Decoy Setups

[slabchaser]

Hey guys I was just thinking about opener and was thinking about switching my set up. I hunt a lake that has just enough pressure to make it competative. Some years we shoot a lot of ducks and see a lot of geese and other years (last year) it gets slow. I was thinking about setting up a dozen goose floaters and maybe a half dozen to a dozen mallards. Wondering if anyone has used more geese than duck dekes. And my other idea was to use 8 mallard dekes and two goose floaters. My thinking being that pressured birds later in the day will feel more comfortable seeing less ducks then the typical dozen mallards. let me know what ya think or if you have any tips.

[Seabass77]

I like your goose idea. I also agree that you need to show them something different. You could try just goose dekes too. Ducks will decoy right into those as well, but for mallards, I would want mallard decoys.

[dan z]

shoot ducks late in the year and sometimes have ZERO mallard decoys out I think mallards see geese and they think "ALL IS WELL"

[slabchaser]

yea I had thought about just having goose decoys. I was worried that if there were a lack of geese moving that it could backfire. But I really wanna try something new.

[eyepatrol]

If you want to try something new/different, I say go for it. I've had times during the waterfowl season where I get my limit of ducks, pull in the duck dekes, leave the goose dekes out and still get plenty of ducks to decoy.

If you decide to switch it up a bit, let us all know how it goes.

Good luck!

[dan z]

use can also use different horseshoes and J rigs put holes(pockets) in your decoys and make parties with the others it works trust me. dont forget to make the blocker string also.

[slabchaser]

do you think a doz geese decoys is ok or should there be more to pull this off. or is that too many

[dan z]

a dozen is not enough sorry dude, our group puts out a least fifty goose decoys yes 50 and thats minimal we have had a touch over a hundred on some the late hunts. this many decoys work because know one I see ever has that many we create pockets that are sometimes 15 yards apart in the middle of our spreads and not even use a "landing zone" using this many decoys really lets the geese tell me what they want I can make my spread entirely different by moving ten decoys here or thier

[Seabass77]

On opener, a dozen is fine. Not the sucking power of 50, but I think a dozen is fine.

[brdhunter]

yea I had thought about just having goose decoys. I was worried that if there were a lack of geese moving that it could backfire. But I really wanna try something new.

I remember a late season Goose hunt in Dec. We had prob 3-4 doz goose decoys. No mallards. And Man the late season mallards were coming in flock after flock........ and we couldn't shoot them

[KG243]

A dozen decoys is more then enough, I can remeber killing gees overs four decoys. I have been tol d by a couple diffrent idustry pro-staff that smaller setups can play into your advantage especialy in the end of the season. Sure 100s of decoys would be great but for the average joe dozen is great.

[Fishhappy1986]

i was out this weekend near outing and tryied my luck for some early geese and came up short. saw more than we thought but couldn't get them to commit. Back to decoys though, we had 24 dekes out sat. night didn't have any come close. sun. night we only put out 14 and had 2 pairs come straight across the lake right for us but saw something they didn't like or we spooked em,they were just outside of shooting range. As far as ducks coming in we had anything from mallards to woodies and even some ringies come and sit for a minute. First time early goose and didn't care one bit not shooting any geese it was absolutely awesome seeing all those ducks. We're in for a excellent season I'm thinking. We saw more ducks this weekend flying around the lake than I've seen in my years of hunting. The rice crop is outstanding comparing to recent years.