A new flagging system

[3geese4me]

Here is a flagging system that I made. Those of you that are friends with me on facebook have already seen it, but I thought I would share it here as well. I would like some honest feedback on it. Do you think it will work? What could I improve on? This flag will be exclusively for canada geese too. Although I think it would work ok with snows as well, all that I would have to do is change out the flag color to all white.

[Goldfish]

I've never been much of a field hunter, but from what I gather you flag when they are a ways away to get their attention, so what would it matter where the flagging is in your spread?

[aunt betty]

Make the cross-T out of skinnier, flimsier rod. Get it to flap. You know.
Awesome concept.

[3geese4me]

I've never been much of a field hunter, but from what I gather you flag when they are a ways away to get their attention, so what would it matter where the flagging is in your spread?

By using this, I will be able to set my blinds off to the side of my spread and use this flag to keep their attention on the other side of the spread and not on the blinds. I always brush my blinds to the max, but sometimes birds are pretty good about picking them out. This is just used to divert their attention away from me.

[3geese4me]

Make the cross-T out of skinnier, flimsier rod. Get it to flap. You know.
Awesome concept.

I used a FA flag and just slid the handle inside of the main post and secured it with velcro. I wanted it a tad on the flimsy side to make it wobble a little more and add some extra movement.

[Olly]

You should put an actuator on it and make is automatic.

[3geese4me]

You should put an actuator on it and make is automatic.

I thought about doing that too. I am looking into using the same motor that the sillosock rotary machines run on. Going to see if this works first. If it does, there will be some modifications to it.

[3geese4me]

http://www.prairiewinddecoys.com/p/501/ ... ncer-motor

Use this motor with a remote wired to it so that I can turn it on and off from my blind.

[Rick]

When I saw the similar commercial devices, my first thought was "neat". Then the reality of "one more damn thing" (to fool with) set in. Know I'd much prefer the battery powered to pull string variety just to cut down on the nuisance factor in the field, that and the need for significant movement at the blind to operate it.

That said, traditional flagging is usually problematic, at best, in most of our hunting situations, so we do our share of fooling with such nuisances. Here's the most inventive of my friends' latest experiment, a flapper utilizing the real deal (with upper wing bones broken to keep the wings limber):






Wasn't a game changer, at least in part because specks down here look at decoys HARD and tend to push off fliers of any type that don't move on or land. So by next season, he'll little doubt have it combined with his most successful contraption to date a landing device for fliers operated with an outboard power tilt servo. As you might guess by the logistical problems presented by such machinery, his is a permanent blind.

I was the kinda-sorta beneficiary of one of his failed experiments, as he sold me a nearly new X-flapper decoy for $100. That being something I might have eventually worked up enough of an "gotta-know" for to pay nearly three times that for. Even being relatively simple, it has a "one more damn thing" factor but is mobile enough for some of the spots I hunt - just turns out that the specks hate it, even just sitting there, once they get close. Had to modify it to get the remote to work far enough out that the birds don't push off before they get in good range of the operator. That modification plus a fog and one each blue and snow goose decoys produced this a couple weeks ago without the aid of calling (flapper was well to the right of the snow decoy center screen at the beginning):


So we're still working on it...

[aunt betty]

I've seen people flag with huge black flags. 8'X16' on a 20'pole.
Was many years ago. Early 1990's at SanChris Lake near Edinburg, Illinois. Guys 25 years older than me or more did it.
One day I talked with them and asked what's the flag do?
They used it to attract geese. (You already know). They said the black works but also said the noise that flag made attracted geese as well.
Flapping sounds carry with the wind.
They put the flag down as soon as a flock started going their way.
I've only seen one group of guys use flags like that.

They had smaller brown and white ones they used for ducks.
Weird old guys but they killed a lot of waterfowl.

[Rick]

They used it to attract geese. (You already know). They said the black works but also said the noise that flag made attracted geese as well.
Flapping sounds carry with the wind.
They put the flag down as soon as a flock started going their way.

Interesting. Back when white spreads still worked well here, we experimented with all sorts of flagging and flying devices, and the general consensus was that the noise of both windsocks and kites spooked birds. Don't know that's the case, just how it seemed. Might just have been that the sight of a thousand windsocks wobbling in the wind looked too much like the start of a marathon to suit the birds, but even those windsocks seemed counterproductive on days windy enough to make them rattle.

Can't begin to imagine hoisting a 8'x16' flag on a 20' pole just to flag geese, though, so I'll never know about that.

[aunt betty]

They used it to attract geese. (You already know). They said the black works but also said the noise that flag made attracted geese as well.
Flapping sounds carry with the wind.
They put the flag down as soon as a flock started going their way.

Interesting. Back when white spreads still worked well here, we experimented with all sorts of flagging and flying devices, and the general consensus was that the noise of both windsocks and kites spooked birds. Don't know that's the case, just how it seemed. Might just have been that the sight of a thousand windsocks wobbling in the wind looked too much like the start of a marathon to suit the birds, but even those windsocks seemed counterproductive on days windy enough to make them rattle.

Can't begin to imagine hoisting a 8'x16' flag on a 20' pole just to flag geese, though, so I'll never know about that.

It was weird to see. Figure I'd throw it out there.

Them same guys built a "barge" out of an old pontoon boat. No motor. They would just show up and ask for a tow. They were well-known to all who hunted there and always got a tow.

[3geese4me]

They used it to attract geese. (You already know). They said the black works but also said the noise that flag made attracted geese as well.
Flapping sounds carry with the wind.
They put the flag down as soon as a flock started going their way.

Interesting. Back when white spreads still worked well here, we experimented with all sorts of flagging and flying devices, and the general consensus was that the noise of both windsocks and kites spooked birds. Don't know that's the case, just how it seemed. Might just have been that the sight of a thousand windsocks wobbling in the wind looked too much like the start of a marathon to suit the birds, but even those windsocks seemed counterproductive on days windy enough to make them rattle.

Can't begin to imagine hoisting a 8'x16' flag on a 20' pole just to flag geese, though, so I'll never know about that.

Guys here have those flags on 20'+ poles and they do work. I made this just to help keep the birds off my blind location, far too many times this year I had birds work my spread then veer off as they seen our blinds. With our fields being harvested with next to nothing for stubble height, it makes hiding a blind quite difficult.. The string will be kept low to the ground with some powder coated tent stakes. So hopefully tripping shouldn't be an issue, this is most definitely a work in progress.

[Rick]

Hope it proves a winner for you. Has to be satisfying building something from scratch that works well - a satisfaction I'll probably never know. (Still waiting for the price of a store-bought "Hammer" to go down.)

[jarbo03]

I like it. I hunt a lot of similar situations and could see it being very useful. There are days when a flag will land more birds than any goose call. On very windy days have used a flag damn near to point of shooting. Has kept many birds from stopping short on days where the wind is 30-40mph or more.