Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting So how do you feel about deer decoys?

they work on all the hunting shows!

seriously though, i'd try one. probably couldn't hurt.

I used them to get deer walking across logging roads/ power/gas lines to stop and look.

Bad thing about decoy's is that they will pick up scent...do NOT underestimate this fact.

I tried them a few times in some open areas like food plots and right aways on some control hunts for does. At best I would say it was mixed. Some deer would walk within a few feet and never even look and some deer would not take their eyes off of a decoy once it entered the field.

I was hoping I could shoot a doe or two and the ones that ran off would see one left standing there and come back so we could kill more does. Didn't work out so well.

I have a friend how uses one sometimes during bow season and he seems to think that it is helpful but he does not use it all the time.

I've used one of those cardboard cutouts the last couple of years. I'd say it's at it's best near dusk and dawn.

Did get this guy to walk right up to me on opening morning tho from across a fence and in some trees where he would have been safe.




Lots of other deer have stopped and looked at it for a moment. Hasn't spooked any yet that I know of.

Last year I used a deer shadow decoy. Inexpensive, life sized, head shaped, painted piece of foam that you hang in a tree with fishing line and another piece tied off to the ground. Spins slowly in a light breeze. Gives a now you see it now you don't affect.

I had one doe watch it for some time. I was in a stand between her and the decoy and she didn't bust me, it certianly occupied her eyes long enough for me to shoot her if I had wanted.

It gave me something to watch and later when I pointed it out to my grampa at about one hundred yards it was a hard sell to convince him it wasn't a deer.

So, I strongly recomend one if your hunting my grandfather.

I have tried them here in CT during archery season on several occassions. What I have found is that they don't work to well. They will bring a deer into them but once they notice it doesn't move which has been fast (before getting into archery range) they don't want anything to do with it. I had a young doe come into one within range, and a young buck come into one. He looked at it snorted at it, false charged it, and then walked off. To me it is just more crap to carry in. I hunt active deer trails that run to and from their bedroom and kitchen. Don't need any scents or decoys when doing that.

i used 'em a few times during bow in ny without much success, both doe & buck type decoys.

-ken

Waders, when I was a kid I had a wooden toy dog that you pulled behind you on a leash and had a spring for a tail. Maybe you could put wheels on the deer decoy and pull it behind you.