Canada Geese: Local and Tasty

My opinions regarding the value and practicality of whitetail deer as food are well-known. But there is also another creature of reasonable size to be found in the eastern states that is worth pursuing and eating. The Canada goose.

Here in central Virginia, the Canada goose does not belong. Sure it is a species native to North America but it properly belongs along the mid-Atlantic flyway, way over along the coast. The birds were inadvertently introduced to the area when the use of live decoys by goose hunters was banned in the early 20th century. Many people had been keeping captive Canada geese in central Virginia (and in other states) in order to take the birds east during goose season. Once the ban took effect, the captive geese were released.

Having gone several generations in captivity, those geese had no migratory traditions. They had an inkling that it was well and good to form up into a 'v' formation and go somewhere, but that somewhere might as easily be 2 miles away as it might be 200.

This is where 'resident' Canada goose populations come from. Once upon a time it was necessary for the geese to travel many hundreds of miles in order to find a dependable source of food during the winter. No more. Resident geese do very well year round without traveling much at all. Humans have planted so many fields with grain crops and lawns with ornamental grasses that these grazing birds don't have to go far to eat.

It is a myth that the geese are always flying South in the fall and winter. Unless you are along a traditional flyway, look at a compass the next time you see geese on the move. The odds of them going even remotely South are only about 1 in 4.

The numbers of Canada geese are enormous. They are now easily the most common species of waterfowl in North America. I have personally observed them as far east as Munich, Germany. They have been foolishly introduced into New Zealand, where they thrive to the point of pestilence. The Canada goose, in any informed opinion, could well stand to be knocked down somewhat in numbers in order to have a more sustainable relationship with the rest of the world's fauna and flora.

These animals, which weigh between 5 and 14 pounds, represent a tremendous amount of under-utilized food flapping its way around in circles across the United States. For the love of all that is holy, please eat them.

Hunting them isn't very hard, until you get to the shooting. And the shooting is a very small part of the overall hunting experience. You don't even need to be close to water. Find a nice big field and sit yourself down comfortably at the edge of that field with a shotgun and perhaps a goose call. When you get the geese coming in low right over you, pick one and shoot it.

The store-bought goose call is helpful but most geese are basically suckers. Many is the time that I have called in a distant flock of geese with nothing more than my own voice and hand. There is a knack to it which is not especially difficult. I put my hand to my mouth, with a fist opened into a slight cone shape, and a gap in the curl of my forefinger to let my voice through. I blow a deep tone for the first part of the call. Then comes the quick break for the honk. Think of the sound of a honking Canada goose. It has two parts, low and high. The trick is a quick break between the two tones, which is not unlike the sound of an especially awkward 13 year old boy's voice breaking. When you break into the higher part of the honk, fan your fingers out quickly as if you were throwing the sound out with your fingers.

Having 2 or 3 people honking all at once, even with indifferent skill, is better than only one really expert caller. My children, ages 6 and 3, are not particularly good at producing goose-like sounds. Yet with the two of them helping make as much of a fuss as possible my success rate in calling in even the most distant of flocks is literally 100%. If we can hear them, then they can hear us and we can make them fly in right above our heads, so close that one might hit a goose with a stone.

You will be able to call them in no closer than about 40 yards above you. Maybe 30 yards on a really fortunate day. This alone is tremendously exciting in practice. But hitting a moving target 30-40 yards away with a shotgun is quite difficult. The technique is called 'pass shooting.' Pass shooting geese requires that you lead the birds by a ridiculous amount. Anything less than a 12 gauge is just not likely to do the job. Dense, tight patterns are the order of the day. You will miss by an embarrassing margin on the first few attempts.

There are two mental obstacles to be wary of. The first is the tendency to aim at the whole flock. Yes, it looks very dense when it is right over you and it seems as though you must certainly hit a goose if only you fire right into the flock. But an examination of any photograph of a flock of geese will demonstrate that there is far more empty space in the volume of the flock than there is mass of goose flesh. Aiming into the flock will probably result in a miss. You have to pick one goose and lead that one goose while ignoring all of the others.

Aiming for the whole goose is still not enough. A goose is a big bird. Even number 2 steel shot has lost a lot of velocity past 35 yards. You can not depend on those spheres of metal penetrating a goose's body and hitting vital organs. I have heard (from Robert Ruark, among others) that at such ranges the shot can sheer off of the feather like water, although I have never seen a scientific study testing this theory. What you've got to do is look at the head of the goose and think of that as the whole show. Think of it as a quail going really fast and really high. The head is small and the brain is only millimeters from the surface of the feathers. A head shot is what you want.

Once its down, there are any number of Christmas goose type recipes that you can find and follow. But don't feel like you absolutely must cook this thing in one intact piece like a Thanksgiving turkey. You can carve it up and do whatever strikes you with the pieces. Bread it and fry it like chicken. Goose enchiladas. Goose pot pie. Goose stir fry. You get the idea.

I am a great believer in looking around at what is already here in plenty and pursuing that species as food, rather than seeking out the rare or distant prey for food. Throughout much of North America, Canada geese fit the bill very nicely. Assuming that you can find a field to sit in, you don't need more than $200 worth of equipment, including a used pump action shotgun and a few boxes of shells. This is ideal for the aspiring locavore hunter and once you have the shotgun around I promise that you will find all manner of interesting things to shoot and eat with it.