saw them land in a creek that’s about
a yard wide, a place you would trap
a mink, not shoot a goose. That’s a
damn tough bird to kill.”
BEST OF BIG SKY
Montana was a well-kept big honker
secret until Bozeman became the
next western boom-town. It’s been
good for Brady Davis’ roofing busi-
ness but made chasing big honk-
ers a challenge close to home. He
and buddy Matt McCormick used
to be able to knock on a door and
get access, now there’s more com-
petition.
“Most guys would tell us, ‘sure
you can hunt geese, but why would
you want to?’” Davis says. “Since
then, Bozeman has gotten bigger
andcollegekidsarehuntinghard,so
whenweknockonthesamedoors
they will tell us they have guys com-
ing to hunt Monday, Wednesday...
but the great thing about Montana
is it’s big and there are only 1 million
people here.”
Davis started driving up to five
hours away to chase geese that saw
far less pressure. There are many riv-
ers in the state that never freeze, and
the birds come off that fast-moving
water to feed in wheat, barley and
sugar beet fields. Montana is also
unique in that it holds birds most of
the season unless a huge snow drives
them out.
“I got into goose hunting on the
Front Range of Colorado, where
there is probably not a more pres-
sured place to hunt geese,” Davis
said. “Here they are easier to pattern.
The colder it gets the better they
pattern. Late-season we use a lot of
sleeper shells because birds land in a
field and within 3 seconds go straight
to their bellies.”
Davis and McCormick sometimes
set up on birds a bit different than
most. The hide takes precedence
over anything else, and in some
cases, they will position the decoy
spread 40 to 100 yards away from theblinds (typically layouts or A-frames)
and shoot birds on the swing. That
means the birds are circling to land
and focused on the decoys, but
before they touch down, the boys
spring up and start shooting.
“We had this field that we hid
in standing corn with the windin
our face and the decoys at least 40
yards out in front of us,” Davis said.
“The geese were coming in over thewildfowlmag.com September 2019 | WILDFOWL Magazine 77
© Ted Wells© Ted Wells