# Sentrys- How many



## watrfwlnut (Dec 26, 2007)

If this was brought up before forgive me I did a search and couldnt find anything...

how many sentrys do you guys run/prefer..?? is there a ratio or certain percentage of sentrys versus feeders that you try to follow..??

we bought 40 dozen SilloSocks this year and went with 6 dozen Sentrys and I'm wondering if that was too many...

should have asked before I bought em' right..!!! I KNOW... :eyeroll:


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

We run about 15% sentries. Some guys go higher, some lower. With 6 dozen your at 15%.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I would say that 40% is to much, but since it is different then what other people run, it could work in your benefit. 
I don't hunt snows anymore but when I hunt canada's my spread is completly different from what everyone around the area. And guess what I shoot more geese most of the time.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y (Sep 23, 2004)

I am going to do a test one day this year, and set out my 2.5 doz lookers. Not a single other deek.

I just want to see if it will work.

Most of the time I run about 5 doz feeders 2 active, and 8 lookers.

Next year it will be 10 doz feeders, 4 doz actives, and about 2 doz lookers.

After my late xmas gift to myself.

Snows. We run about a 20% sentary's


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## headshot (Oct 26, 2006)

I use probly 5-6 doz uprights in 35 dozen.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y (Sep 23, 2004)

I guess I should clarify. I was responding to blhunter and talking canada's, Alot of time we end up with a hodge podge set up for snows. Everyone brings there deeks, and we set them up. We try and limit the uprights, but if you look at a live flock there is actaully alot that are up. So we don't worry about it to much.

If I was talking just my spread it would be 20% uprights.


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## takem1 (Feb 20, 2007)

I use about 30% actives. I think you need more feeders than actives but there is no ratio that you have to abide by.


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

When Snows start to figure out percentages, I give up. :lol:

I feel....

There should probably be some upright heads in the spread as well as some Blues in the spread.

Will there be a noticable difference if you run a all white spread with no upright heads?

Probably not. :lol:


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## snowbus (Mar 7, 2007)

We used to run a spread w/ 75% sentrys. It worked very well for that first flock of the morning. After switching to 10% we have done better, but do not draw in that first flock anymore. IMO - that was the difference.


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

jkern said:


> Will there be a noticable difference if you run a all white spread with no upright heads?
> 
> Probably not. :lol:


I gotta disagree. I still see alot of "weekender" spreads of all white and not a head up in the bunch (rags, or old economy NW's), and I never see these guys kill many birds.

Without an e-caller running, all white doesnt do so hot. At least not in the eastern 2/3rds of the state.


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## Mike Benjamin (Jan 7, 2008)

Alot of guys run a 3:2:1 ratio....Feeders, actives, High Lookers

When we run all our 25 doz FBs, we have 36 High Lookers, about 50 actives, and the rest feeders. it all depends on where you hunt, we hunt close to town, so we will have more actives and high lookers, when we hunt way out, we sometimes dont run any high lookers...

BUT we have had great success hunting over all high lookers! it looks like a big flock has jsut landed, worked a few times when other spreads didnt!


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

Must mean Im a weekender then and everything we kill is a fluke. :lol:


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

jkern said:


> Must mean Im a weekender then and everything we kill is a fluke. :lol:


Depends on where your hunting. Out west, more or all white will work. But in the eastern part of ND, matching the hatch has worked VERY well for us. We run over 60% blues now. Just sayin I see alot of those all white spreads around, and I never hear em doing much shooting.


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

Back when we first started hunting these dam things, running monster rag spreads, without a Blue or a head in the bunch we did very well considering the area we hunted and the location we hunted...east central Nebraska, stages ZERO birds, we see a weak migration, and hunt a field no Snow goose would ever think about sitting on its own. After about 5-6 years of stapling rags and spreads that looked like toilete paper stuck to a stick by the end of the season we switched to NWs and shells. Everything pretty much stayed the same...if anything we lost some of our drawing power going away from the rags.

Hunting a new area...Rainwater Basins
My spread 2 years ago had maybe 5% Blues, had a better than the average joe daily take. My spread last year didnt have a single Blue in it, still had a strong average. This year I am running quite afew blues and uprights, all sillosocks. But I am pretty sure, my averages will stay the same.

Oh and btw...I really dont just hunt weekends. On a typical year I will hunt 30+ days in the spring and every open day of the season in the fall. This year I will be a hunting straight from Feb 21st til March 20th, I think that will be plenty enough. :lol:


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## goosehunter20 (Oct 19, 2006)

I think that sentries make the decoys a little more realistic up close


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## h2ofwlr (Feb 6, 2004)

Ever watch when you drive by and all their heads go and stay up? That high head look often means danger. So why replicate it?

Maybe 1 in 25 should be a high (like a NW head) head if that as there are always a few in a flock looking for danger which is normal in a relaxed flock. Short (resting) head is different, as it is mimicking what the geese look like in a relaxed state. 1 in 6 can be a short head. The rest feeders ot headless


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I dont think that a goose will not come in because of to many high heads. As stated before high heads mean danger, I agree with that, but when the geese are in that close they should be hitting the ground. I used to hunt with all lookers and did just fine. Everybody has there on opinion about the lookers, all you need to do is try it out for your self. Who knows throwing something different at them might help you out.


