SX Canada Goose Decoy First look review

[PorkChop]

I will spare you the long story of my goose decoy history. Basically had 13 dozen BigFoot originals, which did the job very well. Like an idiot I sold them to buy three dozen DSD’s and it’s been all downhill since then.

When I sold the 13 dozen, I also sold my 12 foot enclosed trailer. I bought a smaller trailer so after a couple different decoy purchases I ended up buying big foot B-2s which have been OK but they’re still not the originals.

Going by the pictures of the SX decoys they look pretty good size. I ordered six and they’re not as big as I thought. I wanted them for around the blinds as the B-2s aren’t tall enough. Turns out the SX are the same height as the B2s, but thankfully their motion system is the same that they use in their crane decoys, so I’ll be able to use those taller stakes and that should get the job done.

Whenever I buy decoys one of the first things I do when I pull out the box is the finger nail test. The SX passed with flying colors. At one point I thought I was rubbing the paint off, but it was actually my finger nail that was Going onto the decoy. I have no doubt that these things will be tough. My only concern right now is hunting in our extreme cold temperatures. They are at hard plastic.

Anyways, if you’re looking for a new full body goose decoys, these are worth taking a look at. If you watch their damage box sales, you can save some decent money as well. I’ve been running their cranes and snow goose decoys for a few years now with no problems. I also bought a half dozen of their Mallard Floaters, and once again highly impressed.

Going to beat the piss out of these goose decoys, and if they hold up the season, then I will definitely get some more.

Early goose season opens tomorrow morning. Raining pretty good right now, so I don’t think we will be going as the fields will be a muddy mess!

[bluebars]

Hope it works out for you!

[don novicki]

I have never heard of SX brand decoys so I checked them out. Nice looking decoy. How would you compare them to the Dave Smiths and did you keep your Smiths or sell them, and will you mix decoys in the field?

[PorkChop]

I used to mix my Canada geese decoys all the time because I didn’t have many but then when I built up to 13 dozen big foots, that’s all I ever used. For some reason I am funny about mixing brands or decoy types ( shells, FB, bags, silos). I sold those 13 dozen to buy three dozen Dave Smith’s.

When I sold those three dozen Dave Smith’s after 1 season it was probably one of the happiest days of my life. I took a pretty big loss on them as I just wanted to get rid of them and start over. The guy from Illinois that bought them from me was pretty ecstatic to get them for cheap. They run permanent spreads where he was at so the decoys would not be getting the same abuse. (I am reluctant to use the word abuse because I don’t think I could’ve babied those Decoys anymore unless I would’ve put them in bubble wrap after each Hunt.)

I believe I made that big mistake back in 2006\2007. So if memory serves me correctly, they were the original DSD‘s. What a beautiful decoy to look at! However, even with double bagging them and putting them on shelves in the trailer, They still chipped like crazy. every rise of detail on the back on the chest on the sides or wherever was chipping pretty quickly. Back then they used white plastic so everywhere it chipped you would see white. Not sure if the latest models still use white plastic or not. As a sidenote, I think this is where Bigfoot has many people fooled. They use a tan plastic so even when the paint rubs off it’s pretty hard to notice. I think 99% of the other decoy companies use white plastic so it’s very easy to tell when there’s damage to the paint. I think if every decoy company used tan plastic like Bigfoot, we would see a lot less complaints.

Another problem with those were the ring bases. They were pretty thick metal and the welds would not hold. Also, they were shiny silver. They painted them, but after two or three hunts, the paint would rub off. So every couple hunts I found myself re-spray painting them and then, of course, when it was extremely cold, I would have a can of spray paint up on my defroster staying warm so I could do touchup. Some of the low cut fields up here those ring bases really stuck out.

I pretty much fell victim to the less is more sales pitch. That just using a few high-quality decoys would give me better results than numerous of a not so realistic looking decoy. Also During that time gas prices were getting pretty high as well, and so I figured I would have less decoys, could get a smaller trailer, save money in gas justifying the higher priced decoys and it would be a win-win! Now I will take big numbers of ok quality decoys over low numbers of super high quality decoys. And I will gladly pay the gas bill!

