# Thought Provoking Thread....



## dave young (Jul 17, 2011)

Let's say a field setup has 3 elements; "hide", "draw", and "realism". Hide obviously being how well you are camoflaged. Draw being how much/how far your spread attracts birds, and finally realism being how authentic your decoys are.
If you had to make a sacrifice in one of these areas, which one would it be and why?


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

This is interesting...... What do you mean by "draw" exactly? Is this your spread of the field? Because if you mean your decoy spread in the field like will it draw in birds from a long distance? Or do you mean draw as in was the field full of birds the night before when scouting or location of the field....ie near a roost?

Because the first one would fall into the realism of the spread. The second is more important.

The one I would not worry about the most is realism....IMHO. Because people have hammered birds with silo's, socks, shells, full bodies, etc. If you are hidden (#1) and are on the X (#2), you could have 1 doz shells and 1 doz silo's and have a good hunt.

Now I am not saying Decoys are not important. But out of the three.... They are the least important in most situations if you have #1 and # 2 covered.


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## dave young (Jul 17, 2011)

Good point about draw". My initial thought about draw was concerning the attraction of a spread i.e. using more numbers as in a traffic situation or using oversized shells etc. to gain interest from the birds.
By "realism" i am meaning how real each decoy appears i.e. using custom full bodies vs. homemade silos.

I suppose it would clarify the question if i asked "which of the 3 (hide, draw, or realism) would you permanently delete, in all situations, if you could and had to pick only one".


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## the professor (Oct 13, 2006)

Realism sells decoys. Hide and "draw" kills birds.


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## dsm16428 (Feb 19, 2009)

the professor said:


> Realism sells decoys. Hide and "draw" kills birds.


This. :thumb: :beer:


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## dsm16428 (Feb 19, 2009)

dave young said:


> Good point about draw". My initial thought about draw was concerning the attraction of a spread i.e. using more numbers as in a traffic situation or using oversized shells etc. to gain interest from the birds.
> By "realism" i am meaning how real each decoy appears i.e. using custom full bodies vs. homemade silos.
> 
> I suppose it would clarify the question if i asked "which of the 3 (hide, draw, or realism) would you permanently delete, in all situations, if you could and had to pick only one".


You actually have them in ALMOST the right order but with the wrong concept in mind all together. Draw (LOCATION), hide and then realism (which is what you called "draw") should ALWAYS come last as the first two are vastly more important. If you aren't where the birds are or in or near their flight path, and can't hide your blinds so that they are INVISBLE, the best decoys in the world won't help you. Also, if you just set your spread the same way every time, trying to make the birds do what YOU want them to do, not letting them do what they do naturally, you will get far fewer shot opportunities. For instance, most hunters use and X for traffic hunts or where there is little to no wind and while it usually works well on low/no wind days and allows you to adjust quicklt to the birds, you might very well be causing the birds to circle more often looking for a landing spot and giving them that much more time to pick you apart and catch a less than perfect hide or someone trying to rubber neck, etc. with that type of set. 
Simply putting out higher numbers isn't the end all be all of a traffic set and should not constitute "draw" alone either. Your spread set up is just as, if not more important than numbers alone. You could have 1,000 high end decoys out, but if you don't situate them correctly and in the right location you might as well put out no deeks at all and just lay in your blind and "pray for rain". Scott Thrienen hit upon this exact thing in Goose Society II and I could not agree more. On one trafic hunt in particular, it was the way the spread was put out, even more so than the numbers (which was in fact in excess of 400 deeks) that got the birds to hit his spread and not the hot field close by the birds were traveling to. I have run traffic with only 3 dozen decoys on birds that were hitting a spot daily about 1/3 mile to the north of the field I had permission to hunt and had excellent results. I used decoys that while detailed, stood out like a sore toe and grabbed the birds' attention and set them in a spot that was highly visible to the birds as they crossed in front of me. There was ZERO food in the field but they came in none the less and circled once and set down right in the hole I had made in the spread. As far as how detailed a decoy needs to be? I think the virtual live bird level of detail on some of the "higher end" decoys today is more for the hunter than the birds. I like a nicely detailed decoy as much as the next guy, but by the time a birds is close enough to see the feather detail on a decoy, he should be lying belly up in the deeks. So to answer your question, I would sacrifice what you refer to as "draw" or decoy realism in lue of the hide or the real draw, the location every day of the week and twice on Sunday. :thumb:


