Western Hunting Journal, Premiere Issue whj001_premiere | Page 81

peter
less like a large, shadowy mob.
An exception would be a wheat
or pea stubble field, or any field
that could have large cashes of
stubble wind-blown into piles.
A row of blinds close together
and covered in stubble works
great. In wet or green condi-
tions, make the area in front
of your blinds “off-limits” to
foot traffic to keep it pristine
and not tracked-up. If there is
ever a contour to the land your
hunting, locate your blinds in
the lowest spot possible to elim-
inate shadows and silhouette. If
you are in a situation where you
can dig your blinds down a foot
or so, this can be deadly.
OFTEN, HUNTERS WILL FIND
MOBS of geese on scouting trips
and the field is perfectly flat
without a field seam of any kind.
They’re faced with a dilemma.
My advice is to simply not hunt
there. Keep looking. A margin-
al hide will only educate birds.
I see pictures of people all the
time crouching next to a duck
pond, or trying a risky hide for
geese because it’s “early season”.
Yes, you can get away with that
stuff early, but how do you think
the birds get educated?
I recommend hiding as good
as you can all season long. Here
in Oregon where I hunt, we
have a six-month long season
where we hunt on wintering
geese. These are not migrating
geese, which is to say they’ve
seen everything by season’s
end in March. It’s rewarding to
land huge flocks on the last day
and it can be done with only a
little bit of thoughtfulness and
work. WHJ
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