Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl What Decoys to Buy??

I haven't duck hunted in 4 years and I want to get back into it.. What are some of the better decoys to buy?? The local sporting goods shop is pushing the new flambeau with the UV color.. I just got a 7 week old chocolate lab last week so I'm trying to get things rounded up so I don't have to worry bout it later..

Thanks in advance for any and all advise!!

We use a mix of whatever we could afford at the time but GHG stuff has done well. Sportsman's Warehouse has all decoys 20% off right now.

Pick a decoy with molded in feathered features and with a good paint scheme. Then keep 'em clean and in a mesh bag to protect them over the yrs. I have some of the old Herters burlap covered mallard tollers that I have used for better than 20 yrs. I have to touch them up periodically. Good luck!

I am far from a fan of Avery/GHG stuff, and avoid it anymore. G&H, Final Approach, and Bigfoot all make nice duck decoys.

But if you can afford cork, I'd go that route in a heart beat.

Back when they first came out (so you know this was a while ago) I thought the Flambeau Supermag Mallards looked pretty good for the price.

I ordered and got a couple of dozen from Cabela's.


From the hunting standpoint, they worked very nicely, and the soon to be harvested Ducks liked them very well.

Then, ~5 yr.s later I started getting some cracks along the keels of my dekes. I thought "strange", but ordered another half-dozen to make up for the few that had had this happen.

At the beginning of the next season I noticed even MORE of the same cracks. They were all pretty much similar with the cracks all occuring at the same place and without any handling damage to the dekes (they'd just been stored over the Spring/Summer)

I gave this a pretty close inspection and realized that this was a design/MATERIALS (like their plastic) issue, and called back to Flambeau to discuss it with them.

They didn't appear to be concerned at all and their Customer Service person simply said, "Sorry, we only warranty our decoys for 1 yr." (She wasn't at all concerned with the fact that they have an age related problem in their materials, just didn't care!)

So, that's it for Flambeau for me.

I'm back to G&H, who for years have simply had some of the BEST Duck decoys going for the $$$!

Now if $$$ are no object for you, Google "Columbia River Decoys" to see something of true beauty!

Oh I wish!

Budget = GreenHead Gear..Look Great fairly tough,,poor keel design.

Mid Budget = Herters Ulitmates..Look Great, hard to beat up,,easy to repaint..fairly heavy

No Budget = Cork.

Yes, cork is very nice and ride the water and waves well. But, they are heavy and tend to soak up water. I have a quite a few left from my NE fowling days that I am keeping for my grandchildren. I used 'em on many a stormy days and they never failed me. Even when the tide was going out and the ice dragged them they held up very nicely. I had to repaint them every few yrs. but was well worth the effort. L.L. Beans sells what are copies of George Soule cork decoys. They are pricey but worth the $$. I now use Higdon(sp) plastic decoys that I bought from Cabelas. They are OK, not great but OK. I have to repaint some heads for the upcoming 2009/2010 season. They are nice and light and I rig 'em with the plastic black stretch line with pyramid anchors. Greenheads seem to like them well enuf. Good luck!

Thanks guys for all the help, I appreciate all the advise..

G and H for me. They look great and don't have any of the paint issues that the Chinese decoys (Avery/GreenHead) do. I have yet to see the paint on GreenHeadGear decoys hold up to a lot of use.

Buy G&H, I have a bluebills that are about ten or fifteen years old that are still original paint. The keels have broken off of the flambeaus that I bought at the same time. The avery, redhead, greehead gears, and flambeaus have all chipped paint in a year or two. I've only had the styrofoam herters, they don't hold paint very well, and they ding up easily, but when you shoot cripples, they don't take on water and float funny.
Bfly

I used a mixture of G&H and GHG decoys about 40 days this year and will be retiring the GHG decoys and picking up a few dozen more G&H before next year. They spent about 4 months in my truck and the GHG dekes took a beating while the G&H dekes look relatively good.
Clint

Are GH really worth the dough? I mean almost 200 bucks a dozen and we often hunt with 6-10 or 12 dozen dekes?

I know my cheap flambeau will need paint, but do GH hold up that good? We TX rig ours and never use decoy bags that are a PITA.

Jeff

My blacks and mallards, which I don't use as many of, are the burlap covered Herters. They're solid, look good, need to be painted every few years.

Woodies I use solid foam Herters.

Most of my diver decoys (whistlers, ring-bills, bluebills, buffies) are Herters solid foam. They float well, they're almost indestructible, and they'll take a lot of shot . We have some of those that are were old before steel shot came along.

I have a couple pairs of magnum size Herter's burlap canvasbacks that I use out on the edge of the spread on big water as long range attention getters.

I've got half a dozen oversize Herters "millenium" Bluebills that I received as a gift. Great decoys but too spendy for me to have a boatload of them.

I think so. I mean the amount of money that we spend on dogs, gas and guns I figure some extra cash for some dekes that hold up for a few seasons are worth it. I only use around three to four dozen dekes in a spread so the price isn't too bad for me. If I used as many as you I might mix em up a bit.

Clint

I've always wondered about mixing good and cheap... put the best on the outer edges of the spread and use cheaper/worn ones up in close where they'd be dead before they saw they were cheap? 12 dozen would cost a lot of money... IE 2400 bucks, of course the used airboat was almost 20,000 plus it needs upgrades....

Jeff

I have been hunting over the same G&H decoys for 6 years and they look the same as they did when they came out of the box. They get a LOT of use between me and my partners. The only ones that don't look the best are the two that have holes in them from a kid hunting with us...

Not sure where you are getting your prices from, but I know Cabela's catalogs them for around $100 a dozen.

If you like cork, they are pretty easy to make yourself, but cork is pretty expensive nowadays. Stack two layers of 2" blue insulation foam together with waterproof adhesive, mount it on a plywood bottom, and carve it with a fillet knife. finish it up with 100 grit sandpaper, and paint with a flat latex. (nothing with acetone in it!). Foam is the new cork. They work up quick, are cheap, and hold up well. You could even just throw some Herter's plastic heads on if you don't want to make a wooden one. They are 88 cents each right now in the bargain cave at Cabela's.

Good thought on the cork, I was going to even cut cork crab trap floats in half and use heads to get a few dozen redheads, they ain't to smart.....

Price wise, most what I saw was 80 or more for half dozen or I was reading wrong, I could maybe talk myself into a few dozen really good ones for the outer edges, good pintails. Any need for magnums?

If you get the Herter's heads, the bluebill heads can be painted to just about anything you need - kind of an all purpose shape. I have made a bunch of crabpot float decoys, but unless you want to laminate 2 together, you are limited to teal or bufflehead. The insulation foam works real good, and is cheap. If you decide to make a few cork later, you can pretty much carve it the same way as the foam. Use the foam to figure stuff out.

Neal: Before you buy, ask yourself what kind of waterfowling you will be doing. From a boat? What size? Or running & gunning a traveling light (on foot) to isolated small waters? If the later, think weight and numbers of decoys needed, then brand. Good hunting.