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## Buck25 (Mar 27, 2008)

dsm - have you ever ran 1000 high end honker decoys in a field? And i mean in a traffic field late in the year where there is a very high concentration of geese. I haven't but i would be shocked if you didn't have "draw" no matter how you set them. 
I think its funny that people are always trying to "downsize" their spreads late in the year for "realism". Where i hunt realistically the fields with birds in them are going to have 500 plus geese not 30.

we need to remember that "the best tactics" very from town to town and week to week as the season goes on. Where i hunt we often run traffic in pits. A lot of times we end up flagging and calling as much and as often as possible just to get the birds attention. So to answer the question i would say draw is most important because if you can get the birds attention it doesn't matter what your hide or realism looks like. I would say hide is 2nd most and decoy realism 3rd.

dsm- I agree that being on the X is more important than anything and when you are you don't need to draw birds.


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## Beavis (Jan 30, 2012)

Buck25 said:


> dsm - have you ever ran 1000 high end honker decoys in a field? And i mean in a traffic field late in the year where their is a very high concentration of geese. I haven't but i would be shocked if you didn't have "draw" no matter how you set them.
> I think its funny that people are always trying to "downsize" there spreads late in the year for "realism". Where i hunt realistically the fields with birds in them are going to have 500 plus geese not 30.
> 
> we need to remember that "the best tactics" very from town to town and week to week as the season goes on. Where i hunt we often run traffic in pits. A lot of times we end up flagging and calling as much and as often as possible just to get the birds attention. So to answer the question i would say draw is most important because if you can get the birds attention it doesn't matter what your hide or realism looks like. I would say hide is 2nd most and decoy realism 3rd.
> ...


every guy thinks late season...huge spreads, middle of the field. i can count on many fingers, on many hand where i have shot my limit of honkers with a few decoys late season. the geese are USED to seeing huge spreads day in, day out late season. you have to change it up. i think goose society 1 had a few hunts on that....


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## dsm16428 (Feb 19, 2009)

Buck25 said:


> dsm - have you ever ran 1000 high end honker decoys in a field? And i mean in a traffic field late in the year where their is a very high concentration of geese. I haven't but i would be shocked if you didn't have "draw" no matter how you set them.
> I think its funny that people are always trying to "downsize" there spreads late in the year for "realism". Where i hunt realistically the fields with birds in them are going to have 500 plus geese not 30.
> we need to remember that "the best tactics" very from town to town and week to week as the season goes on. Where i hunt we often run traffic in pits. A lot of times we end up flagging and calling as much and as often as possible just to get the birds attention. So to answer the question i would say draw is most important because if you can get the birds attention it doesn't matter what your hide or realism looks like. I would say hide is 2nd most and decoy realism 3rd.
> dsm- I agree that being on the X is more important than anything and when you are you don't need to draw birds.


The most deeks I have ever run in ANY season or on a traffic hunt is somewhere around 450. The 1000 decoy reference is an arbitrary number only for example purposes. The OP meant "drawing power" as the realistic detail in the decoy, not the numbers of decoys in a spread. Now, what get's those birds attention on traffic hunts? It sure isn't the realistic detail at close to a 1/2 mile now is it? Nope. It's your location in realtion to the flight path, eye-catching color and flashes of movement (flagging), nothing more, combine that with a spread that "POPS" in the area you have set it up, be it a large spread or a small one, large field or small, and that is what turns birds, not how true to life the decoys look. Further, I see far too many guys that think that if a field they can't hunt has 500 birds in it, the traffic field they are hunting in MUST have the same number of decoys to draw the birds. THEY'RE BIRDS, not rocket scientists. The birds I mentioned in my traffic hunt numbered about 400 birds and I decoyed them with around 3 dozen HIGHLY VISIBLE DECOYS and FLAGGING. I like the "idea" of pits...comfortable, convenient and if done right, invisible. BUT, they are what they are...a stationary pit. You don't have the ability to move and you are at the whim of the birds and the conditions. Kind of shooting yourself in the foot with stationary pits some times because you are simply stuck in one spot. It's also not like a flight zone is a fixed thing either. The birds, even if they fly the same route every day, are still going to vary their route by up to a 1/2 mile some days making that pit almost worthless when they can't even see you, let alone some flag movement and hear even the most aggressive calling. Using crazy aggressive flagging and calling your lungs out because you're in a pit and the birds are a country mile from you is the fault of pit placement only and poor set up in the first place so you NEED a huge spread just to get the birds attention. Nothing more, nothing less. Put yourself in a smarter position and your chances of getting birds to peel off and give you shots goes way up.

