Take a look at my pic 3 topics down under " goose shoot" to answer your question. Yes you can get ducks and geese without all that expensive gear. It is called pass shooting...all you do is find out where the birds are flying in and out of a field for example, get under their flight path, find some cover, ans wait for their arrival. We scouted these geese for a week before we finally decided where abouts to go for them. As it turned out we didn`t even need calls, just camo and lots of shells. The wind plays a big factor in which direction the birds will leave also. I hope this helps some.Good luck with the " pass shooting" .

Ron