decoys

[mudwalker20]

Will be hunting divers in Maryland, Chesapeak, and North Carolina. during scouting trips, have seen Bluebills, cans, redheads What species decoys would you recomend, and what #s thanks

[Flightstopper]

Roughly match the species and numbers you see to start and modify until you find exactly what they want. No exact science to it

[mudwalker20]

thanks

[Woody]

I'm still rather new to diver hunting, so take this as you will....

One thing I've noticed being in the tinder boat, when you get 5-600 yards away from the spread the only decoys I can see are GE, Buffle head, old squaw, and our magnum scoters.

I assume for the most part it is because of the white and black contrast of the decoys (not including the scoters). I would say, yes match the hatch, but also include a species with white. It may grab attentions at a distance and the proper species in the spread will close the deal.

[Rick]

The old diver hand who first took me duck hunting (I was his "rock ape" retriever on Lake Erie breakwalls) back in the '60s believed in all drake bluebill (scaup) spreads on the grounds that their black and white showed so well and the hens were wasted work. But hopefully someone like Dan, with a more current serious diver hunter's perspective, will see this thread.

[DeadEye_Dan]

Buy primarily Bills and Cans -'Reds, Cans and Bills will readily decoy to those.
Get big decoys. Life size decoys are not big enough to show up in open water over distance. One guy I hunt with converted some Herters 82 goose floaters to Can decoys...deadly.
Believe it or not, we would run a couple lines of super mag black duck decoys on the outside edges - the black shows up better than you'd expect and draws birds. Brown/Hen decoys are wasted...drake cans/bb's and black ducks would make a killer diver spread.
Golden Eyes are the exception, they much prefer to decoy to their own kind, and will skirt a bb/can spread. If you want to kill them consistently, you'll need GE decoys.
Bufflehead will decoy to anything, but if you want to target them throw out 6-7 Bufflehead decoys exactly where you want to take your shots...they're magic.

If possible, get some motion in spread. Flags have killed more divers and sea ducks than I can even count in our spreads...I've seen 200 bird flocks of bb's turn in unison on a flag. Again, GE's are the exception - they hate flags and spinners and you can flare off a committed bird with a single wave.

Try to give you some idea how big I like decoys to be...raided my buddies photobucket account, I'm terrible at taking and keeping pics.
Converted Herters goose floater.

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