"One of the biggest problems about the early season is that they all come at once and you only get one crack at them. But if a group of 30 comes into my field I'm not pulling the trigger; I don't want to educate those birds and I want them to keep coming back into the field I'm hunting," he said.

PERSPECTIVE ON LAST SEASON
The 2007 regular goose season was pretty good throughout the state, according to most reports, and the action went from slow to hot as the weather changed from wet to cold.

At the Lac qui Parle Wildlife Management Area, a popular destination for Minnesota's goose hunters, Canada geese numbers hovered around 7,500 when the season opened, a significant decrease from the 80,000 birds recorded in 2006. It didn't take long for the geese to show up and by the middle of October, there were more than 60,000 geese. By early November, the numbers had climbed to more than 100,000.

This should serve as a lesson for goose hunters, many of whom hit the fields and marshes hard in October, then put their waterfowling on hold for the deer season.

"I've had some of my best waterfowling when most hunters are wearing orange," Sawyer said. "The birds are around in high numbers and competition for the best spots is light at best."

Even hunters who are unwilling to trade some deer hunting time for waterfowling are in luck because the peak abundance of Canada geese at Lac Qui Parle didn't occur until late November. More than 120,000 geese were found on the WMA with a healthy mix of resident geese and migrators.

Many geese departed Minnesota in early December after two large storms moved across the state covering the lakes and fields with snow and ice. There were still around 30,000 geese at LqP in mid-December.

One of the best late-season goose-hunting locations is in Rochester because of a variety of conditions. There are ample food supplies with all the grain fields in the area; there is a water source that remains open throughout the winter at Silver Lake; and it is along the southern migration corridor. In mild winters, many geese winter at Silver Lake and feed on the fields surrounding the Rochester valley.

GOOSE HUNTING LOCATIONS
Canada geese can be found throughout most of Minnesota, but the highest concentrations are in the prairies of the west and south and the river bottoms and fields of the southeast and metro areas. The tough part about these locations is that often the best hunting land is privately owned. This means getting permission to hunt and having to compete with other hunters in the area looking to lock up the best locations for themselves.

Not to paint a negative picture, there are many high-quality public goose-hunting areas that aren't used by hunters because they assume the lands will be too busy or they just don't take time to scout them.