Photo by Lee Leschper

Goose talk can be deafening. When flights of tens of thousands of these birds from northern potholes circle overhead, the decibel levels created by the prodigious honking is beyond belief. It's one of those rare moments in hunting so exhilarating that it raises the tiny hairs on the nape of your neck. The final touch: the shadow of goose wings darkening the sunlight. It's a sight to behold.

Goose hunting is not for the outdoor sportsman looking for a restful morning of quiet solitude. Those hunters would be better suited sticking to deer hunting. The excitement generated by the noise level when action is close at hand is only rivaled by the shooting action all those hordes of geese can make possible.

GOOSE HUNTING IN MISSISSIPPI
One would think that virtually unending waves of geese providing ample opportunities for fast shotgunning action should bring out a large number of waterfowlers anxious to take a shot. Oddly enough, the latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hunter survey found only 39,000 sportsmen in Mississippi reporting that they hunted waterfowl. Virtually all of those specifically hunt ducks. By comparison, our state has about 288,000 deer hunters and 95,000 turkey hunters. Goose hunters rated only an asterisk in the report, denoting too small a sample even to estimate their number.

It's hard to believe that such a vast resource is so neglected. It'd seem that at least half of the duck hunters in the state would also take advantage of the chance to target the thousands of geese coming into the state -- but, apparently, they don't.

However, according to Scott Baker, the migratory bird program leader for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks the situation may be brighter than the federal numbers suggest. "Hunter interest has been increasing annually, thus harvest has been increasing, but the harvest hasn't been able to keep up with the increased goose population growth," he said. "The goose population continues to grow at a tremendous rate. Hunting opportunities can be excellent, especially with the concentrations of geese around metropolitan areas."

More geese mean, of course, more chances to hunt. Baker did mention that a lot of the goose hunting in the state comes about as incidental to duck hunting, the geese being targets of opportunity.

GOOSE-ATTRACTING HABITAT
Mississippi has all the right stuff when it comes to habitat suitable for attracting non-resident waterfowl during the hunting season. Water is the most essential element in attracting geese. Then comes the food supply that keeps the birds around long enough for hunters to have some shooting action. We're fortunate in the Magnolia State to have an outstanding abundance of these natural resources.

Our waterfowling waters can be a real horn of plenty when it comes to giving geese options for resting, eating and roosting. The seemingly endless array of open water lakes, rivers, and marshes provides exceptional wintering grounds for all species of waterfowl, including the several types of geese that make the annual trek south to warmer temperatures.

Geese can usually be found in huntable numbers wherever in Mississippi that water and food resources are in proximity to one another.

Of course, the natural topography of a state like Mississippi creates areas that concentrate more geese than do other areas. In our state, it's not too difficult to determine where that favored region for waterfowl is: the Mississippi River Delta. However, keep in perspective that many other areas of the state, such as the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in eastern Mississippi, can also provide goose hunting options.