Doskophoto: goosehunting

Geese, Guides, and Dogs

There’s an unusual silence at 5 a.m. when you’re sitting in a blind with numb fingers and toes, a shotgun resting across your lap, eyes locked on the sky while your mind wanders.

And yet, one thought always cuts through: I could be warm in my bed right now, lost in a dream.

I used to duck hunt in Texas with a few buddies—mostly my friend Guillermo—and every trip felt like an expedition. G was meticulous. He’d scout flocks for days, tracking patterns and predicting where we could get them to land at first light. When he called and asked, “Want to go hunting tomorrow?” it usually meant a 2 a.m. alarm, a long drive, and then hiking or kayaking through the dark to be set up before the birds moved.

I was usually tired, cold, and hungry.
But I never once regretted it.

When I moved to Colorado, I heard goose hunting along the Front Range was fire. I wanted in. But Colorado is different. There’s less water, public land is crowded, and finding a safe, productive spot can feel daunting. I hung up my shotgun for a while, waiting for the right opportunity.

So when I was invited to spend a few days with the crew at Platte Basin Outdoors -to see their operation and chase some honkers - I was all in.

Colorado has a serious goose hunting scene—and for good reason. Each year, between 200,000 and 300,000 Canada geese funnel into the state, many lingering until spring. They raft up on frozen lakes, gravel pits, river bottoms, and harvested fields, turning the Front Range into one of the most pressured—and rewarding—goose hunting destinations in the country.

These birds are built for survival. Canada geese can travel up to 1,500 miles in a day. Their eyes move independently, picking up astonishing detail. They can live more than 40 years. They’re loud, massive, intelligent—and incredibly wary.

Ironically, as humans reshape the landscape, we’ve created something of a haven for them. Industrial parks, housing developments, and expanding cities displace many of their natural predators—coyotes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, eagles, and crows. Add in the steady growth of agriculture, and the result is ideal goose habitat. The North American population has rebounded from near collapse to roughly seven million birds.

That boom has fueled an entire industry—guns, gear, dogs, camo—and at the center of it all are the guides.

Being a goose guide in Colorado may sound like a dream job—and I’m sure parts of it are—but it’s exhausting work. These guys aren’t just blowing calls and pulling triggers. They’re up at 3 a.m. hauling decoys, brushing blinds, and scouting hundreds of properties. They negotiate with landowners, monitor bird movement daily, and live entirely on the birds’ schedule.

And when clients show up half-asleep in the dark, guides have to keep things safe, organized, and moving—while everyone waits for that first distant honk.

Because geese are creatures of habit. They roost on water and feed in the same fields day after day. But under pressure, they adapt. Push them off one field, and you hope they slide into another that you have access to.

Michael and I spent hours riding around in his F-350, glassing ponds and fields. Around 4 p.m., we watched thousands of birds lift off a privately owned gravel pond and fly nine miles to a field they’d been feeding in for weeks.

That afternoon, everything changed.

The landowner had moved his cattle into the pasture, bumping the birds from their routine.

Just like that, the pattern broke.

A skein approached, saw their familiar ground overtaken by bovine, and veered off. They circled wide, scrambling to adjust—looking for somewhere new to settle before dark.

The next morning came early.

I met guides John and Ginger to load a trailer full of decoys and panel blinds. We headed 45 minutes out to meet Zach (another guide) and a dozen clients on a new property—one they’d only gained access to because duck season had just ended and the land owner loves his ducks.

We arrived well before sunrise and went straight to work. Clearing a ditch. Setting blinds. Spreading thirty to forty dozen decoys across the field.

Then came the stillness.

The birds had been taking flight around 7:00–7:30.

At 7:29, the first skein glided in.

“Don’t move,” Zach said quietly, like he’d said it a thousand times before.

The birds passed just out of range, looking us over with sharp skepticism.

Then, in the distance, another group appeared—larger this time, skirting the edge of the field.

The guides jumped on their calls, honking hard.

The birds turned.

It was on.

As they committed, dropping lower, the sequence came quick:

“Get ready.”
“Don’t move.”
“Get ’em!”

Everyone rose at once, guns up, unloading. Birds folded out of the sky.

Then came cleanup—and that’s where Luna and Mo took over.

Watching a well-trained dog work is something else. They sit steady in their blinds all morning, even after watching a goose fall from the sky. No breaking. No creeping. Locked in. Waiting.

Then the command comes—and they jump into motion.

They tear across the field, track the birds, grab them, give a quick shake if needed, and bring them back to the guides. Some of these birds are about the same size as the dog. Doesn’t matter.

By the end of the hunt, we’d picked up a few more passes and finished with eleven birds—including a white-fronted goose, or “spec,” named for the dark bars across its chest.

The next morning, we hunted a different property with John and Matt leading the hunt nine of us loaded into a custom IRONHIDE blind set along a small pond.

It was luxury by comparison. Plenty of space, heat, and a roof that folded down when it was time to shoot. The whole rig sat on wheels so it could be hauled east for their month-long snow goose run in Nebraska.