duck decoys during early goose

[fishingman1]

I have a very limited supply of goose decoys, probably only 5. Would it be beneficial to also throw out a few mallard decoys during early goose season? How many? In the same group as the geese? I am just trying to figure out anyway to increase my chances this fall without having to spend more money on decoys.

[benbosh]

last year i was in the same boat with you and had only 4 decoys. i still did manage to call in a flock a few days after opener and dropped one. i have put out duck decoys with my goose decoys a few times but never really noticed a difference but i mainly used them to add realism because ducks and geese are almost always found together or in the same area on the water

[dan z]

it works but only but 10 or so out

[Fish&Fowl]

At this time of year there's a lot of dumb birds and the ones you do see in fields are going to be sitting in small family groups. I don't think it would hurt to have a few duck dekes out, but if you could even buy 1/2 dozen cheap shells for $20 or so you'd probably be better off.

[fishingman1]

I will be hunting over water and havent been able to find any decoys for less than $15-$20 a piece. Would it be best to have the mallard and geese decoys all in one group or would it be better to spread them out slightly into seperate groups?

[ec30_06]

separtate groups

[gonefishin11]

I wouldn't use any ducks or buy any more floaters. Many times hunting water in the early season, we only pull in doubles and singles. They are more than happy to land in the half dozen decoys we have set up.

The key to our success with this has been calling. The best method has been to mimic whatever the lead goose of the pair or the loner does. This has led to fairly easy limits. Most of these birds are coming back from feeding (or being shot at on the way to feeding) so look for these birds between 9 and 11.

[Sartell Angler]

putting out duck decoys during early goose season...yep, sounds like a waste of time to me

[Browning83]

Depending on how deep of water you are hunting lately I have been bringing pieces of PVC piping and using field decoys on the water when I hunt it for geese(not very often). But what I do is cut the PVC at a 45 degree angle at each end and jam the pipe in the water. Then I place the decoy stake in the other end of the pipe and now you got "floaters". If you dont have decoys that have stack holders....dont be afraid to make the shell decoys into motion decoys. It takes some playing with them but drill a hole in the middle of the back and place a stake through the hole. Anyways I would stick to honker decoys even cheaper ones are better than nothing. Anyways good luck this season