"H-Bar", "T-Bar", or any other Effective Floating Solutions

Griffin Williford

Griffin Williford

Member
I am hoping to get a little guidance from some of you on floating motion decoy stands. I have two "Ure-a-Duck" Assault Pintail decoys that I intend on using on the North Carolina Coast this season in lieu of any form of motorized decoys. These decoys are "wind driven", mounted on a 1/4" round metal bar, that sits inside a piece of conduit driven into the bottom. The rod is bent 45 degrees on both ends, allowing the rod to pivot at the conduit, and decoy to pivot at the mounting pocket.

Since a lot of the waters around the coast can be soft, with strong currents, it makes it somewhat difficult to embed a piece of conduit deep enough to provide sufficient support for an airborne decoy.

I was hoping that some of you could share your designs/solutions to the depth issue, i.e. floating "H-Bar" rigs or "T-Bar" rigs.

My only conflict/concern is that with the Assault Decoy's pivoting/bouncing qualities it may create a lot of lateral force if the rod is too long? What do you all think would be the best floating rig for this style of decoy. I have attached a link to the Assault decoy page for reference.

http://ureaduck.com/workingwings.htm

Thanks in advance!
 
some people use a long piece of conduit (3/4" fits mojo decoys) with a crab poat or other applicable piece of foam in the center and a counterbalance weight on the bottom to keep the decoy up top, anchored with a weight on a rope.
 
Paul,

Thanks for the response. My fear with using a ballast weight system is that the leverage created by the offset position of the decoy may inevitably cause it to tip. I feel like for a floating rig I will need to be able to transfer the leverage of the "Assault Decoy" to three or four points for balance... How much weight would you use for a counterweight rig such as described? And what size float?

-Thanks
 
We hunt a lot on lake Okeechobee the bottom is hard limestone covered by varying thicknesses of mud. In most places the mud is not thick enough to hold up a pole,so some of us float our motion decoys on a raft. Mine is foam covered by glass, about the size of a belly board. I run two mojo teals, one low and one about a foot and a half higher. Most of us grass up the top of the raft. Rich
 
check out deep water ducks, they have a floating rig that uses a foam float and heavy counterweight. I have one of these and it works great for divers.
 
Shawn,

Thanks for the information. I believe a 10lb pendulum weight would probably do the trick. I am going to make a "T-Bar" rig to start and see how it works. I have 3 Super Mag Pintails I am in the process of keeling and prepping for paint that may work for this option. Seeing as these birds are 22x10 I imagine that they should create enough surface coverage to stabilize the Assault Decoy.

I will post the finished product in a week or so once I have finished the three decoys and fabricated the rig.
 
Shawn,

Thanks for the information. I believe a 10lb pendulum weight would probably do the trick. I am going to make a "T-Bar" rig to start and see how it works. I have 3 Super Mag Pintails I am in the process of keeling and prepping for paint that may work for this option. Seeing as these birds are 22x10 I imagine that they should create enough surface coverage to stabilize the Assault Decoy.

I will post the finished product in a week or so once I have finished the three decoys and fabricated the rig.
Click to expand...

even with the single pole design, put a screw in the wind ducks attachment point, if it gets dunked it will come right back up. You'd be in waves too big to hunt in for it to bring it that far down anyway. I'd run 4' below the surface and 6' above the surface if i were trying to be seen from long distances, and hunting deep water.

I dont like wing decoys anyway, just use a flag and when they start coming let them work!
 
Paul,

Thanks for the ideas. I am not a huge fan of spinners either which is why this particular decoy was so appealing. It has fixed wings made of a light gauge plastic that creates the illusion of a duck "pitching" into the decoys. The rod allows it to bounce and pivot both at the stand connection and the rod pocket in the decoy chest.

I will post tomorrow the progress on the "T-Bar"

-Thanks

View attachment Assaultpintailmain.jpg
View attachment blackduckassaultweblg.jpg
 
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Paul,

Thanks for the ideas. I am not a huge fan of spinners either which is why this particular decoy was so appealing. It has fixed wings made of a light gauge plastic that creates the illusion of a duck "pitching" into the decoys. The rod allows it to bounce and pivot both at the stand connection and the rod pocket in the decoy chest.

I will post tomorrow the progress on the "T-Bar"

-Thanks
Click to expand...

Neat, let us know if you find it flares or sucks em in.
 
I have used a Y-board set up with floating decoys at each end to support a flyer in the middle before. Worked well for seaduck.
 
Geoff,

Can you share some photos of how yours was constructed? I fear that a "T-Bar" mixed with choppy water may not support the lateral load of the flyer style decoy.
 
Trying this from my phone, so please forgive any mistakes. The y-boards are a2x4 ripped in half with a hinge on either side allowing it to fold. Typically each leg has a silhouette decoy on it. Instructions used to be on the Mighty layout boys website, and might be in the tutorials here.
To support the weight of the flyer, I used full body decoys screwed to the legs. A piece of PIC tube in the middle got the flyer off the y board and kept it stable.
I think if you can find the y board instructions, the rest will be clear.
Maybe I can get a picture if you need it. I think I still have some y boards around.
 
Just checked. Y-boards are in the carvers corner section.
One word of caution, y-boards have a tremendous amount of drag in any tide or current. BIG anchors!
Good luck, and give a shout if i can help.
 
Thanks. I plan to revisit it at some point this weekend. I started with a 6' section of 1/4" round bar to the flyer, bent around 30 degrees on both ends creating a tremendous amount of leverage since the flyer was so far from the center(Offset 3-3-1/2'). I may try a shorter rod with less bend, maybe 10 degrees, to see if that keeps it from doing a quadruple backwards somersault in chop & wind.
 
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