body, fully flocked decoys. Each year I make sure to set aside enough cash to pick up at least half dozen and strive for a full dozen of these little gold nuggets, fully flocked decoys.

September is great fun and a good time to spend time with other hunters. Hunting geese can be a very social hunting experience. If one hasn’t had an opportunity to do it, it is really exciting and lots of fun.