decoy strategies

I agree with Carl's "match the hatch". I hunt in a northern Ohio marsh and change my decoys as the season progresses.
Early Teal I use mostly hen teal with a few bluewing drakes. Also, use a dozen or more goose decoys. Teal are used to being with geese in the marsh and the visibility of the goose decoys is also a benefit.
First part of big duck I use mostly hen mallards, blacks and tend to avoid full plumage drake mallards. I use a few Pintail, Widgeon, Gadwall, Wood Duck and GWT decoys adding more drakes as the season progresses. As these species migrate south I then add mallards, especially full plumage Mallard drakes and Blacks. The marsh has several areas where coots tend to stay and will use a dozen coot decoys when hunting there. Specific ducks will congregate in certain areas so I try to use that species when hunting those areas.

Does all this effort matter? Not sure but it satisfies my obsessive compulsive nature.
 
One thing I learned this year was that sometimes too much white in a diver spread can actually end up hurting ya. I was out one day this season and we had out a pretty large spread of broadbill, bufflhead, and canvasbacks. I went out in the boat to pick up a duck and when I looked at the spread I just thought to myself "wow that doesn't look real at all" and that day it just seemed like the broadbill wanted nothing to do with us. So towards the end of the season we started putting out smaller spreads of only 15-18 decoys with more hens and only a few bufflehead, and just made one spaced out group which worked like a charm. We killed a limit of broadbill and drake bufflehead the last 4 trips and had even more broadbill (big flocks too) land in the decoys after we had had our limit. I'm sure it's not always like this and there's times that you need to have out a big spread and be seen but that's just what worked for me this year. I guess it's all about finding what they like and sticking to it
 
Good point of find what they like and sticking with it. Another good point to take a step back and look at your spread. Does anyone have any ideas they either wanted to use this year and didn't get the chance or something you wanttto try next year again
 
I've hunted out of a duck boat for a few years, I hunt back creeks, back bays and use 6-8 puddle duck decoys. It works in my area. Chris and I went out with Capt John and friends and I could see why you need bigger rigs.
Different area different rigs. Look at whats sitting in your area and how many. Rig accordingly...
 
Great thread and Carl AWESOME graphics. As a decoy nut, carver, and amateur decoy historian here are my thoughts and observations. These patterns may not work for you or your area. But these rigs have worked for me. Let me qualify this by saying I hunt an average of 40 days a season usually across 4 states, half private and half public land.

Open Water (Louisiana / Maryland/ Virginia):
I grew up hunting the southern Chesapeake, Currituck and Back Bay usually out of a boat blind. I used to use almost a 150 bird rig. No more -12 geese, 6 Buffies, 2 dozen divers all drakes and a mix of 12-18 puddlers. I am very careful to match the hatch with the puddlers. Usually it is Mallards, Teal, and Widgeons. I have rotated back in forth as I LOVE a big spread and have the decoys to do it. No improvement in decoying. In fact just the opposite. What about geese you say? There you need to be a great caller.

Central Flyway (Missisippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas):
Timber and potholes 3 dozen puddlers and match the hatch. Rice filelds and open water 60 decoys and match the hatch (Specklebellies 6, Snows no more than 24). Woodies in timber 4-6 decoys.

Florida:
I isolate Florida becuase it is so different in weather and species. From Tampa North I would rig like I did for the Chesapeake Bay. From Tampa South match the hatch no more than three dozen decoys. Except - we have tremendous pressure here. Even more than I saw in Louisiana and Stuttgart. In high pressure areas I have been using 3, yes three decoys all high quality and it WORKS.

General:

Have spinners but never use them. But do use jerk cords.

Geese generally don't fly over duck decoys, place them accordingly.

I think decoy paint jobs make a difference.

Waterfowl don't like to work in a confined space give them room to work.

Now for my most controversial thoughts. I think the outline of a decoy from ABOVE and the hight of the decoy profile make a HUGE difference. I think factory decoys are two high. I know this is done for visabiliy but I think it is a red flag to the birds.

Sorry for the rant.
 
Frank,
I like your observation on decoy height .I think wide and low is a good combination. Maybe that is why 'flatties" work. Could it be that wide and low rides better? Do they look more relaxed?
I expect the accomplished carvers to have differing opinions.
Bill.
 
Now for my most controversial thoughts. I think the outline of a decoy from ABOVE and the hight of the decoy profile make a HUGE difference. I think factory decoys are two high. I know this is done for visabiliy but I think it is a red flag to the birds.
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I agree 100% with this, how many times do you look at a raft of ducks and it just looks like a bunch of heads bobbing up and down?
 
