Best Goose Decoys?

[Jimmy from Cottage Grove]

I am going to be purchasing a few decoys here before the season ends. What would you recomend? I hear the big foots are the best. I went to gander and seen some higdon decoys that pretty much were idenical to the bigfoots for 20 bucks less. How important do you believe the flocked heads are? I currently have forty decoys that are unflocked. Would it be worth my while to flock them all? Thanks

[stretch]

if i were you i would buy the big foots. cause we have 350 of them and love them. you can throw them around and they don't crack in the cold weather which is nice. also get the flocked heads. they don't glare when wet and they look nice. and if you have some extra money i would get the fully flocked decoys from greenhead gear. they are awsome. we have 9 dozen of those also. good luck

[Jimmy from Cottage Grove]

I believe I checked the green head gear ones out tonight. Are they the ones with the twist device on the feet? I thought those looked the most realistic. But my boss told me those were cheaply made. Have you had any probems with there durability?

[guppie]

GHG, but put them in slotted decoy bags to keep them from rubbing.

strech, thats an impressive #, you must have a trailer(s). Do you have bags or do you have shelves made.

[fishingmike0770]

We recently started buying the GHG decoys in the hunters-series which arent fully flocked but have flocked heads. In the field, nothing compares to the realism that they show compared to some of the bigfoots we have. They style (looker, feeder, active) has at least 3 different poses which create unbelievable looks in your decoy set-up. We only have bigfoot feeders which work fine with the flocked heads but for the lookers and the active poses. . nothing comes close. They are awesome and will last a long time if you take care of them.

Heres a pic from this year. . its intent is to show how the decoys look in the field. .

[image][/image]

[woodsandwaterguy]

I agree my hunting party hunts strictly over ghg decoys with flocked heads. I think they look the most realistic and have extremely good paint on them. We go out a couple times a week and they take the abuse real well. Also if your looking for a lot of realism i would to reccomend the ffd's the lessers or hutchies are quite a bit cheaper and still look increadible. That is what my next purchase will be a couple dozen fully flocked ghg chickens Gotta love them plastic friends.

[Flick]

I would say bigfoots, they'll last forever. Honestly, if you can't kill honks over bigfoots, you're doing something REALLY wrong. If you go with Avery's I wouldn't go with the fully flocked ones. I've seen them look pretty rough after a season and they were taken care of. Also look into getting sillhouettes. They're great to fill in the back of the spread and dont take a lot of room.

Heres the best decoy you can buy, good calling. It's the one thing you can't buy!

[riverrat56]

Well maybe the new GHG deeks are better, I hope so as they do look great, ours held up like dump. Maybe I'll be getting some more, but like Flick said the differnce in Deeks should make that much of a differnce between Big Foots and GHG. The posture of the GHG are much better though I do agree.

[tearin' lips]

I have used them all, flambeau, big foot, final approach, higdon, and GHG.

Flambeu dekes are fairly resonable priced, but they do not look good. The judges have too much shine on the back, and the shells are not realistic.

Big foots are good durable decoys. Bigfoots have the flocked heads now, which is really nice. Another nice feature of the Bigfoots is the heads and the feet detatch for easier transportation. As I said they are good, reasonable prices( around $90 for a four pack), durable.

Higdon dekes are very similar to Bigfoots in about every way.

Final Approaches look good, but they are a pain. The feet are hard to put on, and the head is a nightmare!! Once these are together, they are together for good! They are also quite a bit more spendy than the other dekes mentioned, I believe they are $129.99 for a pack of four.

Now there are many reasons why I have switched over to GHG decoys over the last few years. The reason why I switched over to GHG decoys is really simple...FFD Elites. My buddy bought some and I had to have some. Fully flocked, motion stakes, realistic poses. These decoys are very realistic( the FFD's go for around $190 for 6). At a price of just over a hundred dollars for a six pack of their standard life sized decoys ,they are reasonable priced(even a better deal than the bigfoots). The twist lock bases on the stationary decoys are a really nice feature, as they are very easy to remove. The head really shouldn't be taken on and off alot, but if you do need to take it off it comes off easy. GHG shell decoys are a very good bargain also. They are very realistic and reasonable priced. They all are fully flocked, and you can also by motion stakes for these. I really like how GHG has the sleeper heads that you can buy separately. Beleive me, sleepers are deadly on lake season honkers!!

