Photo by P.J. Reilly

You know it’s the late goose season when your decoys develop a rime of ice soon after you plant them atop the corn stubble, which also is heavily coated with frost. It’s good to have lots of decoys to set out, too, because moving around in the frigid pre-dawn keeps your blood circulating and staves off the bitter chill in the air -- for a while, anyway.

The setup work should be finished just about the time you realize you no longer need a flashlight to see. Everyone in your party scurries to their layout blinds and crawls inside to begin the wait. You chatter nervously with one another as you load your shotguns, place your call lanyards around your neck and pour steaming cups of coffee.

The banter ends instantly, however, when someone barks, “Shhh! I think I hear geese!”

You spot a pair of dark specks off in the distance, low on the horizon and heading your way. Everyone hunkers down in the blinds, and the callers start playing their instruments.

You know the geese are headed your way because you’d found a huge flock feeding on the waste corn in the same field on your scouting mission the day before. Even if you hadn’t seen the flock in the field, the tracked-down snow and droppings surrounding your blinds would have led you to believe this is where the geese wanted to be.

The pair of honkers draws closer, cackling to one another and to the callers on the ground. The beating of their wings slows as they begin the long glide that should bring them to the open area you’ve left in the decoys in front of the blinds. Your heart beats faster as the geese drop lower and lower toward the ground.

The birds enter the kill zone, and you click the safety on your shotgun to the “fire” position.

Just before the birds touch down, your buddy yells, “Take ‘em!” All hunters sit up in the blinds, take aim and fire in unison. The sound of one shot reverberates through the valley. Both birds fold instantly.

A few tufts of down drift on the early-morning breeze as the last wisps of smoke bleed out the end of the gun barrels.

The hunt has just begun.

NOW’S THE TIME
Numbers of migratory Canada geese that wing through Pennsylvania each fall and winter are rebounding to a 15-year high. The numbers of resident Canada geese that live here all year are holding steady despite long seasons and liberal bag limits. And each year, increasing numbers of Keystone hunters are catching the goose-hunting bug.

Goose hunting is fun, it’s social and it’s a chance to enjoy one of the few hunting seasons still open in Pennsylvania in late January into February.

January offers a multitude of goose-hunting opportunities all across the state.

For management purposes, Pennsylvania is divided into four goose zones. Generally, the zones are defined as the Pymatuning Zone in the extreme northwest corner of the state; the Southern James Bay Population Zone, which encompasses Erie, Mercer and Crawford counties except for the Pymatuning Zone; the Atlantic Population Zone, which covers much of the Southeast Region; and the Resident Population Zone, which includes all of Pennsylvania that is not part of any of the three other zones. (For a detailed outline of these zones’ boundaries, visit the Game Commission’s Web site at www.pgc.state.pa.us.)