Any hunter knows: to successfully hunt a goose, you need a good bait. Such is the goose profile, which is made of durable material, and it is called semolina goose. Such bait can be bought, but it is better to make a profile of geese with your own hands. It will cost much less, and the creative process itself will be a pleasure. Read about how to make bait and how to use it in this article.
Why do you need semolina geese
Profiles of geese, or semolina geese, are artificial, human-made figures of birds on which hunters entice prey. The goose, being a gregarious bird, having seen relatives, joins them.
Earlier, half of automobile tires for the earth and plastic bottles for water were used as baits. But over time, more efficient technologies have appeared.
Large flocks are more attractive for these birds, so making goose profiles with your own hands requires patience - the more, the more effective for the hunter.
For a good hunt, it is important to make profiles of the correct shape and color. In order to achieve greater reliability, you can use the pictures of geese in the form of a little from above, and color the layouts in the same way. This is all the more important because goose hunting is quite popular these days, and migratory flocks observe various lures on their way, birds become smarter during the hunting season and learn to distinguish fakes.
An important role is played by the proper placement of lures.
Conditions for a successful hunt
In order for the hunt to be effective, you need properly made baits and their correct use:
- The material for the manufacture can be metal, thick hard cardboard or plywood.
- The bait must have the correct bird shape. This is easy to achieve by constructing a geese profile with your own hands. How to make them as effective as possible? The calm, not wary position of the bird is perfect. As a rule, they make about twenty profiles. Half of them depict that the bird is sitting quietly, and the second - that it feeds.
- Important and appropriate color. She, firstly, must be believable. Secondly, the shade of color should coincide with the breed of bird that lives or appears in the hunting region.
Materials and tools for manufacturing
In order to make a profile on a goose with your own hands, you need to prepare the following materials and tools:
- hardboard, sheet metal or plywood for the manufacture of profiles;
- wooden pegs to fasten figures;
- thick cardboard for drawing stencil ;
- paints for coloring figures;
- file or sandpaper for grinding edges;
- brushes or spray for applying dye;
- a chisel or jigsaw to cut the layout;
- large scissors for cutting stencil;
- turpentine - for adding to oil paints.
How to make a stencil
Before you make a profile for a goose with your own hands, you need to prepare a special form - a stencil. To make it, you must do the following:
- Choose from various sources those images that are considered the most suitable.
- The drawing can be drawn independently or printed on a printer.
- The dimensions of the picture should be one and a half to two times larger than the original so that they are clearly visible from a bird's eye view. Optimum sizes are considered from sixty centimeters to one meter from the tip of the tail to the beak. The specific size depends on the position of the bird in the figure.
- Depict geese necessarily in profile. Two options are preferred here: a feeding bird with its neck down, down to the ground, or on guard. In the second case, the neck is straight, and the beak is parallel to the ground.
- Draw goose contours on cardboard and cut with any suitable tool.
How to make goose profiles with your own hands
The sequence of manufacturing goose profiles consists of the following steps:
- prepare stencils of goose profiles of two types;
- apply a stencil on the surface of the material from which the profiles will be made (hardboard, plywood or other);
- cut out the layout - the profile of the bait using a hacksaw, chisel or jigsaw, depending on the material;
- to process the edges of the product with sanding paper or a file;
- primer and color the resulting layouts;
- from wood to make stakes for fastening profiles;
- paint the resulting pegs with gray or brown paint, identical in color to the goose profile;
- after the coating has completely dried, cut holes in the bottom of each semolina goose to fix the pegs (the length of the stakes depends on the location of the profiles: fifteen centimeters will be sufficient for the earth, and up to fifty will be enough for water).
Coloring profiles
In order to make it convenient to paint finished forms, they must be placed on the floor. Next, gray paint is diluted, which will serve as the basis, the primer for painting. At the next stage, the layout is covered with a layer of gray paint.
It is especially necessary to prime the edges of the profile so that their color does not differ from the main one. The soil should dry well, after which you can begin to stain.
Most often, the geese profile, made with their own hands, is coated with oil paints. This is due to the fact that the latter stay on the surface for a long time, slowly wash off and protect the bait well from moisture.