Bigfoots are not a bad choice, but go GHG and you will be very pleased with the performance that you will be getting for a very reasonable price.

[Bushwacker]

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How important do you believe the flocked heads are? I currently have forty decoys that are unflocked. Would it be worth my while to flock them all? Thanks

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I think flocking in extremely important, especially on days when there is condesation from dew. I have flocked a lot of decoys and it is an easy job and kind of rewarding looking over your spread from your layout. I hunt 100% over GHG, all Pro-Series and I love them. I flocked all the tails on them and just for a little extra realism. I would recommend GHG to anyone, but you do have to take care of them. I think its a good trade off for the realism.

[stretch]

ya we have a trailer and it's so full that we can't even put our blinds in it. also we have 2 dozen hardcores that we have but they were the first one so they junk. the paint is peeling but the new ones are better. as for the green head gear we have sloted bags for them and we haven't had any problem with them yet. the only thing that we have had a problem with is they shorted us with our sleeper heads we are missing 2 heads for the 2 dozen we have. we always like to mix up the big foots and the green head gear ones. it just looks great.

[Volare]

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ya we have a trailer and it's so full that we can't even put our blinds in it. also we have 2 dozen hardcores that we have but they were the first one so they junk. the paint is peeling but the new ones are better. as for the green head gear we have sloted bags for them and we haven't had any problem with them yet. the only thing that we have had a problem with is they shorted us with our sleeper heads we are missing 2 heads for the 2 dozen we have. we always like to mix up the big foots and the green head gear ones. it just looks great.

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I'd love to see a photo of a spread of 350 of these!!

[Jimmy from Cottage Grove]

Thanks guys!! Now I have another question. I bought a dozen big foots with flocked heads. I used them tonight, with my other 40 shells that have been working great all year.(magnums and super magnums) Tonight was the first time, I was having problems pulling them into the field for a look. Should I mud the new ones up? It was cloudy tonight, so I don't believe there was any glare. Any ideas? Should I just keep using my shells?

[stretch]

i will have to see what i have for pictures. other wise my buddies and i will be out this weekend and i will get a picture of it all. as for the geese not coming in to check out your spread. they just might have other intentions. we had the same problem today. but hey thats why they call it hunting and not shooting birds. keep on trying the birds have been real funny for us. we are haveing a hard time patterning the birds. good luck.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

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Final Approaches look good, but they are a pain. The feet are hard to put on, and the head is a nightmare!! Once these are together, they are together for good! They are also quite a bit more spendy than the other dekes mentioned, I believe they are $129.99 for a pack of four.

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dont know where you saw that price for final approach decoys but thats $50 too much for lookers. i just bought a dozen lookers @ $79 per 4, and a dozen foiles series @ $89 per four, to add to my four feeders and one foiles pack i beat the living dump out of already this fall. i love em and they are cheap. not real happy with the two piece motion base on the foiles series but the large foot base on the regular series are ideal for the way we hang and secure decoys in the topper or trailer. but i will say that the ffd ghg lessers i hunted over one weekend (Contact Us Please) near matched the plumage and size of the birds using lqp refuge perfect....anything other than final approach decoys getting my money in the future will be the lesser ghg for sure.

[tearin' lips]

I never said that final approach wasn't a good decoy, I stated that they are not as easy to pack as GHG or Bigfoots. They look great. I am sure there are places that have them cheaper, but I am just speaking from personal experience. Gander has them at 129.99, does my uncles store, as does sheels in warroad, and that is what we would sell them for if we ordered any into RLOS.

