As some of you may recall I posted a couple of months ago that a mated pair of geese managed (despite my best efforts) to hatch a brood of 5 goslings on my big pond. I didn't have the heart to 'remove' the problem at that point so I decided to let them stay until they could fly.

Horrible mistake. I mean horrible.

First off, apparently geese are sort of like spam email...once you get one you're gonna get more. My mated pair plus 5 turned into 2 mated pairs plus 9. Not sure how or when this happened but it did. And I'll tell you that many geese produce a LOT of poop.

The pond edges/levee/yard area is a perpetual minefield constantly. There is literally piles of excrement 6-7 inches tall and 24 inches in diameter in a couple of spots on the levee between the small pond and the big one. And the water is absolutely horrid. I estimate 30-40% of the 7 acre pond is covered in FA mats. Historically we've never exceeded 20-25%.

So if you need proof that geese will sincerely mess up your pond, here it is.

The removal process begins in T minus 6 hours. I've rigged a cage to the back of my pontoon boat and am picking up a small trash pump to rig on the back. We're going to suck the FA out.

And the next time I have warm fuzzy feelings about the baby geese I'll remind myself of the nightmare I'm currently dealing with.

I feel your pain. Same thing happened to me. I let a pair nest on the island for a few years. Finally another pair would show up, walking their goslings thru the woods to the pond. I'd chase the other pair and their offspring off, but the pair that called the island home would return in a few hrs or sooner.

One day I came home from an out of town trip and there were 40+ geese on the pond. All adults. It took almost an hour of chasing them around the pond with the dog, and firing a blank pistol to finally get them all to leave. It's as if they had a family reunion of all the goslings that grew up on the pond. The next year I had an explosion of Eurasian Water Milfoil in the pond.

That was the turning point. That's when I put out the "no geese allowed" sign.

I read where an adult goose will poop once every 10 minutes (on average) and each adult will poop one pound of "fertilizer" per day.

Guess I'm lucky I've had the same mater pair for years.. Now this year is the first year I've added a wood duck and 3 babies

I had the EXACT same experience a couple seasons ago, with the exception of Sago instead of the milfoil explosion. I had to use a snow shovel and a 5 gallon bucket to clear the docks weekly, yuck!) Today,we have a ZERO tolerance policy with regards to geese

I have "heard" that spring harvested honker tastes every bit as good as fall harvested honker with zero BB's in the breast.

They do, although I don't know about the BB's. (we have a February nusance goose season where the limit is 5 bids/person/day.)

We don't have a spring dark goose season here in MN. Again I have "heard", shooting them on the water ensures no BB's in the breast meat and a very effective means for eliminating multiple birds with only one gun shot.

And I was called a bully for not giving my first visiting family the boot. Nobody has come back, the word has spread.

From my experience, the new babies are the best tasting once they start taking adult colors.

So, if you have that problem today, wait til the babies are big enough to eat, take them out with your 22, and while you pick up your harvest, you will know for sure that they will never come back.

We haven't seen a single one of our feathered friends since our early summer eviction. And I don't miss them at all, even though the eggs my son pilfered were quite tasty this spring.

I luckily had a completely different experience this year but I may not be so lucky come spring.

I had two adults show up one day with four goslings. They weren't hatched here and apparently walked in from a pond in front of the local school about 3/8's mile away if they walked in directly. Anyway they hung around for a while and I didn't have the heart to harrass them as I do with only adults.

One day they were gone and then came back a couple of weeks later minus one gosling. They stayed for a few weeks and made a nuisance of themselves by slurping in fish feed when I fed the fish. I took care of that problem by firing bottle rockets and they got the message and stayed far away from the fish feed.

One day they were gone again and never came back.

I did have a group of geese land next to the trout pond a month later but all were flyers and didn't stay long.

I suspect they went back to the school pond where they felt safer as no one harasses them there.