I also never said anything about downsizing my spread. I said I have run traffic with a small, HIGHLY VISIBLE spread and had it work. I understand running traffic buck25. Been goose hunting almost 30 years. Likely longer than you've been alive. Yes, goose decoying tactics vary from region to region. You would have to ignorant to think otherwise. My example one just one of MANY hunts where we ran anywhere from 3 dozen decoys to emptying out trailers. Draw is what you and I know it is. HIGHLY VISIBLE spreads in locations that given the conditions have been out out in the most probable are that you have a chance to decoy birds, NOT the fine detail of the individual decoy like the OP meant.


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## dave young (Jul 17, 2011)

This is excellent conversation and I'm learning plenty; thanks to all who post.
However, it is probably time to revisit the first few posts.
I originally communicated "hide" to mean the quality of concealment, "draw" to mean draw from the spread i.e. numbers, darkness, size etc. to get the birds to take notice, and "realism" to mean how lifelike the individual decoys are i.e. custom full bodies vs homemade silos. 
Here's my thinking.......if we generally agree that hide and draw are necessities and realism is optional, and the limit is 3 birds, then why do so many people pull 5 or 10K rigs to the field? 
One must reflect and ask himself some serious questions:
"Does spending the money make me feel better"? 
"Do I tote a high dollar rig because it makes me feel like a pro"?
"What am I in this for"?


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## Beavis (Jan 30, 2012)

dave young said:


> This is excellent conversation and I'm learning plenty; thanks to all who post.
> However, it is probably time to revisit the first few posts.
> I originally communicated "hide" to mean the quality of concealment, "draw" to mean draw from the spread i.e. numbers, darkness, size etc. to get the birds to take notice, and "realism" to mean how lifelike the individual decoys are i.e. custom full bodies vs homemade silos.
> Here's my thinking.......if we generally agree that hide and draw are necessities and realism is optional, and the limit is 3 birds, then why do so many people pull 5 or 10K rigs to the field?
> ...


for most its our passion in life to hunt waterfowl...why not live it up, have the best equipment possible to enjoy a successful day afield? you cant take it with you when you die. just cause someone drops a ton of coin on equipment doesnt make them a better hunter vs a guy who uses homeamde silos. if that person that the financial means to have a fancy rig, more power to them. to feel like a pro?? im not competing against zink, big sean, chad belding, etc. i hunt for me and me alone....i enjoy spending time outdoors with my friends.


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## HugeBurrito2k6 (Oct 25, 2011)

Beavis said:


> dave young said:
> 
> 
> > This is excellent conversation and I'm learning plenty; thanks to all who post.
> ...


 Amen Beavis Amen :beer: 
For every dollar i have made in my life i would say 50 cents of it has gone to funding my hobbies.


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## dave young (Jul 17, 2011)

Beavis and Huge, don't get me wrong...I agree with you...I'm just promoting introspection.
I've been hunting a long time and I've seen 40+ yrs of change. Most of it has been in commercialization and product development. It seems as though a lot of younger/new hunters feel like they can't succeed without spending a lot of money. This mindset has permeated all aspects of out society. We all have gotten to where we want to "buy" success instead of work for it.
Now, with that said, I really like those Blue Collar Decoys and I think I'll order a dozen.


