Fri, Sep 8th, 2023 - 10:13am
October 04, 2021 - 9:00am | By James McCarty
The Flag Outdoors Expert Steve Carney has your weekly Outdoors Angle right here!
As we slide into the beginning of the duck season, decoying ducks is one of my favorite ways to harvest early season wood ducks, teal and mallards.
Too many hunters just throw out their typical one dozen mallard decoys and hope for the best. There are ways to improve your odds by making some decoy adjustments. First off, add some realism to your spread by mixing up the body sizes. If you look at a flock of real ducks on the water, they are all different colors and sizes. Mix some small- bodied bluewing teal in the spread along with some larger mallard decoys. Tossing in 3 or 4 "feeder" decoys also improves your look. The idea is to mix up the sizes and colors to gain a realistic looking group of ducks that will attract the real thing.
Some waterfowl hunters often overthink this decoy thing and try to master an elaborate looking decoy spread. No need to get overaggressive. I put out two groups of ducks and leave a small landing space between the two groups. Keep it simple. Puddle ducks are not as choosy as diving ducks and they are day in and day out much easier to fool than the later season ducks from the north.
Steve Carney is The Flag WZFG Outdoors expert. He can be heard every Thursday morning at 8:05 on AM 1100 WZFG. Check out his weekly podcast on am1100theflag.com and hear his Outdoors Angle reports every Friday on AM 1100 WZFG. You can also visit stevecarneyoutdoors.com for more information.
