Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting Decoys: yes or no?

New to Turkey and have bought all the goodies. Now some tell me decoys do more harm than good.

I want to use em.

Go ahead.

In heavily hunted areas, you may find turkeys get deke shy. I hunt with them sparingly. More often than not, I've seen hens treat them with complete indifference.

I don't put them out in the middle of the field and hunt over them. I put a deke out here and there to cover my back door and to distract the turkey from the big hulking pile of camo that is raising the shotgun.

You'll hear guff from guys who say they're unethical. In some states, they're not legal (check your laws, btw). I don't hold to any of that.

What I will tell you is that the biggest downside to dekes is the fact that you make some investment of time in placing them, and some investment in taking them down. Sometimes you want to pull stakes and move, but. . . It gets to be a drag on your mobility. I almost always carry them.

I deploy one or more maybe 50% of the time. They're always the first bit of cargo I dump when I get up to do an end-around. In fact, I have a system that focuses on just that. I don't wear a vest. I carry a small call case, a musette bag that I use for dekes and a butt pad. If I'm going to be extra-mobile, I dump the musette bag and go with just the calls. A lot of the time, when I don't deploy the dekes, the musette bag becomes my back rest.

Almost essential if you are bow hunting and not using a blind.

Like shaman, I carry them when gun hunting, but rarely put them out unless I'm hunting big fields or very open country.

Around here, the woods are so thick that if a tom comes in close enough to see a decoy, he's already in shooting range, so they're not much use.

Good luck with the birds, you'll soon be addicted.

Oh, by the way, it's customary for new turkey hunters to provide the GPS coordinates of any turkeys they come across to everyone here on the Campfire..........so we'll be waiting to hear from ya'.

I use them for field set ups....half strut jake and a hen or 2 have worked numerous times for me

I hunt mostly woods with a few small fields and open areas. One spot is an "intersection" where a logging road and power line intersect. Decoys work very well for us in these spots. I take them with me and they collapse well in my small backpack, so they're always at hand if I use them or not.

I rely only on my calling technique and havent had the need for decoys yet.
So far I'm 11 for 12 yrs.....turkey starts here in Indiana in a little over 2 weeks.....stay tuned for pics.

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. What always works is being where the turkey wants to be.

I had an old gobbler that used to walk out to the center of a small field every morning and start struttin' and spittin'.

Almost always hen would join him after awhile and he'd do his thing.

Since I was bow hunting this bird, I tried everything I had to get him to approach my set up, but he'd just strut out there just out of range of my bow and ignore me completely.

As far as dekes go, I tried two hens and a jake, a lone hen, a mature gobbler in every combination I could think of and that damn tom would just look them over and gobble his head off, but wouldn't leave his strut zone.

Well one day I saw this ad on TV for a decoy setup where you mount a jake on top of a hen on this special stake and then use a piece of fishing line pinned to the jakes tail to create the illusion that he's humping the hen.

I crept out in that field one morning before fly down and set up my breeding pair of dekes about 15 yards in front of my blind and ran the end of the fishing line underneath the bottom flap where I could pull it without being seen.

Sure enough, right after first light, that old tom flew down into the field and began doing his dance.

I gave him a couple of sweet hen yelps on my slate and when he spun around so he could see my set up, I tugged on the fishing line and the jake decoy started bouncing up and down on the back of the hen.

Well, that tom just stared at pair of dekes for about five minutes as I kept giving him light purrs and soft yelps and tugging on the fishing line.

And just when I expected him to break strut and come running over to stomp the crap out of that jake, he took one last look, folded his tail and promptly walked directly away from me right the hell out of the other end of field!

I still have that rig collecting dust somewhere (Spring Jealousy I think it's called) along with a dozen other turkey hunting gimmicks I've been conned into purchasing over the years.........

By the way, that big tom must of died a natural death, because I was the only one hunting that piece of woods and he sure made a monkey out of me!

Exactly. And if you can do that you don't even need a call. But, I have never had a turkey hang up when using a decoy and I have had plenty hang up when I didn't have a decoy out.