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## HugeBurrito2k6 (Oct 25, 2011)

Your quote of buy success and not work for it is a tricky statement. For most cases it is very true and i agree with you. However i will relate it to a purchase i made for my ice fishing hobby. I have enjoyed ice fishing as long as i can remember mainly jigging for pan fish and walleyes. Well last year i decided that it was time and i bought a flasher cuz i have not fished with one before and I wanted to try new lakes so i thought i would be really fishing in the dark so to speak without one. So my thought process was if i am going to use this thing every time i go ice fishing and it will last me say 5 years and i go ice fishing 20 times a year so it will be used a grand total of 100 times so with the one i bought (Marcum Lx-7) it costed 600 dollars. That is just 6 dollars per use. And let me tell you that after never fishing with a flasher before and seeing my results double i would say after buying one i would not hit the ice without it. Did i buy success? Yes i did. Did i make the time i spend ice fishing more efficient and effective? Yes i did. If you enjoy a hobby why not have the best equipment that you can afford to make your free time feel less like work? I work all week the last thing i want to do is have to work harder than i need to when it comes to my hobbies. Besides what is the point of working if you can't buy nice things for yourself to support things you really enjoy?


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## Buck25 (Mar 27, 2008)

DSM - I agree with you 100 % that being in the right location trumps all but you probably know as well as i do that that is not always the easiest thing to do. Just because we have a pit doesn't mean that we have to hunt in it either.

beavis - When it comes to late season honker hunting I do think of huge spreads in the middle of fields. A flock of 30 deeks next to a fence row isn't that natural looking to me anytime of the year. I'm not saying it won't work but think about it..late in the year their is probably 20 thousand birds in my area at times. SO WHAT IS NATURAL IS 500 TO 3000 BIRDS IN THE HOT FIELD. The birds are used to seeing big spreads but usually less then 20 dozen. The biggest spread i have ever run is around 38 dozen and it worked amazing!

thanks for the responses guys, this is an interesting thread!


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## Beavis (Jan 30, 2012)

Buck25 said:


> beavis - When it comes to late season honker hunting I do think of huge spreads in the middle of fields. A flock of 30 deeks next to a fence row isn't that natural looking to me anytime of the year. I'm not saying it won't work but think about it..late in the year their is probably 20 thousand birds in my area at times. SO WHAT IS NATURAL IS 500 TO 3000 BIRDS IN THE HOT FIELD. The birds are used to seeing big spreads but usually less then 20 dozen. The biggest spread i have ever run is around 38 dozen and it worked amazing!
> 
> thanks for the responses guys, this is an interesting thread!


if you have, or care to watch the goose society's, Scott has many hunts, late season in MN where they did NOT hunt the middle of field....mainly because thats what EVERYONE in their area was doing. do all 20k come out at once? do all 20k hit the same field? im no expert on goose hunting by a long shot...been hunting for 20 years. the day i quit learning, is the day im hanging it up.

maybe you should start your own DVD called the "buck society." you can give tips and tactics to hunting 20k late season wary honkers in the middle of the field :thumb:


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## Buck25 (Mar 27, 2008)

ok beavis you got me. Its impossible to kill wary geese in the middle of a field. :-? I have seen the goose society and i know scott is a really knowledgeable guy. But i'm not going to listen to what scott says over what the geese have told me haha.



Buck25 said:


> Scott has many hunts, late season in MN where they did NOT hunt the middle of field..


I think i mentioned in my previous post that i wasn't rulling that out of the question at all.



Beavis said:


> mainly because thats what EVERYONE in their area was doing


I realize that but i was just trying to explain that where i hunt, late in the year, the birds tend to land in the middle of the field. So if i have a good hide i'm gonna hunt in the middle of the field. I don't think that scott mentioned that he ALWAYS hunts in fence rows at the end of the year.



Buck25 said:


> do all 20k come out at once?


No



Buck25 said:


> do all 20k hit the same field?


No i think i mentioned in my previous post. I would say usually around 500-5000 to a field late in the year. Other fields will have smaller groups of birds but i don't usually target those fields. I usually try to get on or underneath the X



Buck25 said:


> im no expert on goose hunting by a long shot...been hunting for 20 years. the day i quit learning, is the day im hanging it up.


