Ep. 759: Foundations - A Deep Dive Into Turkey Decoys

You probably heard me say it already or have seen I don't know one hundred and seventy six Instagram posts about it, but Meat Eater is having a celebration around turkeys this week. That means we're dropping a pile of turkey hunting content and having a sale around all kinds

of our best turkey hunting products. So if you're thinking, eh, Turkey season's coming up and I might need a new call or something like that and you would like to get that call on a sweet discount, head on over to thum meat eater dot com to check it out. And now that that's out of the way, I want to say I'm probably more excited for this podcast than a lot of the other ones, mostly because I don't get to talk about turkeys a lot, and I love

talking about turkeys. I love just about everything about turkeys, actually, but I'm really obsessed with decoying them. It doesn't matter if I'm bow hunting or if I'm gun hunting or guiding one of my daughters to a bird. Decoys and decoy setups are just so important. In fact, they're so important, at least in my mind, that this whole damn episode is going to dive into the what, how, and why of decoying turkeys all season long. Picture this if you will.

My buddy Hawk and I were camping on a chunk of public land in Nebraska in twenty twelve, well before first light. We lugged packs, blinds, chairs, decoys, bows, everything everything you could imagine up a bluff to set up on a grassy ridge top that was not only dotted by cedars but also offered us a good view of a private cornfield. Since it was early April, we knew the birds would be flocked up, but we also knew that our decoys would be highly visible in that spot

and that they'd be able to hear us call. It was also supposed to be sunny and warm, which is the best forecast you can have for early season birds. And it really didn't take very long before I called in my first Tom. Although he came in behind me and gobbled close enough to get me to jump, he didn't step into my spread. I didn't think that mattered, though. It was just one of those mornings where they were

just blowing up. This was also back when Nebraska was filthy with birds, so much so that you knew that even if you were hunting public land with a bow, you're going to have a good hunt. Well I had a good hunt, sort of. I can't remember how many birds I called in that day, but I think it was eleven between jakes and Tom's. Do you know how many walked into my decoys and strutted though zero. I eventually got an arrow into a jake that skirted my

spread and I never found him, so that sucked. And after that hunt, where I didn't kill a turkey, by the way. I did what any desperate hunter would do. I drove to Cabella's and bought the cheapest of the best looking decoys I could get. I mean, they looked good enough, but those inflatable decoys just wouldn't hold air for very long. It was frustrating, mostly because I was trying to arrow birds and I could not, for the

life of me, get it done. It was like I had a force field around my setup that they would just say, Nope, I'm not coming any closer. Before the twenty fourteen season, I went big and I bought the Dave Smith flock. Now I know we owned Dave Smith decoys now, so you can be as skeptical as you want, and I don't blame you. But in twenty fourteen, I doubt I even knew who Stephen Ranella was, and I sure as hell didn't think i'd end up working for him or working for a company that would buy Dave

Smith nearly a decade later. I just wanted a better advantage with the spring birds. Like quite a few years, Hawk and I started in Nebraska that year, even though we'd mostly swung and missed every other time we'd gone down there this time. However, we set up and I immediately called a jake into my spread and shot him at seven yards. He died right there, and it honestly felt like a fluke until I went home and called in a jake from way across a pitcornfield and I

rowed him too. I added another jake that year, and I realized something. My decoy choice seem to be helping me as a turkey bow hunter quite a bit. Since then, I've used a pile of different decoys and configurations, and I feel like I've learned an awful lot about what makes decoys effective and when to use what. For starters, I'll get this out of the way. Quality is expensive, but it is worth it. The look of your decoys not just paint jobs and finishes, but body language is

so important. You want a decoy that looks good up close, because even silhouettes perform just fine when birds are two hundred yards out. It's when they get right into the mix and the light is low or the sun is straight overhead and it's crazy bright out that you find out whether your decoy looks real to the birds. Just like with deer hunting, a great litmus test for your

decoys is how often the ladies accept them. Until I started using really realistic decoys, I never knew how many hens you could not only call in but keep around. It's not uncommon for me to have hens come in and lay down with my decoys or sit and call to them for an hour or two. If you think that isn't something you want as a turkey hunter, then

you need to get your head checked. My friends, having a real lady or two right there, mixing in and acting natural while they're making noise, that's a huge benefit. Now here's the downside to really good looking full body decoys. They are super cumbersome and can be noisy to carry.

