magpie geese

[longshot47]

I'm on the last travel mission of piccabeen bay and I find shooting a flying magpie goose with a bow impossible. Has anyone accomplished this and if they did could you tell me how?

[xOEDragonx]

Welcome to the forum Longshot!

I have completed several competitions and a couple of missions now that have required shooting an airborne bird with a bow and while I don't consider it hard to do anymore, I will say there is a learning curve to it. For me, the critical element is learning when to time calls correctly.

When a duck/goose breaks from the flock, it will go to a specific area in the general vicinity (not to you) and circle that area 1-2 times before landing roughly in that area. If you have a goose or duck setup, you can learn your "landing areas" by using long calls to make birds break from the flock, but NOT using the short range call at all. Instead, watch the birds to see where they go. After several flocks, you'll learn those areas that birds want to land in near you. I know with my setups, there is exactly one area that canada geese, snow geese and magpie geese will go to circle before they land. With my duck setup, there are three distinct areas the ducks will choose from to circle before they land.

Once you know those areas, then it's a matter of learning to let the birds fly to those areas and start the circling process before you short call to them at all. Once you hit that short caller, it changes their behavior and makes them come to you. If you short call as soon as they break from the main flock, they will come to you, circle you, then land in a direction where they're flying away from you. But if you short call when they're circling nearby in their landing zone right at the time they set their wings to land (they stop flapping), you will find that they turn and glide literally straight at you. Most of my bow shots on birds are <10m because I shoot the birds when they're coming straight at me, usually about to land right on me.

Just practice with timing your short calls. If you short call as soon as a flock breaks, it will be incredibly difficult to ever get a bow kill. Try short calling when the birds are in different areas-- heading to their landing zone, as soon as they start circling their landing zone, or the best option for me, the moment you think they're going to stop flapping. Hopefully the close range shots with birds flying straight at you helps you complete the mission.

Also, bow type doesn't matter. You can shoot birds using the same method with any type of bow, but if you're using a traditional bow it helps if you already know where you need to aim to hit a close object.

[Dr_ViEr]

For me, the use of tracer arrows made it easier to zero in...
I remember, when this mission was launched, there was also a difference in the spooking behavior. With standard arrows the geese were spooked right away while tracers gave you several attempts. But I am not sure, if this is still the case.

[longshot47]

Thanks for the tips. I also can't even hit them with the .17 hmr. lol. I have a hard time even hitting them with a shotgun as I just started shooting waterfowl but love it. I'd love to see a demo video of someone hitting a magpie goose with a recurve bow or the .17 hmr.

[xOEDragonx]

For what it's worth, I attempted to record one for you just now, but apparently my recording software is currently broken so I don't have the video to share and now I have a mystery to solve.

My magpie goose set-up is the worst of the three goose species for doing my strategy above, simply because the area they want to circle and land is farther from my favorite blind and there's trees obscuring one of the ways they come in. But even with that, it's still doable. This guy took about 30 minutes to get, as I botched several of the first flocks-- https://www.thehunter.com/#profile/xoed ... 1099042299

If you want to get the mission done and don't care if you shoot the bird yourself, message me and we can figure out a time I can set up a multiplayer game and I can try to get one for you.

[longshot47]

I'm very new to multiplayer and so far, I've only done it with my girlfriend mainly because she didn't have the required weapon or equipment. I would welcome a fellow hunter who could help shoot a goose with a recurve bow as I can't finish the mission pack without it. That would be my 16th mission pack I completed. Btw I have shot one with a .17 HMR finally.