By myself, I was able to pick up my 13 dozen big foots in about 35 to 40 minutes. With all the bagging, putting on shelves, getting the ring bases, it would take me just as long and sometimes longer to pick up those three dozen DSDs. I am a get in there and get out of there hunter. I don’t take great pleasure in setting up the decoys or picking them up. I want that task to be done as quick as possible. I know some people savor that, but I don’t.

I can’t give you an honest opinion of how the SX, compare to the current DSD‘s. I’ve never held any of the ace technology Decoys in my hand. I did sell some crane decoys two weeks ago and I told the guy that I had some SX Canada decoys coming in and he said I would be very happy with them. He said a few of his buddies are running them. Told him a little bit about my DSD experience and he said some of his buddies had bought the new ones and the paint was coming off of those as well. There are guys out there that swore up and down about the high quality of the DSD’s’s back when I bought them. Every decoy has their groupies and they will never say a bad thing about the decoy. So either I just got a bad batch of decoys , or those guys did not want to be embarrassed that they spent so much money on decoys, and they did not live up to the hype. I dealt with Brad a few times about this, and although he was wonderful to deal with, it almost seemed like they were insulted I was not head over heels for the decoys.

Those decoys were so fragile that I was literally scared to use them and I would not let any of my hunting partners touch them.

To this day, I still consider selling those big foots and buying the DSD’s the single biggest mistake of my waterfowling life! I still don’t believe that I mentally recovered from it. I went from being a killing machine to a flop.

So all that being said, I am hesitant to buy any more of the SX right now because of the cost. I want to use them and abuse them and see how they hold up. On their website underneath the description of the decoys it says you can toss them in the trailer so we will see. I think I mentioned I did the finger nail test on them and I thought paint was coming off, but it was actually my finger nail scraping off into the paint. Being a hard plastic, though they may not be so tough at 20 below. Extremely pleased with the durability of my SX cranes and snow geese.

Back to mixing brands. I will this season most likely set up the big foot and then put the SX where I want the birds to land. Each one comes with an individual bag which we did the other day and they have steaks and square ring vases. We used the ring vases and, I immediately was taking back to how much I hate those things ha ha.

Finally you might be asking why not just buy more big foots. With those decoys being shipped from China the ones I have now are breaking left and right. Mainly the heads and the foot faces and then it seems next to impossible to get replacement parts.

[PorkChop]

Hopefully my edits were saved. I hit submit and it said wrong form submitted or something like that and then I hit submit again and it went through. I will go through in a little bit and re read it.

[SpinnerMan]

For some reason I am funny about mixing brands or decoy types ( shells, FB, bags, silos).

When there is no snow on the ground, I always mix my shells in with my FB and I think it helps a lot. My shells are on motion stakes. When there is snow on the ground, the dark decoys against the white background stand out from miles away. However, when you have dark decoys against a dark background, they just don't stand out. I think they wobbling of the white against a dark background is much more eye catching from a distance when there is no snow on the ground.

I actually bought 3 dozen snow silos to see if even more white in the field would help catch the attention of distant geese. Since I bought those many years ago now, I haven't hunted a day where there were good numbers of geese and no snow on the ground I used to kill quite a few geese when there was no snow on the ground. A lot of guys don't hunt in those conditions because it is harder, but I always seemed to have decent success.

The one condition where I never have success is when I'm in the field when you are losing the snow. I don't know what it is, if I start the day with the field snow covered and end the day with little to no snow, I will get skunked. And pissed because I have to pick everything up in a muddy mess.

[PorkChop]

For some reason I am funny about mixing brands or decoy types ( shells, FB, bags, silos).

the white against a dark background is much more eye catching from a distance when there is no snow on the ground.

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These are a few of my big foots. At first glance, you might not notice, but if you look at the back butt cheeks, I have gone up a few inches higher with the white. In my opinion, it makes absolutely a huge difference. I can pick out those white butt cheeks from a good distance and the birds can as well. My previous 13 dozen were all painted like this. This will be the first season that these are painted higher up. Once again, I think it makes a huge difference!

Also, in reference to the snow goose decoys as soon as I start seeing good numbers of snow geese around here I usually ditch the layout blinds and we’ll set up a couple dozen snows and we will sit in whites. Canada’s and Specks seem to be pretty dumb when using this tactic. we always set the Snowgeese up wind of the Canada Decoys because it seems like big Honkers don’t like flying over snows. Doesn’t seem to matter for specs and lessers.

