Peterson said private land is tough to find in some of his favorite hunting locations, including the Twin Cities metro and the area around Rochester.

"There are a lot of landowners who have people hunting their land or are hunting it themselves, so very little private land is available in both areas right now but that doesn't mean you should stop looking and asking," Peterson said. "One of the biggest secrets hunters don't think about is hunting in the middle of the week versus hunting on the weekend. There are areas that get really pounded on the weekend and it pushes the geese to other areas that are not hunted. If you can locate those spots and get permission to hunt them, you'll have some great hunting."

Even though he does most of his guiding in the metro area, Peterson moves around the state throughout the goose season.

"I'll do some hunting up in the Fergus Falls area, especially when it peaks in the first two weeks of October," he said.

It's a great time to be in the area because there are high concentrations of local birds and there are also plenty of migrating geese heading south from northern Minnesota and Canada. The metro hunting season usually peaks in mid-October and lasts into early November, depending on the weather. He guides as long as he can in the metro area but usually calls it quits by the first week in December when there aren't enough birds to guide.

"That's when I head down to Rochester to help my friend at the Broken Wing Hunt Club the last two weeks of the season," he said. "The scenario around Rochester is the same as the Twin Cities with the best hunting locations tough to access because other hunters already lock them up. The only way to get on a prime area is to find the outskirts of an area people are hunting and hope the pressure pushes the geese out a bit farther to feed."

CHANGING CONDITIONS
Minnesota's goose hunt lasts a relatively long time stretching out over four months throughout many parts of the state. It offers a nice, long season for hunters to experience, but it also means that what worked in September won't necessarily work in December, including locations and tactics.

"A successful hunter has to be able to adjust to the season and figure out what the geese are doing during that specific time period," Sawyer said.

In the early season, geese are still congregated in summer family groups and travel together. As fall progresses, the geese begin to move together and are found in large flocks or small groupings. The more times they are shot at, the more conditioned geese become. Peterson deals with this by making sure his decoy spread includes a mix of styles from shells to full bodies and even a few silhouettes.