looking for a good source of field duck decoys. i can find lots of them on line but i was hoping to find better pricing.

You don't say what your waterfowl experience is. Decoys are expensive, used are a little less expensive. If you have a rig of floating decoys, they are perfectly fine for field use, just cut a furrow in the dirt to but the keel in and you are in business, you do not need field decoys to hunt ducks in fields.

I have tons of decoys but all floaters. Your idea on cutting out for the keel would work except the ground is frozen and we are hunting stubble fields where the decoys would not be very visable setting flat down on the ground. Guess I will have to work on a bracket or support of some type to get them up off the ground a bit so they can be seen better. Last weekend we used some old decoys without a keel but the ducks would not commit. I'm not sure they could see them.

Another alternative would be to make some mallard silhouettes out of thin plywood. As far as cutting the ditch for the keel of the floaters, use an old hatchet when the ground is frozen.

cut the bottoms out of the decoys and then buy some ground stakes(with the base) for full bodies then cut the appropriate sized whole in the decoy for the stake, the cut should be in the center of back.

That is fine for old beat up deoys thast no longer are waterproof but you do not have to put a hole in a perfectly good floater to make a field decoy out of it. Just make a cradle with wood or heavy wite with a stake attached and sit the decoy oin the cradle.

Was there any frost on the decoys? I know geese will flare off frosty decoys.