full body dec's

what's the best full body goose decoys to get. best for our hunting areas, wind, etc

Dakota and if you have the money opt for the Dakota fully flocked

any brand. do your scouting correctly and brand doesnt matter. each brand has its pro's and con's.

they all kill geese. the argument over which decoy to run is like what boat motor to buy, what pickup is best, etc etc etc. we use avian x and GHG fully flocked. ive killed geese in my poor college days over the oldest of old flambeu FB and even the old school shell decoys.

don't drink they kool aid,
now if you are talking durability, one piece decoy versus one with motion bases etc that's a different story. buy what you can afford and spend more time scouting/finding unpressured birds than worrying what decoy brand to buy

Deke discussions on this site make me happy. Brand doesn't matter, find the feeding geese and be on the X. Amen brothers

I've hunted over Dakota, Big Foot, GHG, Hard Core, and Avian. I haven't been able to discern any difference in shooting opportunities between them. I've also hunted over combinations of all of the above with the same results. ASSUMING......................

1. You are ON THE X
2. NOBODY peeks or squirms
3. Above average calling
4. Above average blind camo

I have a combo of Avian X, GHG, Hard Core, and shells if you care. Good Luck!!

and also. if u get beat to the field this early season go home or move on. trying to squeeze into the same field rarely works abd usually ends up screwing everyone. even if you have 200 avian xs and 5 h.s. and college age stud callers who wont shut the f up on there $300 calls if u miss the x early season all the birds will do will act confused when they hit the field and probably wont decoy worth a damn. avg early season field is 150-250 birds. you only have a limited amount of flight birds so fighting over them doesnt work.

Oh man is it August 15 yet? Anyone hear if they set the limit yet?

They are all overpriced and all work the same. I pick up big foots when they are on sale. I just pile them in the trailer as I don't have time to bag them! I have some DOA decoys too and they work better in the wind and look more realistic.

I'm not worried about their ability to draw in birds. I'm more concerned about durability, ease of storage/carrying, which ones tip over the easiest in the wind, etc. I have zero familiarity with full bodies. Grew up using only shells and socks.

All of my deks are used and based on that I would say the Avian X deks that I have are holding up the best as far as the paint job goes. Bigfoot deks hold up pretty good too from what I've seen in other spreads, but I don't personally own any...........YET. However, I can, and have, repainted the worn spots on my deks without too much trouble and make it them look pretty good. Flocking WILL get rubbed off regardless of brand and how they are treated, but I can flock the heads and tails of an unflocked decoy in about 10 minutes and that includes drying time so flocking for me isn't an issue. I reflock my deks as they need it. Flocking I know, DOES, make a difference in the field. I don't have any fully flocked deks, so I can't say much about them. Somewhere in my pics I posted an unflocked shell next to a shell that I just flocked to show how much of a difference it makes. It might have been in a winter projects thread too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, for my money, I'm always looking for full body deks at a good price and I rarely care what the paint job looks like as long as they aren't broken or cracked as I can make them look pretty good with a little effort and paint. I have 6 dozen fullbodies, 4 dozen shells, and 2 dozen mallard full bodies that I got piece by piece and paid just over a grand for the whole lot. IMO, having different brands gives me more poses, color schemes, and sizes, which results in a more realistic spread as even canada geese aren't all the same. As far as tippiness. From my experience, bigfoots tend to tip over the most, especially the lookers unless you put something on or through the base. My GHG's tip the most when I use the ring bases as they are the "fattest" deks I have and the cups for the stakes sometimes rotate a bit putting the side of the dek into the wind which makes them tip. I just make sure the cups are tightened down and hope for the best. Putting rocks or dirt on the ring base when setting up pretty much eliminates decoy tip for me, but I still have a few do that don't read the script. LOL!! I've never had a dek tip over when using the stakes. Turning sideways yes, but not tipping over. When it comes to turning sideways, my hardcores and Avians don't turn as often as the others as they have bungee cord to hold the stake/base on the dek and the cord tends to keep the dek straight. However, you don't get as much movement with those type of deks. Shine WILL be a problem on the unflocked portions of the deks, but I came up with a solution for that. I call them "Decoy Dresses". You take used pillow cases and cut them in half lengthwise down the middle. Each half will then have a corner that is still sewn together. Take a scissors and cut that corner off just enough to allow the head of your decoys to fit through. This will also keep the dresses from blowing off in the wind when in the field. In the mornings when dew or frost could be a problem, just slip the "Dresses" over the heads and drape the cloth over the body and tail. This keeps the decoys dry and takes only a few minutes to remove all the "Dresses" when you get close to shooting time. Put the "Dresses" in a bag and put the bag behind your back in the blind. They make a real nice soft back supporting pillow for laying on. (Grin) The bottom line is that you DON'T need to spend a shit ton of money to get a spread that is appealing to geese. With a little effort, paint, and basic scissor skills you too can have successful hunts. You are more than welcome to come and see how I paint and flock my deks and then we'll put my "Mongrel Spread" of several different decoy types into action and you can then have some real world knowledge to make up your own mind. I know this WAS very long winded, but I hope it helps. Good Luck!!!!

