Waterfowling Expert Denny Pitman Tells Us Mistakes
Hunters Make
Pitman Names 5 Mistakes Goose Hunters Make
 Editor’s
Note: Denny Pitman of Old Monroe, Missouri, a professional
waterfowler and videographer for Hunter’s Specialties,
hunts almost every day of duck season for ducks and
geese, as he has for the past 16 years. Pitman enjoys
hunting all across the nation, including Canada to South
Dakota, to Missouri, to Arkansas, to Alabama and all
points in-between. Pitman’s job description means
that he must find ducks and geese and film new and better
techniques for hunting duck, while promoting Hunter’s
Specialties’ duck videos, duck and goose calls
and waterfowling accessories. Although on the spot every
day of waterfowl season to locate and take ducks and
geese, Pitman loves his job.
Question: Denny, what are some of the most-common mistakes
that goose hunters make each year?
Pitman: Often goose hunters make the mistakes of: 1)
not being mobile. A goose hunter must scout and stay
on the move all the time to learn where the geese are
feeding, resting and watering. A goose hunter must find
a feeding field, a loafing field and/or a roosting site.
You either have to be where the birds want to be, or
you must put your blind in a flyway between where the
geese are coming from and where they want to go, if
you want to have success taking geese. 2) not going
the extra mile to make their blind look natural. Today
more goose hunters hunt from layout blinds. Regardless
of whether or not that layout blind is camouflaged,
you must put some mud and water in a bucket and paint
the outside of your blind with that mixture to take
the shiny off it. Then when you place the blind in the
field, you must mud-up around it and also put some of
the natural vegetation in the field around that blind.
Even if the blind is camo-colored, you need to go the
extra mile to make the blind fit into the field. If
I’m hunting a silage field with nothing but dirt
and corn stubble in it, I’ll get to the place
where I’m planning to hunt extra early to get
dirt out of that same field and put it around my blind.
Then I’ll take the corn stalks I’ve pulled
up to lay around my blind and make those corn stalks
match the exact rows of dirt and corn stubble in the
field. I don’t want my blind to look like a dirt
hump out in the middle of the field. If I’m hunting
a pasture pond, which is somewhere I often hunt, I’ll
go to a fencerow by that pond and stuff as much green
grass into every brush pocket on that blind as possible
to make my blind resemble a somewhat taller clump of
grass just like the area where I’ve got my blind
positioned.
3) not using the 40% rule or watching to see how the
geese group themselves. Most goose hun ters
believe you have to put out 10-dozen full-bodied goose
decoys any time you hunt geese, and that each of those
decoys must face into the wind. However, I use the 40%
rule. If I’ve got 100 geese feeding in a field,
I’ll only set out 40 decoys, or perhaps 36 or
42. But I won’t put out 100 decoys. When you set
out your goose decoys, don’t set them out in a
U, a J or a fishhook pattern, like most goose hunters
use. Instead, observe the geese, and see how they group
themselves in the area you’ll be hunting to learn
how to set up the decoys. There may be 15 to 20 feet
between each goose, or perhaps they’ll be sitting
in family groups. 4) not flagging. O.k., you don’t
have to flag geese to get them to come in to your decoys,
but I think you do better if you do flag the geese.
Most people don’t know how to flag geese correctly.
When you see geese at a distance, get that flag up as
high as you can, and start waving it to get the geese’s
attention to look like geese are landing in your spread.
Once the geese are committed and coming to your spread,
all you have to do is lift that flag just a little and
shake it above a decoy’s back to imitate a goose
that’s stretching its wings. Many people stop
flagging when the geese are 60– to 75-yards away
from them, but I’ll flip the flag’s wing
tip up just a little to add some more movement to my
decoys. Then the geese will remain locked-in on the
decoys and continue  to
come in to where we are.
5) not majoring on the three main calls geese give.
Many hunters buy instructional CDs, DVDs and videos
and go to calling contests where they hear all the fancy
notes like spit notes, double-spit notes, quiver moans
and double clucks. However, the three primary notes
you need to know to take geese are the honk, the cluck
and the moan. If you master those three calls and use
them as you read the geese to learn the effects these
calls have on these geese, then if you’re in a
good spot, you’ll never have any trouble taking
geese. Too many hunters want to sound like competition
callers. But, when you’re in a field calling geese,
you’re not on a stage calling people. If you’ve
been watching geese in a field and as more geese come
into the field, if the geese in the air don’t
say anything until they’re within 100 yards of
the geese in the field, then when you’re hunting
those geese, don’t call until the geese are within
100 yards of the decoys. If the geese you’re watching
in a field start calling when other geese are 1/2-mile
away in the air, then you need to be ready to call long
distance when you hunt those geese. The biggest requirement
to becoming a good goose caller is to sound as natural
as you can and as much like the geese you’re trying
to call as the other geese in the other area do.
Tomorrow: More Mistakes Goose Hunters Make
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