For goose hunters, the late season can be feast or famine. At the tail end of the season, weather, birds' movements and other factors combine to make hunting highly variable.

In good years, the final weeks of legal shooting can offer some of the best waterfowling action of the year.

Unfortunately, during times of poor hunting, the late season can offer nothing but long, cold and unsuccessful days afield.

During the late season, the weather plays as much a factor as anything. If there's not enough wintry weather north of us, large numbers of migratory birds don't get pushed into the state.

In those rare years when we get heavy snow cover and freezing conditions, these geese are pushed farther south, right on past us.

For optimum hunting conditions, we need that perfect balance: harsh conditions to the north, with open fields and water here in the Bluegrass State.

Over the last several years, a couple of other goose-hunting opportunities have opened up, reducing some of the burden and worry associated with waiting for winter weather to send Canada geese down our way.

One of these is the huge increase in resident birds.

The components of our goose harvest have changed a lot in recent years. In the past, most of our annual harvest was of migratory birds. These days, however, a majority of our harvest has shifted dramatically to resident geese.

Even though this has spread the harvest more evenly across the state and actually upped the harvest total, it doesn't necessarily mean that resident birds are easy to target.

Actually, quite the contrary is true, especially in the late season.

In the past, the harvest was heavily concentrated in the far western portion of the state. Throughout the year, resident geese typically hang out in the same locations.

Often they'll reside almost exclusively on one particular body of water. Other resident flocks will pond-hop between two or three locations. This can make patterning birds easy and result in some great early-season action. Disappointingly, though, it's not a scenario that can be played out over the entire season.

Once these resident birds are shot at in the surroundings where they once felt comfortable, their feeling of comfort and safety is shattered. Then they usually move somewhere else and are very reluctant to return to their home turf -- at least for a while.

This makes finding resident birds during the late season nothing more than a crapshoot.

At the end of the season, hunters need to really do their homework and be ready to move around to stay with these birds.

Snow geese are another component of the late season. Time was, these birds were not of particular interest to very many traditional goose hunters.

While some old-school hunters still have no interest in them, other sportsmen are learning that these birds offer a challenging, very rewarding opportunity to extend their hunting season.

Hence each year, an increasing number of hunters are getting out after late-season snow geese. They offer many opportunities, but also present a lot of challenges and can be very difficult to hunt.