I didn't mean to highjack the thread. But I always wondered why birds flare from the new factory decoys as perfect as they are (assuming the hunter is perfectly hidden and decoy lines don't show). Whatching live birds on local lakes, the profile and body height are a glaring difference.
 
i agree with the factory decoys being to tall. i recentley started making my own decoys and that was one thing i did was to make my heads at lower positions and diffrent angles. How many people deploy coot into there spread i was thinking of buying a few but being the do it yourselfer i am i thought i could just take some old mallard decoys i have paint them black and it will do the same trick for drawing birds. anyone have an oppinion on that?
 
Good points on the widgeon, redheads and GEs. Add buffies to that group too. They may buzz a spread of other decoys but I find that to get them to commit, you need a few buffy dekes.
I also try to always have at least one or two canvasback decoys out, they seem to go to them like a magnet.


I often think your southern buffies are a whole different animal. I don't own a single buffie decoy, and find they commit like a crippled airplane heading back to the aircraft carrier to goldeneye decoys, and are only slightly less desperate piling into black duck dekes. I'm hunting salt water from blinds on shore, with the decoys typically on the windward side of a point and trailing just around it to the lee. These are the spots we see the buffies feeding, too.
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I believe you are correct, completely different animal!
Down here, you may get some to come into other decoys, but usually they will land short or just buzz. Add a small group of buffie decoys and they come in with reckless abandon.
We rarely see them close to the shoreline, they are usually feeding out on the grass flats in open water, 1-4' deep.
 
Another thing, and this is something I've really only started to use the past couple years, is putting more tip up or butt up decoys in the spread. When you see live birds in a shallow area they are almost always tipping up here and there.
 
1/4 of my gadwall decoys are feeder butts with the bellies painted white. When actively feeding, the bellies of gadwalls really shine in the sun.
 
i have two tip up mallards. i never felt that they helped my spread maybe i need to use more???? i always try to deploy them into a shallow areas but i end up pulling them when tides comes in or adjusting. i got the bright idea to put one on a jerk string it was a disaster didnt have the right movment at all. what species of tip ups do you use i was thinking of getting pintail kind of along the same principle as the gadwall with white belly.
 
I had to chuckle at the "match the hatch" last day of the season we hunted over Fred''s plastics and the pink-headed pair, a pair of African pygmy geese, a pink-eared, coot, and a pair of hoodies. ...ducks didn't really care. With Todd in the Gulf we usually have Brant, all 3 scorers, all 4 eiders, Labrador duck, smew , and had we made a trip this year the scaley-sided meth would have went. We've had all species decoy, and had birds we didn't shoot stay and nap.. ....kinda like tying a cigarette butt fly to match the hatch.

Clint
 
Where I hunt in IL and WI my best duck decoys have always been my goose decoys. 9 out of 10 times, or more, the ducks will land with my goose decoys. This is when mallard hunting. I used to hunt an area where the mallards would swim down the stream to decoys all the time when they were in there getting grit. If I put out duck decoys they would swim down and almost always hang up or get nervous before reaching the duck decoys. When I switched to 3-11 goose floaters sometimes with a couple duck right in front of me, the mallards will swim right into the goose decoys. No hesitation. When calling mallards and working them to the decoys, they almost always land with the geese and ignore the 2-3 duck decoys if I have them out.
 
I am a big fan of a Great Blue Heron decoy. This is my favorite decoy for small or large decoy spreads. This always seems to calm the birds down and make them commit.




dc
 
I am a big fan of a Great Blue Heron decoy. This is my favorite decoy for small or large decoy spreads. This always seems to calm the birds down and make them commit.

I use Heron's on my swamp,I also have Egret's so i painted an old Heron white and put him in a tree.


dc
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i have two tip up mallards. i never felt that they helped my spread maybe i need to use more???? i always try to deploy them into a shallow areas but i end up pulling them when tides comes in or adjusting. i got the bright idea to put one on a jerk string it was a disaster didnt have the right movment at all. what species of tip ups do you use i was thinking of getting pintail kind of along the same principle as the gadwall with white belly.
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I like to use 2 or 3 duck butts on my jerk string. They might not make as much motion as a full body but when the birds get in closer I can give small constant tugs and it creates a lot of ripples without moving the decoys very much or making anything look weird.

I also don't really set out a pattern. I will usually string the decoys along the shoreline and create some tighter bunches to look like heavy feeding groups and then put some in-between to look like ones swimming from one group to another. Usually mix most of my species together. One exception is I will always throw 3 black ducks at least 10 or 15 yards outside the spread. The blacks suck right into them 90% of the time.
 
I am a big fan of a Great Blue Heron decoy. This is my favorite decoy for small or large decoy spreads. This always seems to calm the birds down and make them commit.
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The herons always seem to commit for me. They lock up a couple hundred yards out and come in like they are on a wire. My heron decoy has taken a number of kicks and hits. I have even gotten pretty good at mouth calling herons.
 
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