Have you ever been scouting on some old dirt road and happen to stumble onto a group of feeding geese? You watch for a while considering the damage that could be done the following morning, everything in the field looks perfect, they don't even know your there!As you role down the window to get a better count of the birds a few heads pop. As you count a few more heads start to rise. Now your thinking the birds have you spotted and maybe a quick get away would be ideal. As you start to pull away every goose in the field has its eyes on you?

I was thinking of this particular experience of a recent scouting adventure and wondered how they noticed me, Did they hear the window go down, could they hear the car running? I figured later on that the sentries or lookouts in the field spotted me and knew something was askew. As I thought more about this I started to wonder how I could apply what I learned in the field. Sentries are the link from finishing wary birds to getting busted.

In family groups of geese a sentry will watchout for danger as the rest either rest or feed. The  watcher might be looking towards a road with frequent traffic or staring at a woodlot off in the distance. In either case they are looking toward the most likely spot of danger. It is not until something is noticed the others will raise their heads.

In decoy spreads the sentries should be strategically placed to reanact real life situations, An early season tactic would be to place small family groups of three to seven  decoys around the spot to be hunted and use only the minimal amount of sentries . Have one goose looking towards the road, another looking at the farmers house next to the field. Maybe, have a sentry looking at the larger group of feeder dekes next to the kill hole, or a looker watching some decoys farther away made to look like walkers coming to steal some food.Sentry decoys should never be placed as if they are looking at your blinds or hide.

Since these decoys are also the first thing a goose usually looks at while in the air, one could gather that these decoys might just help put the finishing touches on a group of wary geese. The sentrys in your spread should be on moving bases if at all possible to add realism, Maybe be carefull with these decoys also to keep them looking fresh and new. Place the lookers next to feeder or resting  decoys to add even more realism.

Keeping things real to life in the field are just some of the things that lead to confidence and success. There are many important parts of a successfull hunt, but learning something from the real thing is a great lesson that everyone should learn.