For those of you who use decoys, which decoys do you use and at what time during the season do you use them? Not necessarily talking about specific brands but rather when do you use a gobbler decoy, or hens, or jakes, or any combination. Thanks for any information.
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decoys -like calling -- the more realistic , the better
Hen decoys are like ketchup , good on everything , and about every situation
Jakes - seem to make gobblers jealous --
Strutter , with a hen at the foot , work in areas where there is several dominant gobblers - this is known to pull gobblers off of hens to come in and fight
Use common sense and put in a spot where you wont get lined up for overspray if someone shoots at them -
That pretty much sums it up. I can say in my area on public land the jake becomes less effective towards the seasons end.
Agreed for the most part with the above. I have had decoys cost me birds before, though. If there is a group of birds with gobblers and hens, it seems like the lead hen usually comes to check out the decoy and then goes back and takes the group away. However, the biggest bird I ever killed was in a group of 15 hens and 3 big birds. The gobblers came right to my jake decoy and pummeled him. I picked out the best and dropped him at after watching the show.
I called in a big Tom at home this week (can't hunt in my neighborhood) and he came right to my strutter, but basically ignored it.
I am hunting 5 two year old birds this morning and I don't think I am going to use a decoy because I am pretty sure they aren't the dominant birds on this farm. I am afraid they will shy away from a decoy. I haven't had enough scouting time to find the big bird and they haven't been gobbling, yet.
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Most of the birds I have killed I was using a single hen decoy OR a real fan... Never had any luck using a jake and hen combo... Maybe that's just me.
I think the kind of jake decoy matters a lot. The DSD jake has the perfect posture. Not too aggressive at a 1/4 strut. I have used other jakes that were too upright that seemed to scare off birds. The DSD jake has only scared birds off a handful of times overall hundreds of setups.
All jake decoys can scare off turkeys. They seem to be more effective during the earlier part of the season. Later in the season it seems the dominant gobblers are tired of fighting.
I have rarely used full strut decoys.
When hunting public land after the first couple of days, I put the decoys away. Birds have seen them and associate them with bad happenings. Example.... yesterday, 3 gobblers eased through a thicket... when they saw the hen decoy, they started putting and got real edgy. Made several false approaches before one finally gpt the approach angle wrong and cut it a hair too close. Two weeks ago, those 3 would have been all over that decoy and fighting for her.