I am getting ready to put together a spread of canadians for the up coming season. I was wondering what everyones choice of dec's are and if anyone was looking to sell any used? I guess Im really looking to put together a decent # w/ cheaper shell decoys mixed w/ the more expensive full body. Let me know what you think.... Martin

Canadians are people ------------- Canadas are geese.



I'm just guessing that you are talking about Field Decoys and not Floaters ?


By far the finest Field Dekes are GHG Pro series (fully flocked) They will move in the breeze if you want them to or you can make them stationary. They are so realistic, that last season, I had a Coyote attack mine -- Twice !




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I always got a kick out of it when people called them Canadians. Shooting Canadians is frowned upon.

Also like the GHG. I definately would go with flocked head models and whole body flocked if you can aford them. We experimented this fall just using the GHG full body shells, which are cheaper and really pull them in. I really think the flocking makes a huge difference on the canadas. Im going to flock some of my mallards to see if it has as big an impact on them as well.

OK then. It looks like these decoys are about $25 a pop. Where do you guys buy your decoys? And in a 'CANADA' spread, what is a suffcient number? My thought was to buy about 1-dz of the more realistic (GHG's look great) and 1-dz of maybe the REDHEAD series in which I can get a dozen for more like $99. What are your thoughts on that?

I hunt more ducks than geese, so someone may be able to give better insight. I think how many you need depends on the flocks you are trying to pull in and how many blinds you are trying to hide. I hunt with mainly two guys and a dog. We use 2 dz full bodies. Ours are flocked heads only, not full body flocked and we use a dozen flocked head shells. We pull in flocks of 10-12 with this spread. I think to pull in the bigger groups you need more dekes. When we hunt on the ponds, we put out a dozen full bodies on the shore/shallows and a dozen floaters. We have pulled in much larger groups with this set up, but we are scouting out loafing ponds and might be able to get them in without dekes. From what I have seen in recent years, with these birds, any shine our unnatural looking deke pushes them off. Id go with fewer better quality dekes and try to find a couple of buddies to hunt with and each buy a dozen.

Sometimes you can find a deal on ebay, but Ive purchased most of mine from Cabelas and Macks prairie wings.

Did a little research today and have pics of some "used" Avery FFD decoys. They've only been out a few times last season. I'm waiting on a little more info but they look pristine. He is trying to sell 4dz at 1200 for ALL(pretty big savings from Cabelas) I can get all of them (temporarily), but would have a tough time explaining the entire $1200 to the wife, so would only keep 2dz. If anyone is interested in in the remaining 2dz; or a couple guys let me know. This guy wants to sell them together to avoid the hassle.

Martin

MARTIN CALL ME I GOT

$700.00

1 avery finisher layout blind used a dozen times

1 GHG Ground Force layout blind Never used yet

1 Dozen Full Body GHG Canadian Goose Decoys

2 Dozen GHG Shell Canadian Goose Decoys

All decoys are in great shape! Flocked heads with motion sticks.


Troy
507-531-1137

OK ! One More Time ! They are C A N A D A S not Canadians . .

Martin- go here:  http://forum.averyoutdoors.com/  and you can browse the goose forum.  They have several threads that include pixs of their spreads so you may be able to get a better feel for how they'll look.  Granted going to an Avery site your going to see more GHG spreads, but they also talk about some of the other brands as well (FA, DSDs...). 

We run with a hodge podge.  A dozen of the older Bigfoot fullbodies (dang they seem to take a lot of abuse), a couple dz. oversized GHG shells w/flocked heads, 5-6 dz of the GHG Hunter Series Geese and now we've got some FFD's to put into the spread. Check out the first pix as you can see the older style Bigfoots on the right, the FFD on the left, and then in the background some of the HunterSeries and Shells (all GHG)

Troy,

Shoot me a picture of the blinds and decoys. These are the pro series w/ flocked heads only correct?

Troy, I got your message. Shoot me a couple pics when you get a chance. Are the blinds both shadow grass or is the GF khaki? Do me a favor and get those pics to me ASAP, I have to fly out of the country next week, so Id like to do what Im gonna do this week. Thanks, Martin

Martin sorry didnt hear from you for 4 days I have already sold them...Sorry...hope you find some good ones!

Liv2Hunt

As to the number of decoys, it depends. Later in the season, ducks become very wary of large spreads because they've seen them so much by then. We hunt a small (1.5 acre) pond, and I usually put out about 15 duck decoys. Usually a half dozen in one area and the rest maybe 40 yards away. This gives the incoming birds a nice landing zone, where the wife and I will both be able to shoot.

For geese, I also like small spreads -- again, a few in one group and some more about 40 yards away. I prefer to get smaller flocks of geese to come in -- that way you don't educate too many when you shoot. Smaller flocks of geese will decoy to smaller numbers of decoys.


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Doc
Thats been my philosophy. I use a few more dekes in my late season spread, that includes a dozen full bodied mallards, but other than that we are on the same page, Im a duck hunter who goose hunts occasionally, so I deferred to chech to anyone with more experience with Canadas.

I have a nice stash of C Goose and Snow goose dekes and somre layout blinds. Would rather bring them along to join the hunt then to sell them though ;)

sounds good Steve, we'll have to do it this year. I can hardly wait!!!!!

Thanks for the advice Doc, these FFD's are WOW!!!!

Here is the "Jersey" spread. Depending on the time of year and conditions we use either a big spread or small spread. We seem to do as well with both, but if we have a lot of hunters in the area we use the big spread. We use the Avery finisher blinds, dog blind, and flags. We do a fair amount of calling, but we don't overdue it. This year we are adding 6 full body mallards and 6 full body black ducks for added attraction.

Small spread - 12 Big Foot, 24 shells, 36 silos - one or two people can handle with no problem.

Big spread - 120 Big Foot, 48 shells, 36 silos - Requires ATV, trailer and about 4 people to get it in and out in a decent amount of time.