ROLLING PLAINS
Approximately one-third of the Rolling Plains region is used, in the words of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department materials, for “intensive agriculture with a variety of different crops such as wheat, cotton, and milo. . . . Large acreages of wheat are grown annually for harvest and winter/spring livestock grazing. The remaining two-thirds of the region is rangeland devoted to cattle ranching.”

That division is fabulous for goose hunting, and can prove productive for light and dark geese equally. The top spots are the few flooded fields, the conservation lakes and the dry crops like peanuts. Look for the light goose hunting to improve as the season draws to an end; the early part of the month will yield more Canadas.

Hunters should use smaller spreads than they would earlier in the season or on the coast. Most in the region prefer small spreads, and may go with as few as two dozen decoys, mainly life-sized models. Calling is not optional here, as spotting geese at a long distances and then luring them in with effective goose talk is typically the way in which the hunting goes down.

Top counties: Clay, Wichita, Archer, Throckmorton, Shackelford, Callahan, Taylor, Nolan, Coke, Sterling, Tom Green, Irion, Concho, and Runnels.

HILL COUNTRY
Very little in the way of goose hunting is seen in the Texas Hill Country, although the northern tier can hold a fair number of birds. At the time of this writing, habitat conditions were pretty bad in most of the region, with water in grimly short supply and the crops that geese prefer in poor condition.

The best chances in the region for prospective goose hunters will be found in the northwestern section of the region, where geese migrating from along the coast will pass and sometimes stage going toward the Panhandle later this month.

GULF COAST
I honestly believe that the most difficult geese to hunt anywhere in the country are along the Texas Gulf Coast. These geese feel serious pressure from focused, well-managed outfitting units and an increasingly knowledgeable recreational hunting base. In 1990, Texas could claim only 60,000 waterfowlers; now, the ranks have swollen to 130,000, many of those on the Gulf Coast.

The outlook for this year for the Upper Coast should be good, as late-summer rains put a lot of water on the rice country and in the coastal marshes. Crop production was good and there is plenty to hold geese.

Outfitter Brian Fischer -- (409) 296-9452 -- advises hunters to be very mindful of key food sources, and to do a lot of scouting. “The geese that are here this time of year are very mobile, and will tear up an area for a couple of days and then move elsewhere at the drop of a hat,” he said. “A lot of times, the best thing to do is to go scouting and see where the geese are feeding and then set up on them after dark. If you can hit them when they’re hot for one particular food source in a field, you can usually do well.”