Between the playas, the winter wheat, and the numerous amounts of geese, lesser Canadas flock to the Panhandle region of Texas by the millions. (Photo courtesy of WILDFOWL Magazine.)
July 03, 2025
By Jim Steiert
This article originally appeared in January 1991 issue of WILDFOWL Magazine
The playa lake to the south of us was an uproar of goose talk. Now that the sun was well up, robust appetites were stirring thousands of geese that had roosted there. Most of the geese had slept in, unlike us, who had set a decoy spread in this winter wheat field in pre-dawn darkness and were now hugging bone-chilling ground that hadn’t given up its hoary coat of frost.
Small flocks vaulted from the farmland playa, undulating across farmland toward our Canada and snow spread. Skein after skein of yelping geese came in a winged horse. It was a vision right out of the “good old days."
Clamoring geese jockeyed for air-space just above the spread, weaving and crisscrossing. Late arrivals hovered above early flights already locked onto their glidepath. Some birds banked to the sides of the spread. Others backpedaled and ruddered, stretched their dark legs and flopped among the decoys, to stand eyeing their surroundings suspiciously before taking wing once more. A good many geese set to grazing shoots of winter wheat, unaffected by the plastic fakes around them.
Advertisement
The Texas Panhandle for years has been a destination for wintering lesser Canadas. (Photo courtesy of WILDFOWL Magazine.) The teemimg geese were lesser Canadas, the ubiquitous honkers that make waterfowling a delight in the Texas Panhandle. They were so close that wingtips fanned our faces. But we could not have at them.
Our party of Rick Hales, George Hughes and I had followed the “bird-in-the-hand” school of thought this morning when the first flights came winging to the wheat field. We had filled our two-dark-goose-per-hunter limit with lesser Canadas by 7:30, well before the main event started. Now, we could only keep watch for bonus snow geese and witness a heritage of the rich waterfowl wintering ground that is the Texas Panhandle.
Getting to see thousands of wild geese eyeball to eyeball as they dropped into the spread hardly qualified as penance. Scenes like this aren’t everyday in goose hunting anywhere. They do happen frequently in the Panhandle, which includes the 26 northern most counties of Texas. Thanks to lesser Canada geese, waterfowlers here get quite a show. It is a genuine pleasure, especially in these hard times for waterfowl, to be able to witness a winged heritage of the panhandle farmlands.
Advertisement
I grew up in Castra County, currently make my home in Deaf Smith County, and am within 15-minute driving distance of Parmer County. We are talked about as three of the crown jewels of Panhandle waterfowl hunting here. Living here has its rewards.
Lesser Canada geese have been winging to the Panhandle almost from time beyond memory. In the past 10 to 15 years, they’ve taken an increasing role as part of the Panhandle’s fall and winter scene. This may reflect the continuing good fortune of geese as compared to ducks.
Lessers, or shortgrass prairie Canadas as they’re known, nest from Alaska to Hudson Bay country in upper Canada, where drought hasn’t hurt them.
Shortgrass prairies are just the type of country much of the Texas Panhandle once was—wide-open rangeland. It’s hard to say just how long Canadas have been winging to the Panhandle, but they were wintering here well before man changed the countryside. The hardy geese grazed prairie grasses and watered and roosted on playa lakes. The playas date more than 10,000 years.
By the 1900s Panhandle grasslands were being plowed into grain-farming country. Winter wheat became a staple of early farming. Adaptable lesser Canadas relished the tender young wheat.
The late Edwin “Goose” Ramey, an early day Castro County farmer and respected longtime student of ways of geese, often commented on how the Panhandle’s goose population increased with the advent of grain farming. By the late 1930s, geese were becoming a feature of the country around Buffalo Lake in Randall County. In 1958 the US Fish and Wildlife service established the Buffalo Lake Wildlife Refuge at Umbarger, Randall County. Ducks and geese by the millions made their home on this refuge in its heyday, ranging over farmland and surrounding Randall, Castro, Swisher. and Deaf Smith counties to feed.
Irrigated agriculture intensified in the region in the 1950s and 1960s, creating more feeding fields for geese. Honkers could eventually add goodies like corn and soybeans to diet that had long included wheat and grain sorghum. Runoff from irrigated fields held water levels constant and many playas, creating a haven for the honkers.
Despite eventual decline of the Buffalo lake refuge as a waterfowl area, lesser canadas have continued to do well in the Panhandle. Intensive agriculture, particularly corn farming, which really got going in the 1960s and 70s, enhanced conditions for geese. Today, huntable flocks winter in a large number of Panhandle counties, particularly in areas when rains fill playas over a broad area.
We've been seeing more geese than ever in the Panhandle the past few hunting seasons. Timely rainfall has played no small part. The 1988-89 season was particularly fruitful in light of drought conditions in much of the Central Flyway. Short feed forced geese to travel farther South in search of a winter home. Plenty of playas and grain feed gave them that in the Panhandle.
The 1989-90 season saw lesser Canadas in Panhandle-South Plains country that hasn’t had a goose wintering tradition. Rainfall and available playas along with cold weather that moved the birds meant geese were probably as widespread as they’ve ever been in the region. Of particular note was the massive number of geese that moved into the Lubbock-Post-Tahoka region last season, bringing a newfound enthusiasm for goose hunting to the South Plains.
