my buddy may be able to let me borrow his decoys tomarow or this week.....he has a hen and a jake...saturday i had a long beard hang up at 40yds....and a jake snuck in on us...and starred me down at 5yds away....he won the starring contest....i didnt blink for atleast a minute....he saw me blink...putted...walked away...i hit the call and he hung around a while looking at me.....but couldnt figure out what i was...the long beard hear him putt and imediatly snuck out.....so tomarow i want to head back there...and hopefully..pull the longbeard back in....and hunting a field edge a decoy should help.....i see most guys put them 20yds infront of them....i think thats wrong....i think it would be better to put them off to the side...and no more then 15yds infront of you....gets them in range...and diverts their attention to the decoy.....which is off to the side..not right at you......but....should i just use the hen?? i heard jakes scare off some birds..sometimes it makes them mad and come fighting in.....when the jake and longbeard came in saturday they both hammered off the roost...but when they hit the ground the longbeard did alllllllll the gobbling....and even strutted for 5 mins....the jake...he snuck around over a knoll in the field...and came down 10yds in the woods....and RAN after he got past the longbeard.....that made the longbeard come well within range......but i couldnt move.....i think the longbeards the boss...but dont want to scare him off....and would LOVE to just have the longbeard come in....should i just use the hen? or set the hen and jake up? or have the jake breeding the hen?? what would you do?? thanx guys

If he was traveling with a jake, then most likely he doesnt mind them, so i'd just use a hen, but you might want to have 2 hens in one area, and then have a jake off to one side and that way you can gobble to him after playing with some hen calls, to get him fired up...like for example:


..................................... you setup here
.............................../\................................../\
................................|................. ..................|
............................15yds................. ............15yds
................................|................. ..................|
...............................\/..................................\/
........Hen Decoys here <-----20 yards +/-----> Jake Decoy here

This way he has a choice and so do you.

I agree with the other post setup of decoys but what I would add is if you are right handed you should put the decoys in line with your left shoulder when you have the gun up in ready position. This makes it a little easier to shoot with out much movemnent