natimage

What should I use to decoy late season birds? I'll probably be hunting a well travelled feeding area and maybe a little right off the roost in the morning. I have one jake and one hen...should I use them both, only the jake, only the hen?

Thanks!

Matchbook454

Look at the pics in some of my recent posts! Mounted hen decoys. I will not use a Tom or Jake decoy. Do they work - at times yes, and at other times no. I believe that mounted hens will work 99.9% of the time.

IL-Cornfed

I've found that Hens generally get Toms to stall and hold tight.... they KNOW that the laws of nature will attract and lure the lone Hens to him.... thats what all the gobbling and strutting is about. To reverse this law of nature is often times very rare or just very lucky.

By adding the male decoys, you add some competition and make the Gobbler feel that he needs to step up his game to get the Hen before another suitor breeds her.

My best results, and the same decoy spread that put half a dozen Gobblers down for us this season (all killed from 6 to 18 yards), was a upright Hen with a semi-strut Jake and a full strutter. Every bird came in, circled the Jake a few times and then moved on to the Stutter to face it.

deerdust

IL-Cornfed has the right idea. In most cases, having a tom or jake will help bring in your prospective quarry. There will always be instances, where having any male decoy may scare off the tom you want to come in. When a tom is coming in, the more eyes he sees are there to watch for predators, the more comfortable he will feel. I generally put out 3 hen and 1 jake decoy.