"Know the wind direction, because geese, like all waterfowl, will land into the wind. Ninety percent of the time, the best place to hunt is the downwind edge of the decoy spread. If the prevailing wind is out of the north, which it usually is in the winter months, then you will want to hunt the south edge of the spread."

We're pleased to report, incidentally, that Harris got some of his best tips from a Mississippi Game & Fish article from 2004 in which a similar group of goose hunters explained their rag theory. "I remember they said that there's no such thing as too many rags and decoys, and that you don't need to spend a lot of money on hard or shell decoys," he recalled. "I think they said that a few full body decoys that would move in the wind is all that they needed to augment the rag spread.

"We laughed when we read about how one of their hunters who was a football official had suggested sewing a rock in one corner of the rag and then painting that corner black like a head. Turns out, it was right on cue. You can throw those decoys like an official's flag. And we're not talking that much added weight -- in a bag full of decoys, maybe a few pounds."

If for some reason the birds don't return the next day, the hunters don't automatically give up on that location. They leave the decoys at least one more night and then go back --unless, of course, they have a sure-fire better place to go.

"If there's food there, they will be back," Thompson offered. "It might be that they come back later in the day. We will give it a few hours."

CALLING
This is one of the grayest areas of goose hunting. These waterfowlers have their own particular ways, but there's nothing black-and-white about calling.

"You have to feel your way through it," Harris observed. "Every day and every flock is different. A lot of times, if we know the geese are coming, we won't do a lot of calling other than to make noise to let them know there are geese down here, and not just a bunch of rags.

"Then there are days, like those when we were expecting geese and they didn't show, that we have to be quite loud, with everybody who knows how blasting away. If we see or hear a flight of geese way up high traveling, we'll try our best to get them to come check us out. We do pretty good that way, but not as good as the days when the birds we're expecting return. They come in a lot faster to a known entity."

The group learned calling techniques the same way they learned everything else -- through study. "We bought DVDs, CDs, tape cassettes -- you name it," Harris said. "We bought lots of calls at trade shows, where we could get calling tips from call-makers. But I'll be honest with you: Calling, to me, is the least important part of goose hunting. Learning where to be and when to be there is far more critical than calling. The only time calling is the most important thing is when you don't have birds patterned or located and you have to attract newly arriving birds to a field."