ORIGINAL: Howler
This was my first year of bow hunting them exclusively, BUT we used one hen decoy on every set. We put her right at 10 or 11 yards every time. My closest shot opportunity was at 22 yards. The other shot opps. were at 35 yards! The one thing that I think the decoy does is keep the gobblerINFRONT of you and the blindlonger. MAYBE!
Without a decoy, do you find that the gobbler will stay around, and does he move around the blind looking for the hen. Strutting, or just looking for the hen?
One thing too, I am going to look for some very thin black gloves before next season. I got busted by one bird. The decoy wasdirectly between him and us, so we were directly in his line of sight. When I drew real slow and raised the bow,he caught the movement. So I am going to put a piece of black tape on the face of my bow and wear black gloves next year, and that won't happen again! Your hands really are visible in the blind, as is the face of the bow!
We set upon an edge of an area that gives a tom plenty of room to strut. He comes into the area and usually struts or we shoot him before he has a chance too. 90% of the time when a tom has seen our decoys in the past they would hang up at 50 yds or more and only stay for a little while and move on. With no decoy to see they seem to come in and search for the hen that made the noise. We even tried one of these setups this year. A hen came in; looked at it at 35 yds and took off. Makes you think the hunts on TV where the toms are attacking and breeding decoys are tame and in a pen. I know they aren't, but 5 yrs of trying decoys has never had toms coming in and making love or fighting with my decoys.
So until the ones around here get worse eyesight or retarded our decoys stay behind.
