I'm sure many of you who have diver hunted long enough have cursed the heavens at tangled longlines. I tried an experiment and we had some good shooting over it today. I took a fishnet, with 3/4 inch mesh windows, and attached 70 redhead and Bluebill dekes to the net with 8 inch mono leads. The net is attached to window sash weights on each corner on 30 foot lines. The long anchor lines allows the "raft" to move with the wind, and the mono leads allow the dekes to move around like feeding birds. I used a ration of 3:1 front tied to rear tied decoy leads.
When loading into the boat, place the first two weights in the bottom of the boat, and lay the net on the deck in layers, the small mesh windows keep the decoys from tangling. On top of the top layer you put the last two anchors, which will be the first two set out. Then as your boat drifts down wind you "let out" the "layers" of netting and finally the last two weights. I then ran two long lines of a dozen each Blue bills down wind of the "raft". And then put out a string of buffies and cans. Setting up the boat blind just down wind of the tail of the long lines. We smacked a limit of bluebills each and a hand full of buffies, a bonus Can, and rounded out the day with Mallards