So your gonna be done when scott stops making the goose society? oke:



Buck25 said:


> maybe you should start your own DVD called the "buck society." you can give tips and tactics to hunting 20k late season wary honkers in the middle of the field





Buck25 said:


> maybe you should start your own DVD called the "buck society." you can give tips and tactics to hunting 20k late season wary honkers in the middle of the field


You know that's not a bad idea!


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

I realize this turned into a late season conversation with big spreads little spreads etc. You have to realize that Scotty hunts around Rochester and the one thing I learned about 4 years ago is when you hunt in Roch you need to look different. I've been hunting Roch for the past 7 years and my best shoots are over decoy spreads of less than 24 decoys. Geese in Roch see the same spread day after day after day after day after day after day. The SAME EXACT SPREAD. When you look different the birds take notice. Last day of the season last year we hunted a field next to where the birds were the day before. INstead of throwing a trailer load of deeks out we set up on the fenceline with minimal to no cover through out 10 decoys. 8 dakota's and 2 bigfoots in an alfalfa field and had our limit of legitimate decoying birds in 1.5 hours. this was no pass shoot these birds cupped and committed into our 10 decoys. a week before that we ran traffic with 12 decoys and shot one short of a limit.

Now, with this said this probably wont work all the time. heck if i had a quarter for the number of blanks we got last year i would be 5 dollars richer, but late season I feel small spreads are the ticket. I think the less for them to look at the more comfortable they feel. Its as if you were at a strip club and there were 40 nude dancers you would be too confused not sure which one to pick out and be distracted, now throw 6 up there and you have fewer opportunites to be confused!


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## dsm16428 (Feb 19, 2009)

Yeah, but they're still strippers and strippers is nathty! Fun to look at but no P.I.D. for this guy! :rollin:


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## Buck25 (Mar 27, 2008)

templey - thanks for the example at the end there haha. What do you consider "the same exact spread" I imagine its right around 15 dozen? I'm not disagreeing with you guys that small spreads don't work. I've honestly haven't tried the small spread thing much late in the year. I consider where i hunt to basically be the closest thing to rochester in minnesota. Late in the year you got the birds making flight lines out of town and the guides and other hardcore hunters often sitting on the "prime" ground right outside of town trying to run traffic. Then there are also opportunities to kill birds farther outside of town.

Do you consider yourself to be running traffic or hunting the x with these small amounts of decoys? I am sure you have seen what we call "follow the leader" in which the flocks get up 30 seconds after each other and just follow the first flock out of town. I just feel like a guy would have a tough time getting those birds to even glance at your decoys in many cases. So to try to get the thread maybe a little bit more back on track I'm saying you could have all the realism you want and the best hide in the world. But if you can't get those birds to look at you then what you gonna do? I'm strictly speaking about running traffic on a high concentration of birds right now.

On the other hand do you guys ever think about turning that 15 dozen into 30 dozen? or do you still consider that "the same big spread"? because every time i have used 30 dozen or more it has worked VERY WELL. Last year on the last day we decided to throw 4 trailers at them and shot a 9 man pretty easily. And i know of another group that ran a "perma-spread" as i like to call it of around 40 dozen i believe and shot 10 man limits for a week straight in a bean field. That is why i have a tough time believing that i should not throw every decoy i have into the field.

Also whats up with scott thrienen he only came into the scene a few years ago and is now considered the "goose God" atleast in the upper midwest. Not ripping on him or anything i just feel like i should come out with WWSD? wrist bands and make some money.


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

Scotty T was a wanna be pro baseball player turned goose goddess. I 've hunted with him and he blows a mean goose call. the only thing he does is turn what we all see day in and day out into a hunting/instruction video. Heck one day We shot alimit of birds using a gosh dang snow fort as a blind. I've got pics to prove it. Mix things up you'd be surprised what happens.

No i wasn't hunting the x....I was hunting next to the x on the G spot. You have to be different somedays and somedays it works somedays it doesn't . and yes the same exact spread is the decoys were left out over night in the same field for 2 weeks straight. I finally called a guy out on it on MWF. The next day they weren't there. Its amazing how guides just take peoples money without actually giving them a true hunting experience. That's for another thread tho.


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