Scott R wrote:...or 6-8 in the puddler spread....I'm not killing too many ducks in my area...
Might want to try reversing your duck to coot ratio for puddlers and put out a raft of those black beauties with just a handful of duck decoys. Was blessed by the opportunity to hunt with an old Cajun when I first moved down here 30 (Yikes!) years ago who gunned over a standing spread of 100 or so coots sweetened with 6 or 8 mallards and teal he'd put out and pick up each hunt between the "poule d'eau" and blind. He mostly let the coot raft do our calling, and we enjoyed a lot more shooting than others in the area seemed to.
Fast-forwarding to today, my permanent marsh rig bows to popular perception with around three dozen duck and a few goose blocks, but there's also a good sized raft of coots on one end of the "kill hole". By late season, even the specklebellies are as apt or more so to land by the coots than target the decoys of their own kind.
And knowing my predilection for poule d'eau, a regular from MD brought me a carved coot to add to the small rig of carved mottleds and greenwings I use for puddle jumping. Could hardly have tickled me more.