Central Virginia has turned into something of a hot spot for goose hunting. We have literally thousands of geese with lots of water and grain fields available. Since most farmers (and golf course superintendents) hate geese, it’s usually easy to get permission to hunt. Do a little scouting, see where the geese land and feed and take it from there.
But how?
Below are 12 tips from some of the top goose guides and hunters as recommended by Ducks Unlimited.
- When in doubt, spread out your decoys. Geese have wingspans of up to six feet. Give them plenty of room to land.
- Have more than one style of goose call at hand. Keep a loud pitched and a softer-pitch call on. Remember: you can blow a loud call soft, but you can’t blow a soft call loud.
- Getting geese to land on windy days may require adjustments. Geese will always look to get out of the wind when it’s blowing. Set up out of the wind—in low areas of fields, behind tree lines, or on hillsides.
- Stay still, keep your head down, and don’t gawk. Everybody in the blind should keep perfectly still until the words “Take ‘em!”
- Decoy motion is vital. Movement in a current is ideal for floaters. Flags work in fields.
- Simple calling is often the best way to go. Keep it simple. You can call in every goose in the county if you are good at the basic calls.
- When the temperature drops, geese lie down. Hunters should try to represent this behavior with decoys. Remove full-body decoys from their bases and set them directly on the ground, or use shell decoys to emulate this look.
- Flagging, not calling, may be the answer in the fog. When it’s foggy, listen closely and try using a flag instead of a call when you first hear geese, not necessarily when you first see them. This can be particularly effective when you know that the geese are close and they’re coming toward your spread
- Land-and-water spreads are a productive combination. Use both whenever possible. .
- Communicate with geese through decoy placement. Send the geese some messages – where there is no food, and where the safe spots are. Feeder decoys speak for themselves.
- Practice shooting in natural hunting situations. When hunting is tough and opportunities are few and far between, you need to make every shot count. Go out and practice shooting in a natural hunting situation, shoot your normal waterfowl load, practice shooting coming out of a pit or layout blind, and get out on those wet and windy days and practice in some ‘fowl’ weather.
- Stand out from the crowd. When everyone else is using bigger spreads, downsize to only one or two-dozen decoys and go with very little calling. What you are trying to do is stand out from everyone else around you. You can do that by giving your decoy spread a different look. Remember, curiosity kills geese.
Trout Fishing
By Harry Murray
Many large trout have been stocked in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Since the brook trout spawn in October, November and December, most anglers do not fish the wild brook trout streams and start fishing the stocked trout streams. The water levels we have now encourage the stocked trout to move throughout the full length of the streams.
A very effective technique to fish this water is to select streamers that match the natural minnows and fish these with a technique that thoroughly covers the stream. I start right below the riffle and cast across stream. After the streamer sinks deeply, I swim it slowly along the stream bottom by stripping it 6 inches every 6 seconds. I wade slowly down the river pausing every 5 feet to repeat this tactic until I cover the whole pool.
If the current is very fast in the riffle at the head of the pool or the water is more than 4 feet deep I use a stream technique I call a bounce retrieve. Here I wade into the stream 30 feet downstream of the riffle and turn to wade and fish straight upstream. I make 15-foot casts and allow the streamer to sink to the stream bottom. At this point, I get tight to the fly with my line hand and begin a series of two-foot rod tip lifting and dropping motions that produce a very tempting minnow-swimming action. By slowly working my way back and forth below the heavy riffles in this way, I catch many large trout.
Three of my most effective streamers at this time of the year are the Shenandoah Silver Ghost Streamer size 10, Shenandoah Skunk Streamer size 10, and Shenandoah Nine-Three Streamer size 10.
For more information, go to www.murraysflyshop.com.
Early Winter Fishing Tips
Capt. Steve Chaconas
Some fish are holding in shallow water during the warmest part of the day. Most are on drops, only venturing shallower during sunny afternoons. Slow all presentations.
Targeting shallow fish take patience, slowing all presentations. Crawl 3/8-ounce Mann’s Classic spinnerbait along the bottom with a gold willow and Colorado blade, white skirt and 12 pound test Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon line. Allow the bait to go to the bottom, slowly dragging the spinnerbait maintaining bottom contact. Cast parallel to drops and flats. Try different depths. In these areas, tight wiggle crankbaits, like chartreuse with a brown back Mann’s Loudmouth II, will work. Use 10 pound test Edge and slowly retrieve with frequent stops. These presentations are best during the warmest part of the day.
Soft plastic presentations on spinning gear are good now. Spool reels with 15-pound test Gamma Torque braid and tie 8-pound test Edge Fluorocarbon leader. Drop shot with 1/8-ounce weights, 1/8-ounce shaky heads, and split shot rigs with 1/8 ounce BullShot weights all with 2/0 MUSTAD Mega Bite hooks and 4-inch finesse worms. Neko rigs with the silicon tube to anchor a 1/0 MUSTAD wacky rig hook and 1/8-ounce weights and 4-inch stick worms will also work. Fish them slowly on drops, wood and deeper dock pilings.