Hunters in the Panhandle put white parkas to use now with the arrival of more snow geese. (Photo courtesy of WILDFOWL Magazine.) Huntable numbers of geese were scattered all the way from Dallam County in the far northwest corner of the Panhandle to Moore, Carson, Armstrong, Swisher and Floyd counties in the central portion, to Lubbock, Crosby, Lynn and Garza counties on the South Plains. All this in addition to continued wintering in more traditional locales.
When favorable rainfall leaves plenty of water in the playas, the Panhandle can winter up to a quarter of the Central Flyway population of shortgrass prairie Canadas. Counting ducks, as many as two million waterfowl can board for the winter here.
Panhandle goose numbers fluctuate with the weather. Frigid conditions in Colorado, Oklahoma and other points north can push huge numbers of geese south to the Panhandle, literally overnight.
Occasionally, a severe deep freeze will ice over Panhandle playas. Ducks and geese temporarily abandon the Panhandle for regions north and south when such freezeups occur. They move back as soon as the lakes thaw. Geese often congregate on large bodies of water like Lake Meredith, in the northern Panhandle at these times.
Lesser snow geese have joined lesser Canada geese on the Panhandle wintering grounds in recent years. They are thought to come from flocks in nearby New Mexico, although Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has documented snows from the distant Pacific Flyway wintering in the Panhandle. Snows fly to feeding fields and roost on lakes in company with Canadas, although they stay in their own distinctive gatherings. Snows on the Panhandle wintering grounds have allowed hunters to make good use of white decoys and parkas when hunting Canadas.
Lesser Canadas remain the strong suit of Panhandle goose hunting. Snows compose only a fraction of the total number of wintering geese and sometimes whitefronts and Ross's geese are also seen here.
Predominant on the Panhandle wintering grounds are the “lessers” Branta canadensis parvipes which are 6-to-8-pound birds. Quite a number of Richardson's geese B.C. buchinsii, are also present. These mighty mites are only about the size of a mallard. Late in the season Western Canadas are also found in the Panhandle. These geese are much larger.
Such geese are not the stuff of shotshell company calendars featuring boys staggering home past milking time under the weight of a brace of honkers. Lesser Candas are plenty numerous on the Panhandle wintering grounds, though. And they’re cooperative. Do a good job of scouting, set a decent spread and hide passably, and you’ll pull some of these dark geese almost without fail.
We’ve watched literally thousands of lessers work to our decoys after limiting out early on dark geese. I’ve heard many hunters comment on how “stupid” these lesser Canadas are as they pitched into the spread.
There’s nothing “stupid” about lesser. They can be challenging and frustrating. If the hatch is short, the experienced lessers steer as clear of the decoys as any other savvy waterfowl. Ditto for heavily pressured flocks. There have been plenty days I couldn’t coax these little geese into even a flyby.
Ah, but those days when things are right! Lessers would be vulnerable to overshooting if not for those conservative two-dark-goose limit. The affinity of these geese for well-set spreads has given lots of hunters the kind of close-up encounter that has hooked them on goose hunting for life.
There’s no finer way to hunt lesser Canadas than from a decoy spread in a feeding field. Some Panhandle hunters like to decoy on playas. Others prefer leaving the geese undisturbed on the water. This encourages them to stick around meaning they’ll be found in proximity to the lake much longer,
Some lake hunters use pit blinds, but for the most part pits are taboo in field hunting geese in the Panhandle. Most of the best hunting takes place in irrigated farm country, where pits aren’t compatible with field operations or irrigation. Hunters either cover themselves with fodder left from harvesting operations or don camo or white parkas and lie in the decoys.
If you're looking for a great lesser hunt, the Texas Panhandle is a fantastic option. Geese will feed in the same field for several days if undisturbed. They do switch fields frequently. This precludes pits, as well as leaving spreads in fields. Decoys left too long are subject to theft or wind damage. Most local hunters feel leaving spreads educates the geese and hurts success. Successful decoy hunters set out and pick up on every outing.
In decoying the little Canadas a 12 gauge gun with fairly open choke, especially with steel loads, is more than ample for the chore. I’ve seen scores of lesser fall to well-wielded 20 gauges. With the advent of steel shot in the Panhandle, hunters may have to change their shot selection for sure kills.
All-day goose hunting is allowed in the Panhandle, but decoy hunters operate almost exclusively in the mornings, giving geese the afternoons to feed undisturbed. Am afternoon decoy hunt can occasionally be productive, especially for snow geese. Many pass shooters gun evening flights. Lessers normally flu to feed in the morning, and again in late afternoon. They roost on playas for the night.
Fond memories of wonderful days afield come to mind whenever I consider lesser Canadas. A lesser was my first goose and lesser have the first for a myriad of folks hunting with me. Coaxing little Canadas for excited youngsters getting their first taste of goose hunting is especially rewarding.
An occasion comes to mind when young Reed Purvis and his dad Ralph, of Dallas, made a journey to the Panhandle seeking that first goose.
We hunted a harvested corn field, passing a slow first hour that saw restlessness gnaw hard at the youngster.
The lesser zoomed over the downwind edge of the spread and lowered his feet. I let the goose coast within about 20 yards and gave Reed the go.
Reed’s 20 gauge popped once. The Canada crumpled in a cloud of down and thudded in front of the boy and his dad. A beaming nine-year-old romped to the retrieve. He looked a veteran as he returned with the mini-honker slung over his shoulder.
“Boy, did you see how close that goose was? That was great! Those little Canadas are fantastic,” Reed yelled.
