Hello! Long-time lurker. First-time poster.
If geese come in very high in a public duck hunting spot, and guys in one blind shoot, and the flock rises, but one bird starts a very slow descent, and the bird flies over the decoys of a second guy 200 yards away, and the second guy shoots it and his dog retrieves it, who gets the bird?
I'd appreciate any input, as this happened to me last weekend.

who cares unless its banded? its a goose.

the actual answer is the second guy. Just like with a deer. If you wound a deer, and it runs buy someone else and they drop it, its their deer.

But again, who cares? its a goose.

guy #2 but I don't like cleaning geese so I would give it to guy #1

Second guy. Happened to us once. Some goose hunters shot at a speck but carried off with plenty of life. Flew over us at 40 yards and he drilled it. It's all about the killing shot IMO, not knocking some feathers off it

Guy number 2 cuts off one leg, then gives it to guy number 1.

Thanks, guys. I was the second shooter. The first shooter came huffing and puffing from his blind. I swear it took him 20 minutes to get to me. I figured if he came that far, he really wanted the bird. I don't go duck hunting to get in fights. I just took the bird out of my boat and gave it to him without an argument. But I was curious what is normal.
Spoonie, I might have met you last year. Or at least seen you. I was in the car line on a public hunt, 40 degrees at 5 a.m. And some brave character in line behind me was out there walking around in shorts and tube socks. Was that you? Thing is, the hunt manager later told me that same group of guys shot a cinnamon teal, and that same day you posted up a cinnamon teal, and the pictures showed the same spot.

Shorts a tube socks? Were you one of the guys at the front who left?

Fity fity

If the goose was for sure going down and retrievable, then I would say shooter 1. If it was just sailing on forever with no clear indication of it ever going down, but clearly showing signs of being hit, then shooter 2.

It's obviously the dog's bird.

Goes like this...a hunter shot a goose and it landed over the fence on the farmers land. The farmer went to pick it up and the hunter says, that's my goose...farmer says no, it's on my land it's my goose. This goes on until the farmer says, let's settle it the old fashioned way. I'll kick you in the nuts , you kick me in the nuts...last man standing gets the goose. Hunter agrees and pow...the farmer kicks him in the nuts...when the hunter makes it back to his feet, he says, now it's my turn...farmer says, nah that's OK, you can have the goose!

Or..the second guy if that doesn't work.

To me it's the second guys bird. But I wouldn't put up a big fuss over

What's worse is during dove season when two guys shot at almost the same time. Saw a bird split a pair of hunters. Both shot and claimed they hit it. While they argued 6 more flew by...

The guy that has goose dekes out.

Not sure if this is true or not, but we used to goose hunt in southeren Illinois back in the hay day of goose hunting there and we were always told by the federal wardens in the area that it would belong to the last person to shoot at the bird ( claiming shot ). They would enforce it that way, the last shot fired had to reduce the bird to his bag limit.

You did the nice thing. Welcome to the Forum!

Pull a pellet and compare to shot each shooter has under a microscope






















then who cares its a goose give it to the first shooter

Yeah normally the second shooter but if the guy wants it that bad then I'd give it to him too. Unless it was banded then I'd take the band.

If he wants it that bad, give it to him. There will be more geese for you to shoot

I never take a contested community bird of any type...who ever felt the need to claim it can have it...I figure I am going to limit out soon enough!!!....but legally the second guy gets it...The key when hunting is to always take the high road on downed game, you will make many good hunting buddies that way.

if they were very high why'd you shoot anyways?? Sounds like sky blasting to me, bird goes to the dog!

This.