Hunting Washington Forum
Other Hunting => Waterfowl => Topic started by: bowhunter851 on January 04, 2014, 02:09:04 PM
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does anyone here ever mix decoys I have a dozen or so mallard and a dozen blue bill decoys or would 2 dozen decoys be to big of a spread on a bigger lake
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I always use a mix of mallard,widgeon,teal and pintail and usually shoot 3 to 4 of those species' each time out. I wouldn't mix any type of decoy of a duck there not used to hanging out with. Wouldn't think 2 dozen would be to much hunting a lake. I use more than that in a flooded field.
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It depends on the area hunted for me. I try to use decoys consistent with what I've seen there. Ie I won't use canvasback decoys on a one acre pond in the green river valley just like I don't normally put mallards in a diver spread. That being said I normally mix puddlers with puddlers and divers with divers. Ie, Widgeon mixed in with mallards or read heads with bluebills. Occasionally I will put a couple widgeon decoys in a diver spread because I see widgeon with divers in small numbers fairly often.
As far as too big, are you seeing smaller groups where you're hunting or bigger? Early in the season we were running five dozen floaters and a dozen field decoys but Friday I had just twelve floaters out because it's late season and I'm seeing smaller groups.
I guess what I'm getting at is try and mimic what you're seeing where you're hunting.
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We use everything all at once but we'll isolate species (kinda). Black and whites are typically out front and off the sides. The mallards go diectly in front of us, then the widgeon and pintails feather between the black and whites and mallards.
From above it typically looks like a fat "V" where the B&O's are on the two tips and our blind and the mallards are at the bottom.