Are geese flying away from traditional flyways?

Local geese only go as far as they need. Not very many MVP geese and lots of giant locals. Traditional places like Hovey and Crab Orchard have been seeing this over the past 10 years. We all noticed it this year when the snow/freeze line never showed up.

Don't agree with your opinion of refuges at all. If you ever hunted geese next to a good refuge that the birds are allowed to accumulate on it can be outstanding up to 10 miles away at times. I wish there were more refuges. Last good one I hunted next to was Summit lake and the State started to oil the eggs and opened it up to selective hunting. Not what she used to be! Now Geist Lake was hotter than hot when they closed the hunting on the lake. You could hunt the surrounding areas and really do well. I hunted a good bit away from the lake but had some consistent hunts and it was birds from the lake.

If they didn't hunt Goose pond the surrounding fields/pot holes would be increadible, but I am really happy that they do hunt it!!!!

We just don't get many "migrators" of the honker version that used to show up at Hovey or southern IL.

This right here tells me this person knows nothing about Lake Michigan and Northern Indiana.

Fast forward to Northern Indiana where legions of ducks stayed put all along Lake Michigan's waterfront. While ducks were aplenty, Canada geese were not. Even cities with lots of resident Canadas didn't report numbers of migrators mingling in.

Lake Michigan is a deep water lake and geese along with most ducks we hunt are basically puddlers and don't stay on lake Michigan.
If this was true every corn field along the I94 corridor would have a duck club on it.

20 years ago we only had a 45 day goose season with a 2 bird limit or less, now we have a 15 day September season a 60 day regular season and for some a 15 day February season with a 5 bird a day limit.
It appears to me that if I were a goose I would avoid areas were there is such a great hunting pressure.
During the first few years of the February season so many banded birds were shot that lived in local city's that now you are hard pressed to find nesting geese in those city's where they once were thick as squirrels.

You can't keep pounding these birds and expect their numbers to be good every season.

I am with duff on this one. I would rather have a duck blind near a refuge where I know that on certain days when conditions are right your going to have a good shoot.
If refuges are a bad idea then why does everybody want to find a place to hunt that is next to a refuge or a property that doesn't allow hunting. Answer is because just knowing there are animals there gives you hope of harvesting game.
Back in the 70's the state of Indiana had the bright idea of putting blinds in the refuge of the Kankakee preserve and hunting them 3-4 days a week, within one week the birds disappeared and it took several years for them to return back to normal after that one year idea.
Having non-huntable refuges are a good idea for game as well as hunters.

Go to Ballard County WMA, once known as "the goose capital of the world", you can get a blind on the edge for a song. Probably one of those that I paid $5,000 a season for 15 years ago. It's my opinion, I haven't studied it, but Ballard lost it's geese when Carb Orchard opened up. Now, other refuges have opened and shut off Carb Orchard. My theory is that every refuge should be shot. If a dang goose wants a safe have, let him land in the city or a golf course, as many of them already do.