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Setup is Key, Decoys or Not

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"Should we put out decoys?", Chris asked. I thought for a few seconds and decided against using the imposters. I explained to him that the terrain had allowed us to get within 120 yards of the big strutting gobbler, and we would make a setup that should hide us until the bird was in range. If we were ready, decoys wouldn't be necessary.

Decoys can make or break a hunt. There are times that placing one or more fakes out will draw in an old gobbler like he is on a string, but other times using decoys will cause a longbeard to hang up and strut out of range. As with everything in turkey hunting, there are no "always" or "nevers". The remainder of this article will describe a couple of setups with and without decoys, and I will describe why each worked.

If terrain will let me get into a position that will hide me from an approaching tom until he is in range, I don't use decoys. He wouldn't see them until it was time to shoot anyway, so they really wouldn't be a big help. During the hunt with Chris I described earlier, we had spotted a big longbeard strutting in a clear right-of-way just below the crest of a hill in east Tennessee. We got on the backside of the ridge and slipped to the crest. I crawled up and took a peak, and sure enough, there he was about 120 yards away.

After the conversation that I described above, we set up just on the back side of the ridge. I knew if the big gobbler would come to my calling, he would walk over the top of the ridge to see the hen on the back side. If I had of stuck out decoys on the crest, he might have continued to strut expecting the hen to come to him, as nature intended. If I put a decoy out on the back side of the ridge, he would have never seen it until he got to the crest anyway.

To make a long story short, after about five minutes of calling on my Knight & Hale Hunter V-2 diaphragm, I spotted movement slightly to my right. There he was all blown up in full strut. I eased my gun toward him, but he saw me. At 25 yards, he popped his head up to see what was amiss, and I let him have 2 ounces of Winchester #5's. The big 22 pound eastern never knew what hit him.

Now to look at the other side of the coin, I'll describe a hunt that took place a few years back in Kentucky. Rob Johnston, a friend from SC, had been up for a couple of days without success. On the last day of season, we set out to hunt together. It was very windy, and thunderstorms were in the forecast. I told Rob that we would listen from a ridge at daybreak, and if we didn't get on a bird, we would go set up in a long green valley.

We heard nothing off the roost, so to the field below we went. We set up a blind, and I put out 5 hen and 1 jake decoys. We called every 15 to 20 minutes and just waited. At about 9:30 AM we saw a little dark speck enter the field on a slope that met some mature hardwoods. I identified the speck as a turkey with my binoculars, but it was over 800 yards away, and judging the bird's sex was impossible. About 30 seconds later, 3 black objects that looked like bowling balls followed the first bird. It was obvious that these three were strutting gobblers.

I hit my K&H box call and cranked up my Silver Queen aluminum call, but considering the distance and bad wind direction, the birds couldn’t hear me. The hen fed our way, and the three gobblers followed behind. The foursome slowly but surely headed our way, and eventually I think our calling reached them because all 3 gobblers slicked down and looked our way.

The small flock kept coming closer, but at an agonizingly slow pace. Finally they went in a dip in the field, and we couldn't see them. After more than 45 minutes of calling and glassing, we gave up on the birds. Rob and I decided that they must have entered the woods somewhere that was blocked from our view.

At about 11:00 I peaked out of the blind, and saw a lone hen about 35 yards from us. She was slowly feeding straight for our decoys. I made a soft call on a Knight & Hale Magnum Hen, and a thunderous gobble erupted straight in front of us. I looked at the decoys, and there was a huge gobbler standing right in the middle of them! I told Rob to shoot the bird, but he said it was too far.

The bird was only about 20 yards away, and I thought Rob had lost his mind. Then I saw movement up the hill. The other 2 gobblers were standing about 55 yards up in the woods. Rob finally saw the big bird in the decoys, and he made a clean shot. That old bird weighed 24.5 pounds, had an 11.5 "beard and 1 7/16" spurs.

I am positive that the small group of birds had seen our flock of decoys from a long way out, and slowly they came in to check out the other birds. When hunting open fields, I like using decoys, and often 4-10 of them, to add a visual element to the wide open hunting. It is hard to get a gobbler to leave the safety of an open field to come into the woods after a hen he has never seen. The key to field hunting with decoys, is to get to the field first so you can get the imposters out before the real birds show up. There aren't many gobblers who won't come over to check out 5 or 6 hens with a jake, and using numerous decoys will often entice a hen or hens to come in while bringing a gobbler in tow.

As I said before, decoys don't always work, and sometimes they make a tom hang up and strut. I usually don't use decoys in the woods because the gobbler can come looking for you, and it is more natural that he might not see the hen than if he were in a field. With decoys in the woods, a gobbler might stop 80 yards out and strut expecting the hen he sees to come to him.

I also always use a jake decoy when using fakes no matter how many hens I have out. This will often make the longbeard come all the way in to challenge the subordinate gobbler that is with the hens. A big tom might wait for a hen or hens to come to him, but he will usually move in to put a juvenile gobbler in his place. I position the jake facing me because the gobbler will come around to face the jake head to head. He will circle around and give me a clean head and neck shot sometime on his approach.

Like everything else in our great sport, nothing works all the time. Using, or not using, decoys is a judgement call just like aggressive or content calling is a choice. We must analyze each setup and situation for its individual circumstances and make the best decision we can. Hopefully the examples and tips above will help you decide when and when not to deploy turkey decoys.