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

jkern said:


> Back when we first started hunting these dam things, running monster rag spreads, without a Blue or a head in the bunch we did very well considering the area we hunted and the location we hunted...east central Nebraska, stages ZERO birds, we see a weak migration, and hunt a field no Snow goose would ever think about sitting on its own. After about 5-6 years of stapling rags and spreads that looked like toilete paper stuck to a stick by the end of the season we switched to NWs and shells. Everything pretty much stayed the same...if anything we lost some of our drawing power going away from the rags.
> 
> Hunting a new area...Rainwater Basins
> My spread 2 years ago had maybe 5% Blues, had a better than the average joe daily take. My spread last year didnt have a single Blue in it, still had a strong average. This year I am running quite afew blues and uprights, all sillosocks. But I am pretty sure, my averages will stay the same.
> ...


Relax bud. Im just saying, in the area WE hunt, we see alot of all white spreads (which are usually the guys that hunt 1 or 2 weekends a year) and NEVER see them do very well. (This is in the fall with no e-callers).
If you killing birds over all white, great.

The amount of blues depends on where the birds your hunting are coming from. In our area, 50% or more blues is very common.

As far as the last several posts. I concur. Alot of high heads mean danger, alertness, or the flocks getting ready to head out.


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

We are running 40-45 percent blues and about 60 percent feeders in our fullbody spread. The reason for so many blues was the exact same thing that Bareback was talking about. There were about 4 or 5 days last fall where we didn't shoot a single snow in the dekes. Often times we would go double digits on all blues. It isn't that we are picking out blues specifically, it is just that all the juvies seemed to be blue juvies. And a lot of the adult/juvie mixed flocks that came in were all blues. This past fall was extreme for the amounts of blue geese we saw. Often times 60 percent or more, and it was reflected in our harvests. 74 percent blues, 24 percent snows, and 2 percent ross'.


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

goosebusters said:


> We are running 40-45 percent blues and about 60 percent feeders in our fullbody spread. The reason for so many blues was the exact same thing that Bareback was talking about. There were about 4 or 5 days last fall where we didn't shoot a single snow in the dekes. Often times we would go double digits on all blues. It isn't that we are picking out blues specifically, it is just that all the juvies seemed to be blue juvies. And a lot of the adult/juvie mixed flocks that came in were all blues. This past fall was extreme for the amounts of blue geese we saw. Often times 60 percent or more, and it was reflected in our harvests. 74 percent blues, 24 percent snows, and 2 percent ross'.


Your percentages are pretty close to ours, roughly 3/4 of our harvest the last few years has been blues. And thats with us still trying to pick white birds. In fact, we had a day last fall where for the first time in about four years we FINALLY killed more whites in a morning than blues, I think we had 13 whites and 9 blues.


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

A couple pics from this past fall. The first shows a normal ratio for a given day.










This one was a day that we just didn't get any snows to decoy. We even shot mature birds, but they were all blues. Almost every flock we saw this day was blue geese.


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## justund223 (Aug 28, 2006)

i gotta find my picure of our one snow hunt we shot 38 birds and i think like 30 were blues


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## jkern (Aug 10, 2005)

Main reason I get alittle uptight over something like this....

Guys get totally brain washed that you need to do certain things in order to kill X ammount over dekes. Which ends up turning them away from even trying it...they end up jumpng instead. Not that I have anything against jumping, even though I dont do it, I say jump away.

Even more so when it comes to Canadas...I will put a spread black and white homemade sillos against any custom spread out there. Given the hunter can run a call worth a spit.

Im here to say...Been in this game alittle while.....

You dont need X ammount of upright heads or X ammount of blues or X amount of FB dekes you dont need X blind to hide X well or even X ammount of hours scouting....

All you seriously hafta do is get under em, setup, and with alittle bit of help from ole ma nature and alittle bit of tweaking...KILL EM...it surely isnt rocket science.

Unless your dealing with extreme late migrating Juvies.....There is no X, Snow geese go where other snow geese are....plain and simple...why do you thing they gather in the size of flocks that the do...no reason to make it out to be tougher than it is.


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## shooteminthelips (Jun 13, 2007)

I dont know guys. Our group runs anywhere from 600 - 1200 decoys. All white. And It seems we kill everything. Snows, Blues, and Canadas!!



















We shot every bird in this picture over a all white spread! Oh and how many head up do we run? About 10%


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## BeekBuster (Jul 22, 2007)

My .02 it's whatever you think looks best or whatever works for you.. There is no way you can actually prove more blues or more sentries gets birds closer. Unless you find two similar feilds side by side, set all the decoys the exact same and just have more of one or the other.. We all hunt differently, we all hunt deifferent places, we all hunt different days.


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## Leo Porcello (Jul 10, 2003)

I bought 2 doz sentries and hardly if ever use them. 95% I run all feeders.


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