PS. Storage for my deks is in 6 or 12 slot bags that I also got piece meal. I don't remove the heads from my deks as IMO it just wears out the attachment points. All my deks fit in the bags just fine with heads on. Some guys say doing that wears out the flocking, and it does to some degree, but as I said before, reflocking is EASY. Transportation is a matter of choice. The back of an 8 foot bed will hold about 4 dozen fullbodies and 2 blinds, but I have lost bags of 6 deks to the road during transport, so I switched to a trailer. Losing deks SUCKS!!!!!!! Goose hunting isn't cheap, but it doesn't have to cost you your first born either.

Check out DOA Decoys now sold by Beavertail. Fully flocked, on motion bases, and really competitively priced.

eyexer said:

I'm not worried about their ability to draw in birds. I'm more concerned about durability, ease of storage/carrying, which ones tip over the easiest in the wind, etc. I have zero familiarity with full bodies. Grew up using only shells and socks.

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bigfoots are the best durability and storage wise if you have a trailer and willing to stack them. I use socks over the heads to keep them in good condition. All I do to set them up is put them on the ground and pull the sock off. Bases and heads stay on all the time. I kick dirt on the base if it is windy. If you are going to put them in your pickup bed I would go with a smaller decoy that has remove able bases and can be bagged easier. My DOA are smaller and have a removeable base. They also do not blow over in high wind.

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Finaddict said:

Check out DOA Decoys now sold by Beavertail. Fully flocked, on motion bases, and really competitively priced.

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Are DOA fully flocked? I don't remember seeing that version

They're new. They look great.

3geese4me said:

Another option is Dave Smith Decoys. He's out of Oregon and is a completely custom manufacturer. You will pay for the custom work, though. Last time I saw his 4 packs of honkers were $330. I used to run bigfoots, but I was burned on one too many hunts were morning dew littered the tops of the decoys and I missed a large opportunity on decoying birds. So now I run silhouettes and am honestly mad I didn't do it sooner. Birds decoy the same, act the same and did not know that they were shot over a 2 dimensional decoy. I heard everyone say "silhouettes are like little shiny mirrors" Or, "what happens when the birds get overhead of your spread and see everything disappear?" So, to combat this I spread my decoys out. I have 10 dozen of them and my spread is 50 yards wide by 75 yards long. This gives the birds always something to look at when they are working. Another bonus, I can set 10 dozen decoys, brush my blind and park my truck in 55 minutes. With bigfoots, I was looking at an hour and a half. So for me it also was a time saver as I hunt by myself most of the time.

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what about mixing silouttes with full bodies

We mix the siloutes and full bodied with some big shells mixed in and it works.

Is it OK to confess to Kurt(R) on here?

3geese4me said:

Another option is Dave Smith Decoys. He's out of Oregon and is a completely custom manufacturer. You will pay for the custom work, though. Last time I saw his 4 packs of honkers were $330. I used to run bigfoots, but I was burned on one too many hunts were morning dew littered the tops of the decoys and I missed a large opportunity on decoying birds. So now I run silhouettes and am honestly mad I didn't do it sooner. Birds decoy the same, act the same and did not know that they were shot over a 2 dimensional decoy. I heard everyone say "silhouettes are like little shiny mirrors" Or, "what happens when the birds get overhead of your spread and see everything disappear?" So, to combat this I spread my decoys out. I have 10 dozen of them and my spread is 50 yards wide by 75 yards long. This gives the birds always something to look at when they are working. Another bonus, I can set 10 dozen decoys, brush my blind and park my truck in 55 minutes. With bigfoots, I was looking at an hour and a half. So for me it also was a time saver as I hunt by myself most of the time.

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For $83 a decoy I better get a happy ending with that screw job! Plus add in getting goose decoys from dave is a bitch since he figured out that turkey hunters are dumber then goose hunters when it comes to buying decoys. No doubt he makes a good decoy but there isn't a goose alive then can tell a DSD vs half the other decoys out there right now from 50 yards. DSD's are allot like ranger boats....sure there very nice but your paying a whole lot for the name and when it comes down to it it's not going to make someone who doesn't know what they are doing and expert. They will just look good watching the guys next to them do well.

On a side note we ran into a bit of a twist last year in that our cheap dive bomb silos were the goto decoys during the late season. Wasn't a pattern we sought out but one we noticed over a short period of time. It became very clear that all the geese were coming in to land with the Silhouettes instead of the full bodies. Eventually we started setting the silhouette to the side to see if it truly mattered and it did so by the end of the season the full bodies got parked. I guess it's not surprising it's the pattern geese have always had....best way to get them is to look at what everyone else is doing and do something different.

Yeah, I can't see myself getting any Dave Deks when I can find used GHG's or Bigfoots for under 200 bucks a dozen. As far as the silos go, do you think the geese might have been attracted to the silos because they gave the birds more of an open landing zone? I've never used silo's, so I'm just shootin' from the hip here. We ran into a set up where we would put all our lessers in a solid black blob about 30 yds behind our blinds and the other full bodies and the birds wanted to land with them. We put the lessers about a foot apart. Just enough to keep them from banging into one another. 20 yrd shots as they focused on the black blob didn't suck. It worked that way 3 times last year....really well. We always discuss that option now, before we set up.

I think the biggest thing is everybody and their brother are now running 10-30 dozen full-body spreads and the geese get used to seeing them. Because of the way silos are they force you to put them at varying angels and with their slightly different shapes it just gives the geese something just different enough to lull them in. The way are full body's are set they tend to be very loose so landing holes are not a big factor.