Decoy spreads

[Brett Neffendorf]

How many decoys do you guys use normally? How many do you own? I own well over 100 decoys now that I just bought my life size GHG decoys!

Thanks

Good luck hunting.

[Brett Beinke]

It all depends on where I am hunting. Small water=smaller spreads. Big water=larger spreads. I have had better luck in MN with smaller spreads early and larger spreads later on in the season, wich is the exact opposite of what they like in the southern part of the U.S.

[Ben Duff]

Brett N.
I think it depends on how many ducks your huntin'. Flight ducks need something they can see, but the pets who live on the dock in the closest lake are a little scared sometimes of lots of decoys. Also like Brett B said, big water lots, small water few. Thats probably the main factor, but there are a lot of little factors. Personally, I like to get away with as few of decoys as I can, because rarely am I hunting an area where there are tons of ducks using my spot.

[JEDJR]

I am leasing a goosefield this year. The only time it sees water is if we get alot of rain. When this happens, I throw out about 1 dozen decoys. Thats all it seems to take for now.

[Sun Drop]

I hunt anywhere from 6 to 150

[Brett Neffendorf]

I hunted a goose field today with large waters in the low spots of it due to rain. I put half a dozen floaters in 1 body of water, left the other body of water open, and then used 32 carrylite fullbodies, 24 outlaw silos, and 24 bigfoots. With my 2 FA blinds we managed to get a few geese. The geese havent been using the field at all and were flying way over high and we worked to get them down. So for the geese not using the field lately I think it was a succesful day.

[jolle]

From 3 to 120 or so, depends on the water.

Small creeks to large reservoirs/marshes.

[smiley1544]

I hunt from a half dozen to ten dozen.

[potshot]

rice field in northeast la. We usually have 250 to 300 out at the beginning of the season.

[Darron]

Field hunting for geese we use anywhere from 3 dozen to 9 dozen. Water hunting small creeks we'll use as few as 3 decoys. Big water around here is inland lakes, I don't leave home without atleast 2 dozen decoys, sometimes on the big water we use as many as 5-6 dozen. Like one of the other posters said, on these inland lakes in SW Ohio, you usually don't see a crap load of birds, so I try to go as light as possible, less to pick up ;)

[Mark Brendemuehl]

It all depends on the day and what's in the area. Usually the small potholes we won't use more than 12-18 decoys. On the bigger water, if the divers are migrating, then we add the numbers quite a bit. The bigger water a small spread just doesn't seem to get noticed as easily as the larger spread. This is where I like a good quality decoy with lots of color too. I have to have the birds notice my spread before they notice my neighbors spread down the lake. You just can't do that in Minnesota with small numbers. Scout the day before when its possible, and this will give you a good idea of where to hunt, what the birds are doing, and what birds are in the area.
Mark

[David]

To me it all depends on the species, we don't get alot of mallards around here (or i just like divers better so i don't scout mallards as much). So when i'm hunting puddlers i'll use a few up to two dozen, but when hunting divers sometimes 6-8 dozen get put out.

[buckduck]

Depends on where I am hunting.On small sloughs I use 6 or 7 decoys. Larger sloughs 1 1/2 dozen.Large water mobil 6 dozen.My perminent blind on large lake I use 12 dozen ducks and 100 geese.

[Timmy]

I use on average 5 dozen duck decoys. I also use 700 silos for goose hunting on fields.

T

[bkhuntfish]

Some of you guys using small spreads on small water should give the opposite a try sometime. There is a small slough (were talking 20ft at the widest) I hunt that won't get a second look if I only have a few dekes out, but if I load it so full of decoys that they would have to land on each other to get in, the birds pile in without a second thought. I started trying this after seeing birds doing just the same thing on some sloughs that don't get hunted. They were literally landing on top of eachother. I tryed the same thing on one of my really small ponds and it worked just as well. Were talking over 100 dekes though. This also only seems to apply to mallards and gadwalls around here.