Old Dog Learns New Trick

There were four gadwalls circling over the lake. It looked like they were going to drop into the middle of the lake at any moment. Because of that, I hit them hard with the duck call. I don’t know what I said to them—or what they thought I said—but instead of landing, three of them took off down the lake, and a single hen came right at us.

I thought all along the hen would change her mind and rejoin her friends. But I learned a long time ago that you can never figure out a duck. This one came in and landed directly in front of us before any of us could get a shot.

When it became obvious her friends weren’t coming back, we jumped the hen, and a member of our group—on his first duck hunt—took his second duck of the morning.

To top off the harvest, my springer spaniel, Winkle, made a very nice retrieve past the lily pad trunks between us and the open water. Someone said, “That new decoy spread certainly fooled her.” It had—but it was only the first day of waterfowl season, so my experiment was still in its early stages. Time will tell if it brings continued success.

I suppose since the first use of decoys for waterfowl hunting, the first argument followed about how best to put them out. No one knows for sure who’s right until a duck proves you right—or wrong.

There are many ideas: some hunters place decoys close to shore, so ducks that come in are within gun range. Others place them farther out, hoping to attract birds with increased visibility. Some hunters believe it’s impossible to have too many decoys; others swear by a dozen or fewer.

I grew up hunting a small natural spring pond with my dad, who used maybe three dozen magnum mallard decoys. He scattered them in small groups of three or four, making it look like new birds had just landed and hadn’t joined the party—or maybe didn’t want to.

When the pond froze, which it did early each season because it was shallow, we headed to the Mississippi River. The gun club there had a huge number of decoys, plus several lines of bleach bottles painted partially black to resemble bluebills.

The decoys were strung on long lines that extended like fingers from the blind, with gaps between them for ducks to land. I was very young, and I remember hoping a duck would land before the men saw it, so I could use Mom’s .410 to take a shot. It didn’t matter if I hit anything—it was enough just to shoot.

The men in the blind were gracious, trying to convince me I’d made a great shot, and that they were just finishing it off for me. I also remember a large pile of those bleach bottles stored in the cabin attic.

These days on the lake, I use about five dozen decoys. Some are on long lines, and I scatter three or four spreader rigs among them, each with four decoys.

The open pocket in front of the blind is where I try to get ducks to land. That’s where I place my best-looking decoys and any motion decoys. I set those choice decoys each morning to give the spread a fresh look each hunt.

We get mixed results, but the spread works especially well for migrating ducks looking for water and rest. Ducks that hang around get wise. When we call, I imagine them thinking, “Looks like the old man with the white beard is out again.”

But invariably, new ducks land in the middle of the lake and ignore the blinds and spreads. Real ducks don’t land evenly spaced—they bunch together. That’s how they rest until they move on.

Despite a lifetime of duck hunting, it never occurred to me to make my spread look like that. I just did it the way my dad and granddad did—except Granddad hunted back when they used live ducks in wire pens as decoys. I saw an old photo of it once.

Then in late September, I saw a Facebook ad for a waterfowl company selling flock-style decoy spreads. The decoys were attached to a mat that unrolled onto the water, with up to three dozen decoys on short lines. It looked exactly like the ducks I saw land in the middle of the lake.

A light bulb went off in my bald head: I could make one. A hunting buddy agreed, and he gave me some black plastic-coated garden fencing. I bought two dozen catfish snaps for trotlines, tied short lines to each decoy, and snapped them to the fence.

I had about 17 or 18 feet of fencing and attached two dozen decoys. When we rolled it out on the lake, it looked amazing.

The version I saw used a single anchor, but that was in deep water. I was in shallower water near lily pad remnants, so I tied an anchor to each corner to keep it from drifting.

It worked so well that a few days after writing this, I built a second, smaller spread to deploy to the left of my blind.

Time will tell if it pays off, but it’s a quick and easy way to get a large number of decoys on the water— and it sure looks like the real thing.