# Big Water Nothern Shoveler Hunting/LU



## LU Crew (Oct 30, 2009)

When hunting diving ducks such as Blue bill, Ring Bill, Red Heads and
such, howmany dekes should you put out? i have 3dozen mallards and
about 2dozen Scaup.


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## Buck25 (Mar 27, 2008)

I wouldnt bother going out less i had 20 dozen divers minimum....

jk 4 or 5 dozen might be nice tho. depends on the situation.


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## patrick grumley (Mar 9, 2007)

Back in MI I hunted big water, we through somewhere in the nieghborhood of 300 dekes.


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## LU Crew (Oct 30, 2009)

Thanks for the help and will do


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## carp_killer (Nov 24, 2006)

for one dont even think about putting them mallard dekes in a diver spread. maybe through a few 30yds away from the spread if theres mallards in the area but do NOT mix them with the divers. i would use nothing less than 200 dekes use the really black dekes out on the line 100-150yds out, if you have any goldeneye or bufflehead dekes put them right on the edge of the pocket because buffs and goldys will key in on the white.

by the way screw the redneads and bluebill go shoot the sea duck in that pic


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## PJ (Oct 1, 2002)

Because of the title I thought this was a thread about spoonbills.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

PJ said:


> Because of the title I thought this was a thread about spoonbills.


I know you were getting excited too. :lol:


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## Maverick (Mar 4, 2002)

> Because of the title I thought this was a thread about spoonbills.


I was right there with you!









On this hunt we had about 10-15 decoys with 2 robo's. We found a good concentration and set up in their flight line. Hunting off the ponds of the prairies.


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## Gildog (Jan 30, 2007)

LU Crew said:


> When hunting diving ducks such as Blue bill, Ring Bill, Red Heads and
> such, howmany dekes should you put out? i have 3dozen mallards and
> about 2dozen Scaup.


I had many great hunts on LOW using just mallard dekes...as few as two dozen when I was a poor, learning kid...the bluebills and ringbills didn't seem to mind...neither did the goldies, buffies, or mergies...and the days when the big flocks of new mallards piled in like they'd found their long lost girlfriends were incredible.

that said, I ended up using about 5 dozen decoys...and was usually in a spot that looks like 'X' to the ducks...black bodies with flashes of white were the ticket


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## GKBassplayer (Feb 19, 2008)

carp_killer said:


> i started hunting divers last week


This was from a different topic on OCT 17. Numbers are good but that doesn't mean you can't shoot ducks over a small spread. I have shot cans and bills with as little as 18 divers and a bunch of mallards concentrated closer to shore. Some birds don't always like to decoy to a strict diver spread. Work with what you have and give it a go!


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## Rick Acker (Sep 26, 2002)

I just hunted some big water where the mallards and divers where mixed in together. I say no problem mixing in mallard decoys with the diver decoys. Makes it look more realistic in a NoDak big water situation.


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