# Decoys/Drones



## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

Everyone likes to have nice looking decoys, but are they really necessary? I buy whatever is on sale,and any brand that is a good deal. I'm still gunning over some 30 year old G&H mallards, and still decoying birds. I do have new and newer decoys as well, because I'm a junky like the rest of you guys.

We were having a little discussion on FB about what drones see flying over decoy spreads. The decoys have no visible color after so many yards of distance. If you are not decoying birds in your face, then I don't think it matters what decoy you use or what it looks like. We all have our opinions about this, but I don't think you need to buy $180 a dozen decoys to have more success.

This is not my video, Just one to look at to get an idea.


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## Pumpgunner (Jan 12, 2010)

I think that it only matters what your decoys look like if you're trying to finish birds in really close, I run a lot of black or black and white diver decoys in my big-water spread just for visibility alone. I have read that it was pretty common in the market hunting days for hunters to run a spread of solid black decoys, but I haven't been brave enough to try that yet!


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## utahbigbull (May 9, 2012)

Pumpgunner said:


> I think that it only matters what your decoys look like if you're trying to finish birds in really close, I run a lot of black or black and white diver decoys in my big-water spread just for visibility alone. I have read that it was pretty common in the market hunting days for hunters to run a spread of solid black decoys, but I haven't been brave enough to try that yet!


That is on my list to do hahah. One of my goals this year is to throw 3 -4 dozen coots and see what happens. If nothing else, to see what kind of looks I get!!!!

One thing to keep in mind for argument one way or the other, the real birds eyesight is not in 1080p like what that drone sees let alone what we see when we watch the original that has been downloaded.


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## Crndgs8 (Sep 14, 2013)

True story. When I was a kid we painted 2 of our super mag goose shells with bright orange spray paint. We put them out with the rest of the decoys in our spread that morning.
We noticed zero difference how the birds came in.
The three of us each got our two birds no prob. (Remember when it was only 2 bird limit on geese?) the good ole days...


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## goosefreak (Aug 20, 2009)

I think it matters..

I like to use the most realistic decoys I can afford and I believe it makes a difference. The more realistic and natural a spread looks the better the odds are in your favor especially on wary birds and especially putting birds feet down in the decoys.

birds see color better than we do.

is it necessary? no, does it help? absolutely! 

we've all had those crazy stories about killing birds with orange decoys or like last year when my brothers were in Canada, they were in the field with the truck and trailer and a double of geese came in and landed in the decoys while they were setting them up still. My brother walked over to the truck to grab his gun and shot both the geese.

I watched an episode of AvianX i believe it was where they put out a few orange garbage bags in the field where they geese were landing to detour them out of it and they hunted the field next to it and shot geese.

will it make a difference in every situation? No 
but, I want to have as much of the odds on my side as possible.

I'll say this, 1 dozen Dave Smith honkers will out decoys my 5 dozen GHG honkers


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

I think a person moving around in a blind, a white face looking up or a shiny blued barrel sticking out is much worse than a piss poor painted decoy. Having said that, there is no way in hell I'm ever going to paint my face.:grin:

Here is a good read:
https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/m...w-ducks-see-science-behind-waterfowl-eyesight


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## Steve G (Nov 29, 2016)

Interesting post.


I don't know what to think about what ducks care about in terms of colored decoys but I do know that a camera's eye is a poor substitute. As a diver/spear-fisherman friends and I have videoed fish underwater that we could plainly make out and identify yet the camera could often not distinguish that a fish was present. So while the drone camera presents a unique perspective I do have doubts that it can judge as well as a prey animals eyes.


The video brings up another interesting point though. I have always wondered if the mud trails like the one created by the lab, from human or canine retrievers were off putting to the birds.


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## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

I think the lenses on drones are 28mm, which is moderately wide and so not nearly as good at seeing detail as our eyesight.


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## 7summits (Nov 28, 2017)

Crndgs8 said:


> True story. When I was a kid we painted 2 of our super mag goose shells with bright orange spray paint. We put them out with the rest of the decoys in our spread that morning.
> We noticed zero difference how the birds came in.
> The three of us each got our two birds no prob. (Remember when it was only 2 bird limit on geese?) the good ole days...


I had a friend paint a dozen mallards purple with pink polka-dots. According to him he had no issues the first half of the season. Second half slowed, so he pulled them.


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## taxidermist (Sep 11, 2007)

Back in the late 70's when I was a young Lad, we would paint milk jugs flat black and put them out with our store bought decoys. Worked like a charm to add quantity. Also, we made silhouettes out of cardboard, paint them black, and brush hot wax on them, and stick them on a foam block. 


Seven duck limits then, and we all could fill those limits in an hour. Same spot we hunted then, your lucky to find a bird now.


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## dkhntrdstn (Sep 7, 2007)

pretty cool to see. come on FM I think you need to paint your face this year.


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## MuscleWhitefish (Jan 13, 2015)

utahbigbull said:


> One of my goals this year is to throw 3 -4 dozen coots and see what happens.


Probably the best Public Shooting Grounds Wigeon Decoys on the market.


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## Shadow Man (Feb 22, 2017)

Steve G said:


> The video brings up another interesting point though. I have always wondered if the mud trails like the one created by the lab, from human or canine retrievers were off putting to the birds.


This is a good question and one that I have thought about before, if the name of the game is to fool these birds into committing and dropping into the kill zone than we must remove anything unnatural from our spread and a mud trail wandering around the decoys is anything but natural, I would imagine that birds are smart enough realize that and avoid the area.


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## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

Shooting down a drone is on my bucket list


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

Shadow Man said:


> This is a good question and one that I have thought about before, if the name of the game is to fool these birds into committing and dropping into the kill zone than we must remove anything unnatural from our spread and a mud trail wandering around the decoys is anything but natural, I would imagine that birds are smart enough realize that and avoid the area.


Mud trails settle to the bottom quickly. I have never had an issue with this happening, and a lot of times I'm running my mud motor to retrieve long range cripples. The mud motor makes a bigger trail than any dog, but it still hasn't stopped the ducks or geese from coming in. Even in the small potholes we hunt using a dog, this has never been an issue.


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## fish-n-fool (May 26, 2009)

Interesting post. It makes me wonder if the duck was going into the decoy on the outer edge that was the darker color. I have noticed when looking at real birds from a distance they actually do look black unless they have white on them like drake pintail or shovler. Also shows how unrealistic decoys actually look from the air.


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## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

Interesting video! Many of my best hunts have come over black silhouette decoys, made from some kindly donated political signs after the elections were over.


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## alexgrey (Dec 23, 2020)

We used drones for the last few trips. It worked surprisingly well. I was not really sure about it at first but some of my friends have tried it last year when they were hunting and said that it helped them out a lot. I decided that it was worth a try and stared looking for a drone to use. I needed to make sure that it was as stealthy as possible since animals have some really sharp ears on them. I stared looking online at different models but most of them seemed kind of amateur-ish and more for kids and not adults. I was asking around professional circles when I came across this really cool blog called buyersimpact.co.uk. It was like finding the holly grail. I was able to find a list of models and their tech specifications and it allowed me to choose the best one that suited my needs. Like I said we used it for the last few trips that we had and it worked like a charm. I woud recommend you to try it out. I think you will like it a lot. I know we did


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