Late Season Goose Hunting

Late season goose hunting with MAHA includes Canada, White-Fronted and Light Geese on a variety of private land leases ranging from managed wetlands, farm ponds, irrigation and watershed lakes, crop stubble and pasture fields in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.

Canada Geese are by far the most sought after species of late season geese by our hunters since they are easiest to decoy and they are the most plentiful in the regions we have leased land.

Our managed wetlands were designed primarily for Missouri duck hunting, but late season goose hunting opportunities expand to all of our counties with private land leases in all three states.

After the regular duck season closes in January MAHA wetlands and the surrounding duck clubs basically shut down, but this is typically the peak migration period for Canada geese.
 

A blind with shooting pool chest wader accessible with a small floater spread on one our managed wetlands after the regular duck season.

That is a light skim of ice on the surface.

The temperature in late December and January can be frigid cold and stay that way
for a long or short period of time. Open water or crop fields close to open water is
the key to a successful late season goose hunt when the water freezes. It is up to the MAHA hunter to locate these areas by spending time on the road narrowing down his or her options with the private land maps they have to choose from.

Weather

DecJanFebMarApr
Average High4037435567
Average Low2116213143
Mean3127324455
Average Precipitation1.51.11.12.63.6
Record High7073818793
Record Low-27-17-19-104

Our hunters tend to frequent a handful of easy access blinds over large bodies of water, but we encourage our goose hunters to move away from the managed wetlands and locate birds on their own that have seen little or no hunting pressure. One to two dozen floater decoys is all it takes, but many goose hunters feel large spreads will attract more birds. Small boats or canoes save a lot of walking to place large decoy spreads, but a truck or trailer is required to haul loads of that size. We do not provide goose decoys to our hunters. The hunters provide all decoys. ATV’s are allowed to access gear and decoys to and from our waterfowl properties, but we recommend walking your course in the daylight for safety purposes.

"...hunted the same watershed lake several times with the same decoy spread and because of the warm weather, new birds were not coming into the area. Managed to get a goose out of each trip but decided to change our tactics.

Only set out 2 dozen floaters and left the shells at home. Used a jiggle cord to create some movement and it worked. Had 3 flocks of 20 to 30 honkers come in at less than 30 yards with their wings set. Limited out in a hour and a half without a cripple. The overcast and rain seemed to pull them to the water rather than landing in the field next door like they did in the days in the past.

When the alarm went off there was a steady rain. We almost slept in but we were glad we did not..."

Canada geese can be seen flying over 90% of MAHA’s 220,000 acres of leased land in all three states during the late goose season. Hundreds of farm ponds occupy these leases but the birds pick and choose which ones they use and this can change from day to day. Scouting to determine the bird’s patterns seems to be the key to success for the majority of our hunters that harvest geese on a consistent basis. Each hunter has access to our online map website with over 250 pages of leased farms. The acreage on each map page ranges from 250 to 15,000 acres.

 

Many hunters grew up jump shooting ducks and geese off ponds while they were hunting other species of game.

Jump shooting late season geese is permissible to MAHA members on the hundreds of private land bodies of water scattered across three states.

If you are hunting upland birds at the same time, it is legal to only possess steel shot while pursuing waterfowl. You cannot have both lead and steel shot in your game vest while jump shooting geese.

Another technique is to scout several ponds on several leases while watching local flight patterns. Either move in on ponds being used or setup on one nearby and practice the calling and decoy hunting art.

Reservations are required and are taken from 9am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday to scout or hunt all land we have leased for our members. If you choose to scout a map page with 2500 acres and/or 1500 acres on the same day, all that is required is to call the office and make a reservation to scout the land and we will enter the reservation in our reservation book, which prevents an overlap from another hunter on the same day. You do not have to check in with the landowner, just park on the road or inside the gate to the property, hang your vehicle ID tag on your rear view mirror or make it visible on your dashboard. From this point, you may scout on foot or by glassing the lakes and fields from your vehicle.