Best Decoy spreads?

New to waterfowl hunting, looking to get into field hunting for geese how many decoys is enough, and shell or full bodies or both. Also what is the best way to be successful for all different types of ducks. Is it a variety of decoys, or large quantity of one type. Just looking for some insight Thanks

you can also google decoy spreads and click images and there will be different scenarios etc. with decoy placement pictures.

ops. meant to pm that

Thanks everyone

Getting a good mix is a great idea. You want to look as real as you can. So if your seeing a mix of Bluebills,woodies,greenheads,buffies ect. Throw that out. Look like what your seeing out on the water. Be mindful of the amount of each bird your seeing. So if you see mostly Mallards. You want 60% of your spread to be that. Then mix it up.

Sure is. Our diver set is about 5 to 6 dozen dekes. Its a mix of bills, redheads and cans. Buffies and goldeneyes seem to like to land with there own so we put those all together in one spot. And we have a small mallard flock we keep seperate. Mixing puddle ducks isn't a big deal either....I wouldnt suggest putting bluebills in with wood ducks in a pothole though.

Is it ok to have a wide variety of ducks in a spread? (Teal, wood duck, mallard, bluebills)

I hunt fields about 80% of the time and our way of thinking is as follows. Hunting on the X (hunting a field where the birds want to be) We will scout the field to see where the birds are feeding and walk out after they leave for the night to see where they left off and mark that spot to come back to and set up on the edge of where the birds stopped eatting (if they are new to the field it's its not so bad if your a bit off but birds that have been working the field for a few days know where the food is and where it's not) how many we use depends on the time of year. Early season we run a few doz spread out a good amount and use a mix of new full body's and older ones only use a few shells. 1shell for every doz full bod. ratio Later in the year once we start seeing true migrators we up our spreads to 6-10doz and use our best looking full bods. When your on the X you don't need a lot of decoys the biggest parts are being in the right spot of the field, real looking decoys and good cover on the blinds. Running traffic. ( pulling geese off there path to another field they are using to come to yours) This is a TON of fun because you know if you get birds its a direct result of your hard work Early in the season we run decoys spreads about the same as we would for hunting on the X. (A few doz) We will open them up into 2-3 family groups and have about 30-40 yards between each group. Each cam group will have 9-13 decoys and they will be tight together. Later as migration starts we scout a field that will put us as close as we can to being under the birds flight path to the field they are going to. (Getting under geese for a traffic hunt is 50% of the battle) next thing is numbers!! We will run. 13-15 doz Silhouette decoys and no less then 14 doz full bods and sometimes we use our old black n white decoys (8doz). This is just what we do and what's worked for us. Other things you need to consider and in some cases more important! Is Wind- how to set up these decoys in high wind. vs low wind Weather- sunny? Clouds? Rain? Snow? All effect your calling and spread Cover- don't be afraid to use a fenceline to hide in or set up in the trees. Take an extra 10-15 min to look over your blinds to make sure they are 100% good to go Calling- hunting the X -keep it low and real /traffic- lots of excitement and good goose rythum. There is a lot more to each one but this is the basics. Shells are great and should be used. When a field is snow covered geese will hit the deck and lay down right away to melt snow and expose the covered food. A good mix on snowy days is deadly Just my 3cents. Lol. Welcome to the sport.

I agree with what was already said on here. I will just add it helps when you set up where the ducks already want to land. I like to mix a few divers in all the time. I usually have a half dozen ring neck decoys in my spread. three drakes and three hens. in low light conditions the white on the drakes really sticks out and gets the ducks attention.

For what its worth, We always run goose decoys, on the water, in the middle of the spread. We spread out mallards on either side and give it a relaxed look. If the wind is calm, we will run a mallard swimmer or a pulsator by Hidgeon, mixed in for motion. As the season progresses and divers are starting to trickle into the area, we will set out, by the goose decoys, a half dozen oversized can or bluebill decoys. Set so that if anything comes down that line of decs, it puts them right into our face. You will also be pleasantly surprised to find out that the bright white on those decoys will also attract puddle ducks. Welcome to the sport and I wish you the best of luck!

for ducks what works for us are some mallards and woody decoys with a mallard mojo right next to your blind so you can take it down or turn it off when the geese come because they dont seam to like it to well.

Here are my thoughts on this.... For field geese it first comes down to what you want to spend, how much effort you want to spend and do you have a way to transport them all. Realistic full body geese are expensive, somewhat heavy and take up a lot of room. You don't want to carry 5 dozen of them across a field by yourself.... If you have a trailer or a bunch of buddies or can drive in the field and a thick wallet, it would be hard to beat 50 or 60 full bodies in most situations....deploying them differently as season dictates. Now the route I took since money time and space are all obstacles for me: I have roughly 3 dozen full bodies (feeders, resters, walkers and lookers) and a few good quality shells. Two guys can carry this and layout blinds etc into a field in a couple trips each. As far as ducks. I think mallards are the pickiest ones, most other ducks will decoy to just about anything.