The turkey decoy world hasn't solved the problem of crazy realistic and ultra portable yet, kind of like the hub blind world hasn't figured out the problem of being big enough to house a couple of people comfortably, but not way a lot. Now you might think you don't need expensive decoys because you only run and gun for birds and shoot them at forty five yards with a shotgun.

That's great. I didn't really need good decoys until I started bow hunting birds, but It's also a game changer with kids, and when I take out new hunters, your mileage may vary. But my experience with new hunters and scouting spots is that the final straw is always a good decoy setup. And on that note, you're probably thinking about the different kinds of Tom, Jake and Hen decoys. The primary Tom decoy you're gonna find is a full strutter, And this is a decoy I'll admit I don't really

like very much. I'm an opportunistic turkey hunter, so I don't want a bunch of Jakes and two year old skirting me because they don't want to mess with the boss man. Now, if you can hunt early, say anywhere in March or the first half of April, maybe the first couple weeks of April anyway, as a rough guide, and you can scout out a flock that is sticking together, a full strutter can almost be unfair. I don't find this situation very often, but when I do, the biggest

Tom in the flock almost always can't handle it. He sees a full strutter with a few Hens in a spot he planned to take his girlfriends through. He's not going to put up with it. This is so fun in the right situation, but you also need to be prepared for a lot of drive buys from birds that don't want to tussle with the king. This is not to say you can't put a full strutter out at any time in the season and have birds come in. They are dumb birds, so sometimes anything goes. I'm just

giving you my thoughts from my experience. Now, while I might not use a full strutter too often, I use a jake almost every single time I hunt. In fact, the only time I might not use a jake is either in real late May maybe or when I'm running and gunning public land and I don't want to get shot in the face because I don't know exactly where I'll have to set up at any given moment. Jake decoys are your friends. My favorite is a quarter strut

submissive looking jake. That kind of a decoy with a lay down hen is often all you will ever need. This is the decoy that seems to give the most real birds the most confidence. If you only have a little budget for decoys, get yourself a quarter strutter first. Now, there are several other jake options out there, and I think I've used them all. I do like a breeding jake, especially in April, and especially if it has a white head.

I had a really good turkey hunter from Mississippi tell me a long time ago that he paints the heads on all of his decoys white because that's the color of Tom's head turns when he's right about to breed. I'm not a turkey biologist, but I guess maybe that has something to do with the blood supply. A head and south for a bit. Anyway, your jake decoy is the anchor to the whole set. It's where most of the approaching birds are going to focus. If you're bow hunting,

that means he should be positioned close. For me, that's no more than ten yards. For gun hunting, I love the twenty to twenty five yard mark if they come right in their toast. If they get cagy and hold up twenty yards back from the jake still pretty much toast. The point I want to make is that jake matters

the most, so position him for your shot. Now. I almost never ever put a jake out without a lay down hen as well, just make sure you put her right beneath him and push him down right over her if you have to use a gopher mound or pile up some grass or whatever to make her a little bit more visible. If you think that Tom's holding up at seventy five one hundred yards might not be able to see her. And as far as adding extra hens

to the whole thing, think about it this way. From winter until late spring, the birds will go from big flocks to solo. As a hunter, you want to factor that into your spreads. For me, this means my early season decoy spreads might have up to five or six decoys in them, while my late season spreads might be

a party of one or two at the most. Now, if you go the more is better route, let's say in early April, you'll want to consider something that people often get wrong about decoys, which is which direction they are facing. Go watch a wild flock of turkey's feed, and even though at any given moment the birds might individually go one way or another, as a whole, they tend to move all in the same direction. I often see people put out two hens facing totally opposite directions,

and then they put a jake between them. Listen, you can kill turkeys this way. They are dumb ish. But if you hunt pressured birds or you don't want to give them a reason to question your setup, think about how actual turkeys feed and move across the landscape together. And on that note, for a setup and a fee, i might spread them out a little bit, but they'll

all be facing the same way. If I'm on a logging road or in a spot where they would naturally revert to single file travel, the hens go first and the last bird is the jake. Think about this. If you're hunting close to a roost in the evening, the birds will feed and mill around and then all of a sudden decide to all walk in single file to get to the roost. They do this in the mornings and just sometimes when they are on the move. The more natural you're spread is, the higher odds you have

of calling in birds. It's really that simpole. It's also worth considering what your decoys represent. Are you in a well scouted spot where they're staging up before they go to roost, so they expect to see a bird here and one there, Or are you on the edge of a field at first light where the birds should fly down and walk out to the groceries In that case, the decoys should all look like they are walking out