Instead of oil paint, you can also use alkyd matte enamel using tinting. The desired color is added to the enamel base and bred to the desired shade. Paint is applied by brush or spray. For applying the background, white sealant is used. He is also allowed to replace the gray primer. The sealant is applied with a thick brush to the profile, and then paint is applied on top.
What to consider when painting
Before you make goose profiles from plywood, you need to consider that this material does not have good moisture resistance characteristics. As a result, the paint on it will hold worse compared to other substrates. Therefore, before applying dye to plywood, it is necessary to prime each profile with warm (heated) drying oil. After this procedure, to continue further work, you need to wait until the surface has completely dried.
It must be remembered that profiles cannot be coated with shiny enamel paints, since such a layer reflects in the sun, thereby scaring off prey. If moisture-resistant oil paint is still used for painting, turpentine is added to the container to make it dull.
You can apply acrylic paints, which are also not afraid of dampness and frost.
Full rendering of plumage is not worth it, because from the height of the flight of the bird they still can not distinguish.
Useful Tips
Coloring of models should be carried out outdoors.
In order to lure a flock of geese on the hunt, it is better to color the profiles like a white-fronted goose. It is also desirable to emphasize the contrast of colors in the plumage. To do this, the place under the tail is made white, and the rump is painted black. The back of the bait should be darker, and the belly should be lighter. The beak and legs are painted in dark yellow or pink. The carcass is made in gray or brown.
After painting on one side, allow the surfaces to dry completely. Then the layout is turned over, and the second side is identical to the first.
It is also necessary to prepare stakes before making goose profiles. The goose pegs for baits can be of two types: removable, which can be inserted already upon arrival at the place of hunting - in them, on the one hand, a cleft is made and fixed with a wire so as not to split; and stationary, which are fastened with small nails.
The paint stays on the profile for about two seasons. Then it needs to be adjusted.
To ensure that the bait is not demolished in strong winds, each is equipped with a small eyelet, which is attached to a flyer inserted into the ground.
How to make a profile on a goose: method two
There is another option for making profiles that hunters share.
The first step is to buy a five-millimeter PES from the calculation of the size of the profiles and the fact that they will be two-layer.
Next are photographs of geese, processed on a computer to obtain a contour, enlarged by two to three times and printed. If possible, then printing is performed immediately in large format, and if not, the contours are printed on several A4 sheets, cut out and glued together. You can draw a stencil with your own hand.
It is difficult to overdo it with the choice of size - the larger the more useful. Hunters know that bird eyes cannot determine linear dimensions. Just to be seen from a height.
Next, the stencil is superimposed on the base and cut out along the contour with any scissors, while do not forget about the double number of forms. After that, thick strong threads (kapron or twine) pattern the stitching in seams in pairs with a step of about two centimeters. A hole for landing on a peg is left on the stomach below.
How to arrange profiles
In order for the hunt to succeed, the profile placement plan needs to be thought out in advance. To do this, take into account the terrain, the direction of the wind.
It is necessary to establish the profiles of geese made by oneself at different angles and in different directions, so that at different approaches the flock sees whole bodies of semolina geese, and not their ends. As a rule, images of feeding birds are placed in the center, and watchdogs along the edges.
Flocks usually land on the second or third circle. If this did not happen, and two flocks flew past, that is, an occasion to think and rearrange the bait in a different way.
Hunting camouflage
The place of disguise of the hunter is called a litter. You can buy it or dig a hole. It’s better to set up an ambush for the purchased option near the installed profiles (twenty meters from them), where there is uneven terrain or thickets of tall grass. On a flat surface arrange a recess so that it is convenient for hours of sitting in it and not too large.
And another important point that many omit: the open face of the hunter. It is clearly visible from great distances and reflects in the sun, so for hunting it can be painted in black and green stripes using makeup or makeup.
Conclusion
In order for the hunt to go with pleasure, you need to prepare for it in advance. The most important thing is not to forget the self-made geese profile. They are an integral attribute of bird hunting, and without them this pleasure is hardly possible.
You also need to take care of the car, sleeping bag, workwear and shoes, a set of dishes and a supply of dry firewood. For the device of ambush you will need a pick, spade, spade and ax. Well, you can’t do without, of course, without weapons, camouflage net, flashlight, compass and binoculars.
Subject to all the recommendations given in this article, the hunt will be successful and effective.