Decoys made from canvas stretched over wooden bows. There’s a pretty neat old hand carved cedar mallard decoy in one of the cabins at the ranch, be sure to check it out when you’re out there.

Today’s decoys are mostly hollow bodied, injection molded plastic. Solid bodied Styrofoam decoys are also popular. The hollow plastic decoys have the advantage of being lightweight and having very realistic details molded into the bodies. They can however be sunk by an errant shot [this happens more than we like to admit] but are pretty easily repaired with some silicone or hot glue. The solid foam body decoys will take plenty of shot and never sink. For the most part they don’t have the realistic details of their plastic cousins but I have seen some with actual photos of ducks laminated to them and they are just about the best looking decoys I’ve seen.

Features of modern decoys can include turnable heads or various poses, larger than life size, and very realistic paint schemes. Some cheaper decoys need paint work right out of the box while more expensive models have great looking paint schemes that will last for years. I find that I end up doing some touch up paint work on most all of my decoys every year, accenting the white areas with a little more paint than normal helps make them more visible and after all, getting the ducks to notice your spread is half the game. Some of my paint jobs are almost clown like but seem to work ok.

Most plastic decoys are stabilized by a keel that protrudes from the bottom. Some of these are weighted while others are hollow and simply fill with water. The weighted ones [what we use mostly at the ranch] are easier to put out, just throw them and they land upright. It takes more care to place the water keels but you sure can carry a bunch more of them if you have to walk a long way to get to your hunting spot. Fortunately here at the ranch we can drive a four wheeler right up to our blinds in most cases.
In setting the decoys we try to imitate a real group of ducks feeding and resting. We place the decoys in small ‘’family’’ groups of three to five decoys of a particular species. These groups are spaced to allow landing lanes between them and are set close to the blind to get the ducks into that 20 –25 yard range that insures clean kills. Depending on the weather conditions and time of season, we may put out several dozen decoys or just a few. Early season and windy days we’ll put out every thing we’ve got. On calm days or later in the season we’ll use just a few.

The ranch spread this year includes mallards, gadwalls, widgeon, teal, pintail, canvasback, wood duck, and ringnecks. It’s pretty amazing to see the different varieties of ducks pick their own decoys out of the group and land with them.

You don’t have to watch a bunch of ducks for very long to realize that they are always on the move and if you want your spread to look realistic you must have some motion in the decoys. Usually the wind is enough to get them moving some but we like to add a couple of ‘’jerk strings ‘‘ to the rig to simulate feeding ducks and to send ripples out on the water on a slick calm day. We also have a variety of mechanical motion producing devices, mostly home made from such items as trolling motors bilge pumps, and remote control models. I’m not sure that most of them are all that effective but fooling with them does keep you from going to sleep in the blind on a slow hunt. I can’t really go into details on the motion making stuff cause most of it is top secret, one of a kind stuff but you’ll get to check it out when you come out for a hunt!

We normally pick up our decoys after each hunt unless we are sure we’re hunting the same spot the next day. Leaving out a large spread of decoys all season is not a good idea for us at the ranch but we do sometimes leave out two or three diver decoys on either end of shark lake to get the attention of those large bunches of ringnecks that are passing through at 90 mph but seem to like the deep clear water there when they slow down long enough to take a look.

Regarding the blinds, James Reed, Jimmy K., Hagen and I have put together a couple of blinds on Bearman Lake, one out on the point that holds 5-6 guys and is brushed with Cedar. It’s kind of hard to get in and out of but it works pretty well. It works in most wind conditions but a hard north wind would send me to the other blind on the north side near the dam. This is really two blinds and will seat 8 hunters if they’re careful. This blind could use a little more brush right now. There are no functional blinds on shark lake right now and I don’t have any immediate plans for putting anything up there but I’d be glad to point out a couple of spots that might work if any members were interested in doing something up there.

In fact, my best hunts on Shark Lake have been lying on the ground at the water’s edge covered by a camo net. I’ve shot many limits, [mostly divers] using this method and have been done in as little as fifteen minutes from shooting time. So far this season we’ve had small groups out to hunt and plenty of space in the blinds. I don’t anticipate crowding being a problem but members should check the ranch calendar and feel free to email me regarding the hunting situation on any given weekend. If you’re one of the members who is lucky enough to get to hunt during the week, help yourself to the decoys and the blind of your choice.

If you are someone interested in joining us for one of our Parent/ youth duck hunts, contact me ASAP about scheduling, a duck hunt with Dad would be a great Christmas present for any kid.

Email can be sent to B.C. at capt.red@Pintailmail.com.

B.C.