I don't like using decoys as they are a pain if you have to move but desperate times call for desperate measures. Birds here are shutting down big time and a lot of Toms especially bigger ones don't even hardly respond to a call. Gobble and just move on. Going to try using two or three hen decoys this week to see if might get one to come in. Was just curious, I also have a jake decoy someone gave me and would it be a good idea to include it in my set up? I am an experience Turkey hunter except as I stated the unfrequent use of decoys.

I don't use a jake very often at all. I feel hen decoys work best for me and have seen sub dominate toms run from the jake decoys.
I have used them in TX with good success, but not so good of a result here in TN.

I'm the exact opposite of pullit. I use a jake decoy frequently and have never seen a sub dominate run from it. It's crazy, we have opposite experience from hunting the same sub-species within bordering states.

I always use decoys; time permitting. I want the approaching tom focused on the decoy(s), not scanning the woods looking for a hen, especially if I have to make some minor movements prior to a shot.

I generally use a jake facing a hen/facing the opposite direction that I anticipate the gobbler coming from. Usually the gobbler will attempt to circle and approach the jake face-to-face. This can be used to your advantage depending on the situation. It's not the ONLY way of doing things, just another means to an end.

Try both approaches see what works for you.

ETA: F'n birds are doing the same here and have all season. Gobble when they pitch-down and shut-up and won't gobble at all. Our season was late this year due to an unusually warm spring.

Birds be crazy and do stuff that make you say "WTH". I have seen gobblers act spooky around decoys, then again have had them come right up to them. Had a jake mount my hen decoy for about 5 minutes this year. There brain is about the size of a walnut and ours is the size of a grapefruit. Sometimes I think we over think things but I still can't figure them out.

I’ll carry a hen decoy when taking my 15yo son to hunt. Otherwise I don’t use them

Not having one cost me a nice gobbler on Tuesday morning. He stepped into field and didn’t like the fact he couldn’t see the hen and I was a second too late getting the gun on him. With a decoy he is a dead bird and my season is over. But I don’t mind that

You got that right.

I do think decoys are better for field hunting than close quarters woods hunting

I bow hunt turkeys, and have arrowed about 35-40. I’ve progressed from cheap foam decoys to DSD decoys. I always use a half strut jake and 1-3 hens, usually one. When they decoy, the toms go to the jake, every time.

Best placement for turkey dekes is straight in the garbage can. Grown men don't play with dolls.

This past weekend, in NW Illinois (Galena area), any decoy was a deterrent! Birds would come in, see the decoy(s) and turn around and leave so the decoys stayed behind after the first couple set-ups. Setting up inside the woods off a travelled field and having a tom search for the "hen", resulted in a very nice tom for me this time. I've had decoys work and not work, roll of the dice. I agree they're a pain sometimes, every time out is different.

There's a time in place for them and today was one of those times....Avion X Half strut Jake and 2 hens closed the deal this morning as I called in my cousins 1st turkey ever....without the decoys it wouldn't have happened

congrats

Repeat performance this morning for me this time....Tom saw the decoys ran right into spread and started beating up the jake done deal at 6 am

Nice pictures of successful Turkey hunting. I have one question. Is the field you got your Turkey in full of rocks? Looks like river rocks. Maybe an old river bed?

Where I live, it is very rocky also, but mostly sandstone shale type rocks. Maybe the river bottom fields along the Yellowstone have rocks like that .

No just a bunch of stones, never even noticed it....they just turned it over last week

I will sometimes use a hen decoy late in the season if the birds are not gobbling much. Last year three younger toms, but not jakes, came in to a series of yelps. They gobbled when they were still out of sight but then came in silently.

I usually put the hen facing where I think the birds will come from and to the left side of where I am sitting. On the three it worked and I don't think any of them looked at me at all when I was moving to mount and fire. As others have noted they don't use them all the time and neither do I.

man the decoys are working for you for sure
Congrats

Where's the like button ?

They are legal.
They are not for me.
Yes, I used them 20 years ago when they came out... I feel it somehow cheapens the hunt. Turkeys are not that hard to kill.
They are great if you need to put a child or someone new on a bird... Or, if you need to get your picture taken next to a dead bird.

I might use them on private land. But I was hunting public land when I first started trying decoys and had another hunter bumble through the woods, see my decoy, and raise and lower his shotgun at it several times in the span of about 7 seconds. When he shouldered his gun I yelled "don't shoot my decoy.," He almost schit his pants.

I think their best use is to aid in making YouTube videos. Noisy PITA to carry if walking around.

I wish my calling was better and I dodnt need them to distract the birds. I cant do the mouth calls to save my life.

If you buy them at Sporting Good stores that might hold true forever....years back I used to tell people if you want some diaphragm calls go to the Bass Pro shop parking lot close to me because all I've bought there went out the window before I left the parking lot.....All I've encountered took too much air to play. I'm not looking for a diaphragm call that I can call a turkey in the next county with.

If you are not tone deaf and have most of your teeth there is no real reason you can't learn to play the right one....there's the key.

Two words "right one".

Will you go broke before you find it ?....Possibly.

First you need to get the simple basics of a playing a diaphragm call....you put it in your mouth hold it up against the roof of your mouth with your tongue...you start to blow/huff air from your diaphragm.

You're looking for the high pitched beginning of the yelp.....yeeee.....then you just drop your jaw and the rear end awwwk just happens.

Diaphragms are semi automatic.



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Shane Simpson has a good video on how to select one. Not sure of it’s spot on, but it would explain why I can use some but am hopeless with others.

My go-to is a Black Magic aluminum pot. Easy-peasy. Can’t believe some of the prices they get for glass ones now. A good box call like a Lynch is pretty easy too.

If you set up correctly you don't need to call when the bird is in sight. If a gobbler believes you are a hen, and you are in a place it will come to, and it has to come within gun range to see your position then calling more is little use. Moreover, when you are in such a situation your odds go up. They'll more often show up than you might expect. It may take a good long while, but it works.

Or you can play trigger man for the little Chinese gal who made the decoy that is actually responsible for the kill.

I'm not a great caller, neither. But I do kill turkeys. Well, I'm a better caller than LFC; particularly with trumpets. But then I use better trumpets than he makes. So, it's not really a fair comparison. If he ever got a truly accurate trumpet, and learned what turkeys actually sound like, he might do better.

Down here no one uses decoys unless you are taking a child or someone that has never called in a bird. Kinda takes the skill/fun out of it.

That was funny.