If I were you I would never have tried the DSD's because they look great to me but man they must look good to the turkeys. I have never seen a hen actually strut and attack a decoy until I used a DSD hen.

The eyes have it. You can spruce up some old foam decoys with new paint, and adding some eyes. I got some from a taxidermy supply catalogue.

I re-did 2 decoys 5-6 yrs ago.

I think that stuffers are the way to go, but be careful. My gut tells me that they increase the chance of an "accident" by a lot.

I love using my DSD decoys. Thanks to JW mentioning them and posting his set up a few times. My best is the breeding jake and hen early in the season. Then I will switch to two hens with one hen being the submissive hen. I let a friend borrow my submissive hen last year after I had tagged out. He was having a hard time with a wise tom. The Tom saw the hen and slowly worked his way into it. It made his day..

For all the years I've been hunting turkeys and the number of decoys I have owned and used. My DSD still out produces fantastic results.
It's all because of the posture (design) of what Dave Smith created

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...00001522420517

This morning is the first time I have seen any turkeys. They went strolling by my house there was two big toms and six hens. That just got my blood pumping. But the US Fish and Wildlife posted a video up here yesterday on turkey management. Up here the turkeys travel a lot. One radio attached tom was recorded going 20 miles while most hens and toms recorded traveled 6 to 10 miles. I found that quite interesting and makes it easier to understand why they are so hard to try and pattern them here. I think it is because of a lack of farmland where I hunt.. I really don’t know what the answer would be. But I am hopeful that these birds will hang around until the beginning of May.. I just thought that I would throw that out there for you all.. But I do love the DSD decoys..

Do they travel that distance regularly or only certain times of the year. I know some of the areas I hunt the turkeys travel pretty far in the fall to group up some leave the farm I hunt and travel maybe 5 - 10 miles to a different area for the winter. But during the spring and summer they pretty much hang out in a small area . If they are doing that all season it is possible that they are having to move around to find different food sources. Seems odd that a hen would be travelling that far during egg laying time. I would think a tom would possible move farther if being pushed off by more dominant male birds though.

The hens will travel until they decide to nest. Then they will hang in the area of their nest. The toms appear to keep moving around a lot. In one study a hen attempted nesting three different times because each of her nest had failed. So she kept moving around and it was doubtful that her third nest made it being so late in the year..

Seems like the hens will keep trying to re-nest I have seen some very small poults in September .

Looks like the big boys are starting to get frisky lol

Either that or their natural instincts to keep a flock going is stronger than most realize..