Sure, geese are smart, but you can fool them if you study this primer of proven strategies. Geese are smart and getting smarter. Some geese can be simple-minded in the early autumn, but they learn fast, so concentrate your hunting in the front end of the season. They dislike traveling until there's plenty of daylight to reveal danger spots. After feeding, geese leave the fields and head for water to drink and rest, so it's sometimes possible to make an early field hunt, switch to a water setup around noon, and return to the fields for the midafternoon meal.
Weather can help.
Fog, heavy rain, or thick snow will ground geese, forcing them to go hungry. Cold temperatures will step up their metabolism, forcing them to eat more. Either condition can make them less wary. However, under heavy hunting pressure, geese will feed by moonlight, and your hunting will suffer accordingly. Willingness to decoy can vary, but as a rule, geese are at their wariest when coming in to decoys.