Decoy Numbers

[birdbeast]

I am a new resident of Alberta (Olds) and I am wondering how many decoys do you guys use for the various species. From what I have read so far it seems you also set up for more than one species at a time. Is there a combo that makes more sense than others? Any info that you have that I didn't ask about would also be appreciated.

[ghostguy6]

Im still relatively new to the waterfowl game but from what I have seen, the more decoys the better. If you can add motion as well it seems to help. It also helps if you have more than one caller as well. 5 dozen decoys and only one bird squawking can cause the birds to flair away too soon.

[Justfishin73]

The more the better. For Canadas, I use about 50 full bodies, 40 sleeper and heads up shells, 40 silos, 5 fliers. Throwing in a dozen full body specs just because they were a great deal. Bigger spread you have, the bigger spread comes down. (Hopefully!)

[bobalong]

I usually don't bother mixing decoys unless there are some ducks or whites feeding, but just Canadas will bring anything in.
At the start of the season around where I hunt there are rarely flocks larger than about 200 birds and they are most if not all local birds. Geese are still in their family groups so I will separate at least a couple dozen into 5-8 bird groups (like they are in the field) with another 2 dozen setup for the kill hole.

I use about 4 dozen for most of the early season and have had good luck with that amount, later in the season when the flocks are larger I will use 6 or maybe 8 dozen.

There are always guys that say they only use 1 dozen but I have found that at least 3-4 dozen works pretty good. Get a decent call and take the time to learn how and when to blow it and a flag works well to. Good luck it won't be long now.

[TROLLER]

When I was still guiding I would put out 150 full bodies along with a lot of flagging. One thing to remember is try and have your furthest decoy within what you feel is max. gun range. If you are limited in the number of decoys you have (it takes a long time to build up a stash) make sure you get some flags. They can be more use full than calling at times.

[elkhunter11]

Myself and a couple of friends got back into waterfowl hunting last year. We started with three dozen Canada decoys, then expanded to five, and we shot plenty of White fronted geese, Canadas, and some snows, as well as ducks over the Canada decoys. For our last hunt, another person joined us, and he supplied eight dozen full body decoys, and we took limits of geese and almost our limits of ducks. But the key factor to success for every hunt, seemed to be finding a great field, and being in the right location in the field, and setting up properly. I believe that we could have done well on every hunt, with a few dozen Canada decoys.

[DSD Addict]

For darks, it all depends on whether you are hunting on the X or running traffic.

If you are on the X, I think that quality is more important than quantity and for that reason I have slowly sold off all my other goose decoys for Dave Smith Decoys. 3-4 dozen is plenty if you are in a good spot and have a good hide.

If you are running traffic, then more decoys are definitely necessary. I am by no means an expert at hunting snows, but they also prefer larger spreads.

Focus on your hide more than your decoys. Birds are more likely to bug out because they see a blind than because there aren't as many birds on the ground as they'd like.

[Top of the Foodchain]

Give the birds what they want, so early season when scouting you will see smaller family groups put out a similar spread, late season when seeing larger groups of birds put out larger spreads. Try to replicate what you see when scouting. Small spreads will work for a little while and you will still kill birds but as the birds land somewhere else your hunt will be over, as you won’t be able to compete with what they see. As for mixing decoy types, use the decoy type for the birds you are targeting. Mixing types won’t hurt and once again if your replicating what you saw when scouting it can be beneficial. My experience is most birds will land in with Canada decoys, not always the case with other species decoys. Canada’s don’t like too much movement in the decoy spread. However ducks and snows do. Hope this helps