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[PorkChop]

From the backside

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[Rick]

To this day, I still consider selling those big foots and buying the DSD’s the single biggest mistake of my waterfowling life! I still don’t believe that I mentally recovered from it. I went from being a killing machine to a flop.

Having hunted with an Eastern Shore guide who used the then-new Big Foots deployed and picked up daily much as he did stuffers to give his huge standing junkyard spreads of mixed shells, silos, tire thirds (with and without plywood heads) and such a "no hunters today" look that worked slick, I jumped at the chance to ding a credit card for a mess of Big Foot's first run of specklebellys at the then astronomical price of $26 per. And that was my worst ever decoy mistake. Count myself blessed not to have hurt myself worse than our area supplier's allotment afforded, when a call to the company for more yielded the news that the difference in their production costs convinced them to stick with just Canadas (for several years after).

Rub, beyond having to make inverted "L" stakes to peg them in high winds, was that our specks were appreciably less inclined to finish to them than the standard-size G&H shells that were long our region's speck decoy "gold standard". I, and a number of friends who tried them, believe simply because the BFs' greater size makes it easier for wary birds to see they're manikins.

Anyway, they were hell for stout, and my grandsons got years of use out of them for their yard spreads and pool toys. Our birds just didn't care for them.

I've heard of really poor early DSDs, but they may have largely worked that out by the time they made it to our area, as mine didn't hold up as well as the current ACE compound but didn't chip so much as just wear - though I didn't treat them as most do BFs. And your round base issue surprised me, as mine came with stakes, and when I called Smith (or his buddy who ran the shop?) about bases, he said they didn't make round ones because other companies used them. Sent me some "X"-bottomed ones to try that I was afraid to use with camp guests for fear someone would manage to impale himself on a giant jack.

Also have some of the early ACE DSDs that are hardier but will eventually burnish with use, even if double bagged and not thrown around, as shown on the left in this comparison with a first generation Deception:

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FWIW, every FB I still own, including the DSDs and excepting the Deceptions, has now been repainted if not flocked, as realism is the name of what's left of our speck game down here. DSD, GHG and, perhaps, 2nd generation HCs in this little pod :

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[PorkChop]

Rick what do you think about the GHG HD Specs? I have a dozen of them. I only used 6 of them a few times and it seemed like the birds didn’t care for them. I have another “brand new” half dozen that have not seen the sun since being put in the trailer. Chris Nicolai from Delta had I believe three dozen of them that he was selling. I asked him why and he said he had too many but I wasn’t buying that. I think they look beautiful, but I am not a Specklebelly. Up here it seems like they prefer to come in to our snow goose spreads.

Truth be told although I have shot my fair share of them I am clueless when it comes to hunting them. I don’t think I’ve ever decoyed a Specklebelly flock using Specklebelly decoys. It’s always been in the Canada or the snow goose spread. And they definitely are not as smart up here as the ones you guys hunt down there.

mine definitely add the ring bases. I don’t think stakes were offered back then. I am guessing that I am not the only customer that had issues with them breaking pretty easily. And I tell you what you step on one of those things in the dark, you will know it! I know you use reflective tape on all stakes and ring bases

What do your deceptions have? My deception cranes just had a long metal stake with an L close to the bottom to get them in the ground and to hook the bungee cord to. Those are the ones that I sold. Love them but the SX stake system is much better.

[Rick]

The 2014 first generation Deception specks were the last decoys I've bought (of any sort), so I'm a poor source on anything newer. Those came with ring bases, but I've long used homemade 1/4" rod stakes with all FBs:

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Back when white spreads were still viable here (plastic "rags" and/or windsocks, no trailers in our soggy fields), we killed a lot of specks over those that weren't left out to educate them, but did much better when better speck decoys where placed down flight and on either side outside the white stuff. Seems some specks are integrationists and some segregationists, and it was better to play to both. Could get away with hiding, without really hiding, a dozen hunters by "baffling the birds with the bull" of a 1,000 piece or so white spread.

When the demand for hunting ground and crowding of hunters put an end to white spread success, it became necessary to downsize parties to "dazzle the birds with the brilliance" of cover, decoys and calling that can stand hard scrutiny.

Kills me that our geese, like our mallards, have all but quit coming, but I feel blessed to have gotten down here in time to have known the very best of it.