I've taken up duck hunting again after a few decades away. Hunting a private area of swampy creek bed upstream of a beaver dam. Located in the St Lawrence Seaway flyway. In two seasons have figured out a good layout that works well to pull ducks (and geese) in as long as there is anything from a slight breeze to a strong wind. The wind combined with the slight current gives some reasonable motion to the surface decoys, and when I added two Lucky Duck flappers it really started being great.
The only problem is on windless days the water surface is dead calm. Mirror flat. They don't decoy in, and ducks just take a look and fly bye. The surface decoys just lie there motionless and don't look realistic at all. (live ducks are constantly moving, throwing a wake, etc). When I have surface wind moving decoys, ducks put on breaks and start dropping soon as they see my set up, sometimes 300 - 400 yards away. Even ones that break the tree line behind me right over top of the decoys will often swing around and come back.
Does anyone have any experience with either the "surface pucks" or dabbling ducks decoys that stir up the surface water? I have been looking on line, but the reviews are mixed. (Mainly they either don't move the water or break down after a few uses.) Any experience or suggestions?
One thing I should mention is that for a number of reasons a jerk line won't work in this set up, or I would go to that. I am already out in kayak every morning to check decoys and put fresh batteries in flappers, so doing the same with a water moving decoy not any issue.
One last thing, I am pretty sure the ducks are not seeing my decoy anchor lines or anchors on calm days. The water is very clear, with a black muck bottom. The anchors are out of sight in muck, and I already switched out to black anchor lines. I can climb a small ledge behind blind and look down on decoys, and could see the old anchor lines I was initially using but the black is undetectable to me.
The only problem is on windless days the water surface is dead calm. Mirror flat. They don't decoy in, and ducks just take a look and fly bye. The surface decoys just lie there motionless and don't look realistic at all. (live ducks are constantly moving, throwing a wake, etc). When I have surface wind moving decoys, ducks put on breaks and start dropping soon as they see my set up, sometimes 300 - 400 yards away. Even ones that break the tree line behind me right over top of the decoys will often swing around and come back.
Does anyone have any experience with either the "surface pucks" or dabbling ducks decoys that stir up the surface water? I have been looking on line, but the reviews are mixed. (Mainly they either don't move the water or break down after a few uses.) Any experience or suggestions?
One thing I should mention is that for a number of reasons a jerk line won't work in this set up, or I would go to that. I am already out in kayak every morning to check decoys and put fresh batteries in flappers, so doing the same with a water moving decoy not any issue.
One last thing, I am pretty sure the ducks are not seeing my decoy anchor lines or anchors on calm days. The water is very clear, with a black muck bottom. The anchors are out of sight in muck, and I already switched out to black anchor lines. I can climb a small ledge behind blind and look down on decoys, and could see the old anchor lines I was initially using but the black is undetectable to me.
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