The decoy debate: used wisely, hen decoys can help get a gobbler

Do you remember Matilda, Gertrude, Minerva and Minnie, the favorite names for that first decoy we all purchased a few decades ago?

It was bulky, gray and lifeless, but we thought it would be the magic answer to lure gobblers to us. For the most part, it has been just that.

The year I traveled to the Poconos to hunt spring turkeys with my best buddy, Buck Alt, we were super excited to have that decoy with us and it did bring us luck at times. By the end of the second year, however, the fascination with Henrietta (Buck’s name for his old gray buddy) was fading.

More birds were avoiding or running from the decoy than coming to it. For the next few weeks we watched gobblers approach the gray decoy, then stop and stare for a moment then turn and run. It took awhile for us to realize that the gobblers that came to that field were realizing that blob of gray was a fake.

Like getting call shy from hearing the same mouth call every day, turkeys were learning that the bulky gray blob was a suspicious thing, not at all a hen looking for romance.

Soon, however, manufacturers were offering new types of decoys. Some even moved in the wind and colorful fake decoys became all the rage for awhile. New types of decoys came on the market every year. And they all worked well.

Still, hunters began to see that if you planted Matilda in the same way, at the same place every day, the gobblers were quick to learn to avoid her. This still holds true. The first time you put out a few decoys in a field gobblers would approach them.

But we made the mistake of setting up the fake birds in the same fields in the same formation day after day and wondered why the gobblers wouldn’t come to them after the third day. Used in this repeated style every day, decoys became a hindrance.

Some years ago I hunted in Missouri. The guide told me he had dynamite decoys in a popular field so off we went. He had a blind in the big field and a set of decoys about 100 yards away.

Soon the turkeys appeared in the field, stopped to stare at the decoys then turned and walked away. “They do that every day,” he complained to me. I suggested that when the coast was clear he go get the decoys and set them up close to where we were and see what happened.

So later he crept up to the top of that field, grabbed the fakes and brought them down to the bottom of the field, and set them up in that corner.

After a half hour of calling, a gobbler stepped out of the weeds near us and one shot settled the matter.

Another time, I ran into a hunter I knew who laid his decoy troubles on me. Could I tell him why the turkeys were paying no attention to his decoys, he asked me.

As we trekked over to the small field he explained that he had put them in the ground meticulously. Indeed he had. There was a single decoy parked in each corner of the field.

I explained to him that it was important to set up a few decoys in a natural formation – that real turkeys stay fairly close to one another in a field. I do not know the outcome of that venture because I have never bumped into him again.

I advise hunters to have a couple of sets of decoys so you can easily change them around if you want to hunt the same area several days in a row. If that is too expensive, borrow your buddy’s decoys for a day and let him use yours for that day.

That could work for both of you. Or if your budget will stand it, buy a second set for yourself.

A couple of seasons ago, my hunting buddy Joanie Haidle, from Dayton, and her brother Curt went to a huge field and set out a few decoys. Just after dawn a gang of gobblers came strutting into the field and Curt busted a big boy when it got close to a decoy.

The next day Joanie and I went back there and set up the decoys. Shortly that same bunch of gobblers came into the field. They stopped short, stared at the decoys and took a right turn and moved off into the woods, too far away to shoot.

After we realized what had happened, Joanie slithered out to the decoy and removed it. But as excellently as she called, the birds would not come back.

If you spook a gobbler near a decoy, don’t go back the next day with the same decoy. That sets up a hindrance to success for sure. If you must go back there next day, take a different decoy and set it up at a different place in the field or woods.

I haunt yard and rummage sales in the summer for hunting and fishing gear and I find a lot of it for a lot less than it cost at the specialty store. Decoys are prime things often simply because hunters think they are not working when they offer the same turkeys the same decoys. Now that is a hindrance.

Be sure to stake your decoys 30 yards or so from your setup spot. That will give you time to ease your gun up painfully slowly, so it is a help.

Make sure your decoys are staked out naturally. In a grassy field, the stomach should be touching the top of the grass. Do not use stakes that are too high. Turkeys do not stand 6 feet above the ground. That will be unnatural and a hindrance for sure.

My most unique experience with decoys happened years ago while hunting with Buck Alt in the Poconos. We set out the decoys and then we nestled in among a group of pine trees and began to call softly.

From across the woods a gobbler answered. In moments, a couple of hens emerged from the woods. Their heads snapped up when they noticed the decoys, They sprinted across the field and began to attack the decoys.

Purring and pecking, they knocked a couple to the ground. Then I looked up and eight gobblers were racing toward the hens, all in a bunch. Neither of us shot because we knew we would hit more than one bird. Finally one gobbler left the vicious pack and I leveled on him and shot.

Success!

Right now, mixing up the decoy offerings is the best hunting tip I can give you. Try it if you are having difficulty. I promise it will be a big help.