into the field reverse that in the evening. I know this might seem like I'm overthinking things, but I believe something about turkeys. It's that if you give them a reason to trust their judgment when it comes to survival, they will. I also believe that this stuff happens in small increments, and it's up to the birds to decide

when he or she has had enough. So look at it this way, Maybe some approaching toms would forgive the fact that all of the early morning birds look like they are coming from the field and heading to the woods, which wouldn't make much sense, but it might cause them to question things just a little bit, you know, and slow down their approach. Then maybe they catch a sunlight flare off the top of e or blind which is in a huge deal. But now that's two things that

have tripped their brain a little bit. Or maybe they hear your bottom limb tink against your chair while they are sixty yards out. The birds that aren't dead set on committing, you know, come hell or high water might decide, you know, what, enough is enough? And I always think, why risk it if you don't have to now. Movement is another thing to consider with decoys, but I'll be honest,

I don't really want my decoys to move. I've used a bunch of them over the years that were fitted on steaks that allowed me to pull a string and move them, and have never really had a positive response, you know, at least enough to get me to care or think that this was the reason that they were coming in. I've also had decoys go spinning or flying in the wind, which really doesn't help your chances of killing one if it's gonna be windy. I put two sticks in the ground right by the tails of my

decoys that are on steaks. I might leave, you know, enough play for them to swivel an inch or two, but nothing more than that. There's nothing more unnatural looking than when you set up a flock and one of the hens decides to do the old decoy twirl and she ends up a little cock eyed and looking directly away from the spread. Again. On some birds, that might not even register. But I say, why risk it now?

I've talked quite a bit about using multiple decos on a setup, but what if you want to be mobile and running gun For me? I tend to almost always carry a jake with that lay down hen, or sometimes it's just a feeding or upright hen. I prefer the jake with a lay down hen because I know I'm going to be calling, so I figure I represent an unseen hen in that scenario. But the truth is you probably wouldn't ever need anything more than a good looking jake,

decoy or solo hen to seal the deal. That is, you know, until the season draws down and the pressure gets to the birds and the peak breeding is in the rear view mirror and the bugs are everywhere and the turkeys are totally scattered across the landscape. In this situation, I often pare down to a single hen, even if I'm still bow hunting from a blind. When the bugs are out and the weather is super nice, the birds

have so many options for food. The hens also are most likely nesting pretty hard, which means you tend to see birds together early in the morning in small groups, but often solo by mid morning. That's my time to shine, and it often requires just a single hen as long as you put her somewhere visible and you make the sounds that hens make when they are interested in company.

It's really all you need. I've shot plenty of late May birds with Jake decoys too, but it just seems like it's a neutral to negative addition in my experience. I've covered quite a bit of decoy talk so far, so let me wrap this up with one more thought. If you use good decoys and think through your spreads,

give them the time to work. Even the best decoys and the best calling won't get birds into your spread every time, you know, like when it's sunrise in early April and still super cold, and the birds first need to get some calories in their crops before they try to make little turkeys. But here's the thing. If those seemingly uninterested birds see the decoys and don't come in right, then there's a really good chance they'll swing through later.

I don't know how many times I've had birds see my decoys and act like they didn't care at all as they walked over the ridge and out of my life, only to have them filter back through an hour or two or even four hours later. I think deer and turkeys both do this. I think they have a good enough memory to remember that they saw something interesting, even

if they didn't immediately engage in it. Think about how often your dog will remember where an interesting gopher hole is or where they found a half eaten twinkie and a bush seven years ago. Patience is the final key to decoying turkeys right into your spread. I mean this even though it might suck to think about, and even though it's easy to get up and go try to chase gobbles if you hadn't had a bird commit in

the last few minutes. But if you hunt pressured birds or don't have tons of acres to roam, waiting them out and letting realistic looking decoys do much of the heavy lifting for you, it's often the best strategy. And remember, pay attention to all the birds that interact with your decoys. The hens that swing through might not make a sound, or they might purr and cluck a little, or they might flat out start cutting and try to knock out

one of your hen decoys. All of those types of interactions should inform your calling strategy, which is what I'm going to talk about later this week when I drop another turkey centric episode. That's it for this show, but not this week. Pay attention cause you're gonna be getting a lot of Foundations episodes this week, and as always, I want to thank you so much for your support everyone here at Meat Eater. We love you guys. We really appreciate you showing up for us. It means the

world to us. Like I said in the intro, here, we got a big Turkey Week campaign going on. If you're looking for some deals on some stuff, or you just want more Turkey content, head on over to the mediater dot com. You're gonna find all kinds of stuff you like.