I use my decoys in the following ways;

1. One hen decoy just to give the bird something to look at so he won't be eyeballing me when I am trying to get the shotgun up.
I have rigged an easy yelper to the leg of a decoy with fishing line attached to the plunger. The line is in a Zebco reel, I can pull on the line and make the decoy yelp and move a little. The birds never look at me, they zero in on that decoy and go right to it.

2. One or two hen decoys. When gobblers are already with hens I will over call the dominant hen challenging her. I use lots of clucks and cackles calling louder, faster, and cutting in on her. When you make that work the hen will come fight your decoy. Of corse the gobblers follow her.

3. Two or more hen decoys. When the turkey have been pressured and are call shy I set up a flock of hens and use several different calls. I will use two different pitched mouth calls, a box, and a slate. I will mix purrs on the slate and box with yelps and clucks on the mouth call at the same time. Some times I will yelp on the mouth call and answer myself on the box. This has always worked for me on call shy birds.

4. Jake with one or two hens. This is a killer set on big dominant gobblers in the middle of the day. I just yelp three times every fifteen or twenty minutes. I have never had a bird hang up on this set. However, I will not use a Jake decoy where others may be hunting. I don't want to be shot by an idiot. So the Jake only goes out on my private lease land.

I don't always use the decoy. Sometimes you have to move fast to relocate and don't have time to move decoys. No problem, just leave them there. Other times I might set up in thick cover and don't need the decoys.

This is a photo of my afternoon set up taken from my hidey-hole Sunday.


I wish I photos of the gobblers that have tried to breed with the decoys, the hens that "fight" the decoys, or the bobcat that tried to eat one.

Good advice praire dog shooter.......

Around here, we don't get a crack at em' until late April and by that time most of the big guys usually have hens with em'.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago I saw a tom in full display in front of five or six hens and it was more than a month before opening day.

Somebody told me once that spring turkey hunting was not about calling toms, but calling hens.

If you listen very carefully, when a tom is gobbling, you can often here a dominant hen in the background trying to keep control over the flock.

Just keep saying what she's saying and most times you can get her riled up enough to come looking for you.

And sure enough ol' dummy will be following her.


Good luck to all.....

My thoughts on decoys. First I know we all hunt different areas this is only my experince. I do not use them inwide open fields Many times I've had a tomm look over the decoy and I believe when they see no motion after a time they know sometings wrong and move off. I will set a decoy in an opening in the woods where the Tomm has to look a little for the decoy The trees and brush can give an illison of motion. And last When I use a decoy I put it out to my left as this the direction I shoot being right handed no sense having a bird come in on my right and then have to move

They work (sometimes), and they are fun to use. Having a nice Tom circle and bob his head in the face of a Jake decoy is a very cool hunting experience. BigDaddyK, try them for yourself, and see how you like them.

Prairie- good post.

If you want to use em...use em. I have done it both ways. If I'm setting up in a known field or clearing where the feed, I use decoys.

If I'm in on a roosting area, or moving around walking ridges and woods, I like to carry as little as possible so I leave them in the car.

The only time I have had decoys spook birds was with a jake decoy.

I like to use them. I've watched Toms beat the heck out of them.

I don't know what the deal was. 2 times in one day the birds spooked from the Jake deke. First time was a group of 3 toms, second time was a mix of Jakes and hens. About 5 hours apart.

What did I tell ya......check out my thread. 12 for 13 and counting.

I was invited to western Ok for a quick turkey hunt this week. 3 of us went and only had 2 mornings and 1 afternoon to hunt. We each killed good gobblers, 2 of which I dont believe we would have had it not been for a little strutting jake decoy that my buddy brought. Pizzed 2 big turkeys off and they came running.

I dont use them at home. Dont want to carry them and have never felt the need. But if I hunted out there all of the time I'd get me a couple.

They are not necessary to kill a bird. They will help at times, especially when left in the vehicle.