I own a commercial waterfowl club and have guided for over 40 years. We have used Avery, Higdon, Big Foot, Dakota, and Hard Core as our primary goose decoys. Big Foot with heads and feet screwed to bodies take a beating but seems like the Hard Core get best results with motion.

Duck decoys have been really GHG and Hard Core and I can say that in my opinion the Hard Core win big time.

Now, all of this has taken place in my observations in Canada, ND, WI and my home state of Illinois.

What works best for you?

Avian X duck decoys, and a mix of big foots, and ghg full body, and ghg shells for goose.

These appear to hold up real well for me.

I like these the best, but I do have a wide mix of others that are still going strong.

We goose hunt in a high pressure zone in my home state and it requires large decoy spreads. Typically we use 12 to 20 dozen full bodies and shells. Ironically, when the birds get decoy shy we downsize to 15-18 full body Hard Core or Avian X motion decoys and it works more often than not.

G&H duck decoys from the 90's with GHG's mixed in to fill in since we've lost some G&H's in a flood before. If you repaint them they hold up great. Also this is in rice.


Goose were DSD's but with the realism of the newer GHG's now the price tag of the DSD's just isn't needed. Typically a 3 dozen or so spread of full bodies.