What can you get for a goose hunt in Tennessee under $1,000?

What you can actually book

Here's the cell, cheapest to most expensive:

None of those four prices include a Tennessee hunting license or the federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp — yes, the "duck stamp," and yes, you need it to shoot geese too. More on both below.

Per hunter vs. per group — read this before you compare prices

The $800 package isn't a pricier hunt than the $250 one. It's the same kind of hunt, quoted as a total instead of a per-hunter rate, because Triple C Ranch requires you to book with three partners.

Do the division and the order flips. Triple C's $800 needs four hunters, which works out to $200 a head — cheaper than the $250 listing at the top of the table. Elk River's $350 runs the other direction: it's a flat day rate, not a per-hunter one, so the same four-hunter group splits it to $87.50 a head, the cheapest number in the band once you do the arithmetic.

So the real spread, per hunter, is $87.50 to $300 for a full group. Triple C's $800 sticker is what a solo hunter would actually pay if he couldn't find three partners and had to cover the whole minimum himself — exactly the number to ask the outfitter about if you're hunting alone.

What's included (and what isn't)

Half of these six packages don't publish an inclusions list at all — call and ask what you're getting before you book. Of the three that do, guiding, lodging, meals and decoys each show up on two of the three. None of the three that publish a list mentions ammunition, and none mentions the license or stamp above. Budget those separately.

Reviews: who's actually good

Across these four outfitters, Google carries 24 reviews averaging 4.50 stars — 21 five-star and three one-star, nothing in between. That's a real spread with real complaints in it, not a manufactured perfect score.

"They know how to just solve all your problems and tour you right through the process of the hunt," one hunter wrote about Fowlers Point Guiding Service. Another, hunting out of Reelfoot Lake with Reelfoot Lake Duck Hunting Guide after a slow start elsewhere: "Mike went out of his way to get us taken care of, had us a hunt lined up the next morning and turned this into the trip of a lifetime." Neither review names a goose species specifically — the goose-specific praise in this cell just isn't there yet in the review text, for whichever outfitter you're checking.

Season and license basics

Tennessee's goose seasons run roughly September through late February depending on which goose you're after, plus a Light Goose Conservation Season that runs mid-February through the end of March with no possession limit on snow, blue and Ross's geese. Exact dates by species are their own page — check them before you book, because a $250 hunt on the wrong date is a $250 phone call.

On licenses: a nonresident needs either a 7-Day All Game license ($214) or an Annual All Game license ($305); a resident aged 16–64 can get an Annual Sportsman license for $165. On top of whichever one you buy, every goose hunter in Tennessee — resident or not — needs the $30.50 federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp. It's still called the duck stamp. You need it for geese anyway.