GEESE GONE WILD GOOSE HUNTERS FIND OPPORTUNITY PLENTIFUL AT WISTER REFUGE.

Byline: Jim Niemiec Special to the Daily News

NILAND - Thousands of snow and Ross' geese are mixing with hundreds of Canada geese on the south end of the Salton Sea, providing goose hunters with some pretty good gunning.

Wister Wildlife Refuge had been on the slow side, but recently green crops came up and new ponds were flooded with fresh water, bringing the birds back to the popular Southland refuge. Private and membership clubs adjacent to the refuge are enjoying fair shooting over fields that either are being flooded weekly or have green rye grass and alfalfa emerging.

I recently hunted geese with Frank Theodoropoulos of Santa Ana at the River Ranch Hunt Club located between Wister and the Hazard Unit.

``We have a 100-acre field that is holding hundreds of geese, and we need to get in and shoot the birds before they eat all the rye grass and move on to other clubs or back on the refuge,'' Theodoropoulos, veteran goose hunter, said.

Despite arriving at the club after dark it was easy to tell it was surrounded by geese, which were calling. The hunt was scheduled for a 3 a.m. start.

``We will need to get up early to get all the rags, shells and flyers out by legal shoot time. The geese could fly early with the dark of the moon and we might all be limited out on geese by 8:30 a.m.,'' Theodoropoulos said.

Joining us in the field to set up the huge spread of decoys was Gary Boyd of Gardena, Max Berg, owner of Sportsman's Catering Service at the Wister Refuge, Southland hunters Travis Boyd, Gavin Hardy and his brother Clay and Ron Van Fleet, who was visiting from Montana. The huge spread would consist of 1,500 snow goose rags, eight dozen shells, six dozen FeatherFlex decoys, an assortment of flying decoys and head-bobbing Mirages that took nearly 1 1/2 hours to set up.

The party got down into wet pit blinds and patiently waited for shooting time to arrive while geese continued working the field in the dark. At shooting time more birds began working the decoys, and in less than 30 minutes there were 12 snows and Ross' geese on the ground, half the daily limit. Timber, my lab, had a great time retrieving geese in the muddy field and then waited patiently for the next flight of white geese to come within shotgun range.

Gary Boyd limited on geese first as he cased his shotgun and then sat back and watched the birds lock up over the decoys, while other shooters took aim at small groups of geese numbering up to 15 birds as larger flocks of birds stayed out of range. Clay Hardy also bagged a three-bird limit early in the morning, followed by Travis Boyd and Clay's brother, Gavin.

I got my third bird at 7:45, and six hunters limited out by 8:30.

Flights of geese slowed with the desert sun getting higher in the sky, but the birds still wanted into the field. They came in smaller groups working the decoys perfectly while responding to subtle calling by Theodoropoulos. Berg missed a shot for his limit, but Theodoropoulos dropped the Ross' with a 55-yard shot to finish off his limit. The successful day of goose hunting ended when Van Fleet dropped a single Ross' goose that almost fell in the blind.

The decoys and rags were picked up and it was time to head home with the harvest for the day totaling one goose shy of eight full limits of a mix of snow and Ross' geese. This River Ranch Hunt Club field will not be able to support the pressure of thousands of geese eating the rye grass twice a day, and these birds will begin moving around the valley looking for more food and be joined by more birds moving into the valley on the next full-moon phase.

There are well more than 15,000 white geese in the valley and about 500 between Wister and Westmoreland. Goose hunting on the refuge, for those holding high reservation numbers, should show better gunning starting in early December and continue strong through the end of the season.

Shooting spots on Wister that traditionally produce good white goose gunning over big decoy spreads are sites U10-4, T1-2&4, W11-C or in the Union Tract.

For season-ending youth-hunt details or information on memberships in the River Ranch Hunt Club, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Thousands of Ross' and snow geese, like the ones at River Ranch Hunt Club near Niland, take flight in Oregon.

Gary Thain/Associated Press

(2) L.A. county sportsman Gary Boyd bagged his mixed limit of snow and Ross' geese the week before Thanksgiving while shooting at River Ranch Hunt Club.

Jim Niemiec/Special to the Daily News