Like I said, they are good dekes that look good, it just boils back down to buyer loyalty and I am partial to GHG, for the reasons stated in the above post. In my opinion I feel that GHG dekes have more to offer.

[IceHawk]

I personally use and Love Hardcores and Bigfoot's. To me goose hunting is all about realisim and these decoys resemble the real thing the best to me. Bigfoots are probably the most durable and cost efficient of the 2. As someone stated I do incorperate Outlaw Silohette's in my spreads as fillers. I believe this gives of different views and images to the birds.

[poutpro]

I had HC for one year and now they look like dirty snow geese. All the paint has come off and they are a solid offwhite color. I definitely won't be getting any of those again. I would just stick with BigFoots.

[stretch]

don't worry we have the same problem with our hardcores. that's why we don't use them all the time. and when we do, we have to handle them very carefuly.

[Sartell Angler]

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Thanks guys!! Now I have another question. I bought a dozen big foots with flocked heads. I used them tonight, with my other 40 shells that have been working great all year.(magnums and super magnums) Tonight was the first time, I was having problems pulling them into the field for a look. Should I mud the new ones up? It was cloudy tonight, so I don't believe there was any glare. Any ideas? Should I just keep using my shells?

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That is perplexing! I doubt there was any glare coming off of the 'foots but obviously something wasn't right. I don't know why birds would prefer shell dekes to bigfoots but if you had 'em bombing in before, why try to change anything?

I can say that this year we have had quite a few times out where we couldn't decoy birds worth a junk...and we were using all fullbodies (flocked)...

who knows?

[NEANGLER]

Give me a dozen Dave Smiths over 5 dozen BF or GHG any day. No commparison.

[walleyewacker]

Oh the age old debate...

It all comes down to values and what you want to spend and how much you will actually hunt. I have pretty much owned or hunted over everything listed and I have mixed feelings about it. I guess the number one thing I have learned about the decoy debate is that there is a lot more important things than decoys when it comes to killing geese. In this year alone I have killed a limit over flambeau shells and have had geese do nothing but skirt edges and give up on hardcores and dave smiths, as well as the other way around. IMO I would never put the money into daves or hardcores, especially when it comes to the hassel of caring for them and transporting them. I personally think the best buy for the buck is the avery pro grades. I have had hunter series for a few years and they are junk if you use them a lot, if you dont they will look good for a while and are a good buy. The FFDs look great but if you dont go the extra mile they look like dump after a year or two. Most people that own high end decoys individually store them in bags or totes, which becomes a BIG problem when a landowner wants you to walk in or it gets too muddy to pull the trailer out. I am really impressed with the new avery lessers. The only downfall is that they are hard to see in a black field but they go good in the LZ mixed with other decoys. I would say have a good mix of decoys, the bigfoots for size and you will have them the rest of your life, throw in some averys for a great look and mix it up with lookers(I go with progrades). Keep the shells for filler, especially late in the year. I do have some final approach and have not had problems after the first year and they have some different poses.

[Jimmy from Cottage Grove]

Thanks guys for all the info. We shot two birds yesterday, and we shot 4 this morning. We are seeing alot of birds, but they are very decoy shy. Today we had mallards all over us trying to land, we haven't had that all year. I think the problem we are having right now, is hunting pressure. I seen a guy half a mile from me, sky busting all day long. That really makes me mad!! Not only is he crippling birds, he is killing the hunting for everyone else!!

[Muthagoose]

Well dont buy smiths a buddy just got in 5 dozen a good number were broken..They have changed the casting material to a semi clear resin/./Like the HCs they look sweet but you have to baby em to much.In 20 years of guideing and owning one of the early decoy blind companies I use sillo's. This is a picture from one of the last days of early season a couple years ago..We all know how hard early season birds are at the end.....

Early season dead honkers over sillos

Thise little cheap decoys ended up being replaced with some serious giants later...

[mrwalleye_13]

GHG full flock... if you are spending the money to buy full bodies whats another few hundo for full flocks and carrying cases.