Goose activity - a bit of science

[Knut]

There's always a lot of talk about when is the best time to hunt what or how those animals behave, so as I anyway enjoyed goose hunting quite a bit, I started to note down the numbers and would like to share the results.

First off - Methods:

• Goose decoys: a full spread (24 decoys) placed in a loose circle of approx. 20m diameter, location 10299/924
• Waterfowl blind: closest allowed distance to the decoys, location 10285/910
• I started a hunting session at the closeby tent, ran to the blind and counted everything within the next h (finishing with everything I detected -or should have detected with the necessary attention until x:00, but not x:01)
• Only flocks passing within reaction distance were considered, those passing at the horizon were disregarded (takes a bit of experience to judge, surely a bit of a sot criterium)
• Long range caller was used from the moment of detection until the first brake-off continuously while being crouched in the blind -but all geese that spontaneously broke off even after were considered
• no functional clothing
• only one setup on the map
• harvesting -except the nearest- of shot geese was only done in the end to not miss/spook flocks
• procedure was repeated 3x per starting time

Results: EDIT 18.04.: updated statistics now for all time points
There's some interesting numbers in total:

• 29% of the sessions with rain, ranging from 5 to 60% (av. 36%) of rain duration during 1h
• 42 in-game hours of waterfowling, 341 flocks with total 2525 geese of which 1391 broke off and came down
• average 8.1 flocks / 1h session - max. 12 flocks, min 3
• average 7.3 geese / flock
• average 60 geese / 1h session of which 33 broke off the flocks
• 71% of the flocks broke
• the standard number of geese that will break off a flock using a full spread of decoys is 6 (if the flock consists of 6 or more that is)
• the average number of breaking geese is 4 / flock. Or 5.7, if only the flocks that break are considered

The graphs

relative presentation, e.g. value 1 is the overall average for each category

blue: relative number of flocks in 1h
red: relative number of geese in
yellow: number of geese that broke per flock
green: percentage of flocks that broke


an absolute representation of the number of flocks +/- standard deviation



an absolute representation of the number of geese +/- standard deviation



the average number of geese that broke off one flock +/- standard deviation



the percentage of flocks that broke +/- standard deviation




correlation between rain and breaking of flocks




Main points of the results:

• there is no/not yet a statistical significance, but the data seems do be coherent with a trend
• although not extremely different, the early morning and afternoon seem to be slightly better
• breaking of flocks seems rather constant and does not vary much with the time of the day
• rain does not seem to influence breaking of flocks
• variation in flock size seems to be random and not depending on other parameters
• number of geese breaking off a flock seems to be rather constant
• random variation in flocks / hour seems to be as important as a factor than starting time - so the chance to pick a good or bad session are given for any starting time and a bad session at a better starting time can be as bad or worse than a normal session at a not optimal starting time

Weak points:

• a repetition of 3x per start time is statistically not a lot

Some points regarding discussed bugs

• silent flocks (22 total) break 68% of the time, so not different from the total
• flocks crossing each other in mid-air do frequently break, at least one of them
• flocks were some geese fly at different altitude seem less likely to break

I will continue to add more repetitions when I hunt but I'm fairly happy with the results already. I will also do comparison of different hunting spots with this method. If you want to chime in, feel free to do so. I'd be happy to add more data to the graph to make it more solid.
All that is needed is the total number of flocks, the number of geese/flock and the number of geese that broke/flock. -Ideally determined under the circumstances mentioned above, although the location is probably secondary.

[CrazyDave66]

Thanks for the data. I'm on my first hunt for goose and so far I have not had any break while crouched. I find this to be unnecessary with ducks. What do think from what you've seen about geese so far?

[tazzietiger1966]

the decoys attract when your not around it seems ..as i went away from the hide (about 700 metres away to shoot a few pheasants) when i came back there was a flock of geese on the ground near the decoys )

[CrazyDave66]

Yes it's the same with ducks.

[Flanker305]

That's a lot of work here, Knut - thanks!

[HooCairs]

Outstanding work Knut!

I am going to change my start time for geese to 2pm.

[Blind Mole]

big job knut... but to be honest, 15 hours of hunt cant be used as "statistics".. It means that you started just two times at each hour?

anyway, IMHO:

[Blind Mole]

Outstanding work Knut!

I am going to change my start time for geese to 2pm.

wrong... if you believe this graph, you must start at 1pm its more effective

[Knut]

Cheers, guys.

I have not had any break while crouched. I find this to be unnecessary with ducks. What do think from what you've seen about geese so far?

I think that crouching within the ground blind is unnecessary as long as the birds are in the air. However, it does make a difference as soon as they landed and are very close to you.

I am going to change my start time for geese to 2pm.

I like that time, too.

IMHO:

That might well be true and is honestly the hypothesis that I started from. Also e.g. HooCairs stated that he doesn't feel that there is a difference between the times of the day.
However, the longer I was hunting geese the more I preferred the early morning and that's when I wanted to know properly.
I'm still not convinced about either possibility, i.e. a time difference or none. But I am convinced that one can't go really wrong on the start time.

Outstanding work Knut!
I am going to change my start time for geese to 2pm.

wrong... if you believe this graph, you must start at 1pm its more effective

That I don't get. Why?

[HooCairs]

Also e.g. HooCairs stated that he doesn't feel that there is a difference between the times of the day.
However, the longer I was hunting geese the more I preferred the early morning and that's when I wanted to know properly.

That was after a few hours of playing. I am the first one to believe that there actually are differences, because that's what I see with most other species, so it would fit into the big picture.