Mixing decoy brands?

[early007]

I have some bigfoots now and I am just starting out so I will be adding more decoys the next couple of years. Does it matter if you mix different brands of decoys? Will the spread look natural? Or should a hunter stick with one brand so the decoys all have the same color tone?

Jason

[tornadochaser]

I have no problems mixing decoys what so ever. We do it all the time. We had 5 brands of dekes in the field the last week of the season this year.

One positive to sticking with the same brand is storage and keeping with the same motion system. It is a pain to have 18 decoys that only have ring bases, along with 18 decoys that have one type of stake, but another 18 that have a different kind of stake, and 3 different brands of shells with different head connections.

[Jon McGrath]

It won't matter if you mix brands. I like keeping everything one brand just for the simplicity of setting up a spread. Other than that it does not matter.

[fieldkiller]

I started with bigfoots and added some ffd averys for movement. I don't like the way the ffd averys look with the foots. The fully flocked averys are alot darker. It doesn't seem to bother the geese though.

[2500hdon37s]

read here, same topic and would answer your question had you searched.

mixing-decoys-18011.html

[goosechaser125]

If you stick with the same decoy brand, and buy additional decoys each year you will see a difference in color for each year and sometimes even in the same year, I actually bag mine by the slight color differnece. So when I put them out in family groups they "show" a different color, don't know if the gease care. Maybe just makes me feel more confident.

[dakotashooter2]

I'm not convinced it makes any difference. The oly issue I have had is with settup. Particularly if you have new people who are hunting with you and not familiar with all the decoys. I have on occassion had to supervise as decoys came out of the trailer to make sure the correct stands or heads got on them.

[goosechaser125]

I'm not convinced it makes any difference. The oly issue I have had is with settup. Particularly if you have new people who are hunting with you and not familiar with all the decoys. I have on occassion had to supervise as decoys came out of the trailer to make sure the correct stands or heads got on them.

That right there is the #1 reason to stick with one brand, but my 1985 bigfoots will not accept the legs of all my other ones, but I bag them in their own bags

[DSM16428]

I currently run 2 brands. Used to run at bw 3/4. Makes for nothing but headaches when you aren't the only one setting decoys and the guys that are helping don't know what base/head goes with which decoy. Now, except for my ghg shells which don't usually get put on stakes anyways, I only have GHG stakes/bases and Tangle Free stakes/bases. They are COMPLETELY different styles of motion systems so it's impossible to get em mixed up. I will however be going all one brand next fall...either all DD lessers with some honkers thrown in or I might just have to go back to Higdons. Ran exclusively those for years and by the looks of just the shells and knowing how tough their decoys are, I might just have to go back to the light side of the force.

[Lonegoose]

I only run one brand myself but my buddies run Avery's and bigfoots. When we hunt together we mixed them all and killed birds. As long as the set up looks realistic mixing brands will not make a diference.

[don novicki]

Makes no difference at all. Geese are not smart animals.............................

[Lonegoose]

Makes no difference at all. Geese are not smart animals.............................

Tell ya what. After getting shot at constantly during the course of the migration tends to make the geese pretty smart. Mixing brands still doesn't matter but i've seen some pretty smart birds, especially locals.

[don novicki]

Wary, not smart.............IMO

[Lonegoose]

Wary, not smart.............IMO

I'll meet you half way..Smart locals..... wary migrators.

[don novicki]

I'm good with that..........

[sweet talker]

Personally I dont Think mixing brand matters. This year was the first year I Hunted with my own decoys and i had quite the mixture because i want for quanity before quality. I had bigfeet, GHG full bodies, Flambeau shells, G & H floaters with removeable keels so they were like shells, reel geese siloets. Ppl might see that and think its a joke but hey it worked for me so that s all that matters. I ve already started adding decoys for next year and will get more bigfeets before the season starts