Goose Decoys Buyer Guide

Get those snow goose decoys ready! This year is going to be a big one.

It’s been widely reported that this goose hunting season is going to be a banner year for snow geese migrations.  Leading biologists are saying that this year’s bumper crop of snows and their blue morphs is nothing short of spectacular.

The nesting season has been a good time for the juvenile snow geese to grow up and this year could see numbers around 1.5 juveniles to every 1 adult. Juvenile snow geese are notorious for dropping in on goose decoy spreads.

As many of you know we’ve been battling for over a decade of over population of the snow goose. They’ve been over grazing so much of their feeding grounds up north while the adults are living longer.

The goslings have had a low survival rate over the past decade due to adults competing and over grazing these areas. The little ones just can’t compete with the big ones for the food. This goose hunting season is a really important one for the future of the snow geese.

If they continue to overpopulate and live longer then eventually they’re going to run out of good grazing grounds and we could see larger dangerous implications on the entire population.

It’s up to you find goose hunters out there to load up on your snow goose decoys, get those spreads ready and take as many as you legally can. I know we’ve seen special hunts for snows and other provisions to help reduce the problem.

We need more special snow hunts. We’ve got to help save this population by blasting as many of these as we can. Those juveniles are going to spend a lot of time this season in your decoy spread so get ready for it.

You’ll love the convenience and looks of this heavy duty field shell goose. They’re designed with awesome feather detail by an award winning professional wildlife carver.

This oversized decoy is 25 inches breast to tail and 12 inches wide yet a dozen make an unbelievably compact stack for easy transportation.

The life like painted head positions include 2-Sentry 2-Preener 4-Resting and 4-Semifeeder.

Durability and quality are what you get with this heavy duty snow goose field decoy. It comes from one of the most well-known and respectable brands in the goose decoy industry. The fine folks at Higdon meet high quality with affordable prices in a time when we could all use a good deal.

Higdon’s award winning wildlife carver has created perfect detail in the feathers of these oversized decoys. These snow decoys are 25 inches breast to tail and a good 12 inches wide. Don’t worry about the large size though. These dekes are compact and light. Ready for quick and easy deployment.

The life-like painted heads come in 2 sentry, 2 preener, 4 resting and 4 semi-feeder positions. You’re getting 12 high quality, durable fine goose shell decoys that are going to help you blast these record number snows without blasting your budget.

Goose flags are designed to look like a goose landing or stretching its wings. Geese do this with tremendous vigor, always quick and with fast rapid movement.

The use of goose flags is a powerful and inexpensive tool used by goose hunters to capture the attention of approaching flocks. A smart goose hunter will aggressively flag approaching flocks and use goose flags along with large decoy spread.

This Final Approach Jeff Foiles goose flag has been designed with ease-of-use and powerful grip in mind.

It’s a very affordable investment that will immediately start producing results for your goose hunting season.

The snow goose population is getting out of control and Greenhead Gear’s snow goose decoys are here to help you attract shy geese and blast them.

These shell goose decoys are made out of durable and long lasting polyethylene plastic and will hold up for many years to come.

The quality and reassurance GHG has offered goose hunters over the years shows through these great shell dekes. You get motion stakes, actives and feeders, juveniles and adults and the large 5/8th body design for luring in those shy geese.

You can trust GHG to offer exceptionally quality at the most affordable price.
 
Goose hunters know that late in the season you’re hard pressed to find any snow goose decoy shells in the outdoor stores or online.

As the season progresses you’ve got to perfect and grow your snow goose spreads in order to get these wary birds to hit your landing zone.

We’ve tested a few dozen brands and have always been impressed by GHG’s realistic 3D bodies and durable designs. This pack comes with one dozen which makes it a perfect size addition to your growing snow goose spread.

Don’t get caught this season without them. Stock up today before it’s too late!

You can’t afford to watch Canada geese fly away. The craftsmen at GHG know exactly what it takes to make a Canada goose decoy that gets you off your back and up blasting geese!

These high quality Canada goose shell decoys come in a pack of 12 with 4 Semi-Active and 4 Feeder heads to create a realistic look.

These beautiful dekes are already flocked and ready to be put out in the field.

You even get six 18″ MotionStakes to provide the movement needed to bring in those big honkers! These dekes are high quality, made by today’s top craftsmen and are the most affordable way to fill out your spread.

You’ll be stacking these goose decoy shells and blasting honkers for many years to come!

Goose hunters are always looking for more goose decoys. They’ve learned over the years that more decoys equals more success in attracting geese and ultimately taking them.

It’s Labor Day weekend and folks are starting to build their goose and duck blinds and to round up those dekes that have been in storage all spring and summer. Folks are beginning to clean them up and to start counting them.

An interesting trend has started to develop over the past couple of years. Goose hunters are turning to Craigslist to search for goose decoys for sale. They are looking for Canada goose decoys, Specklebelly goose decoys and many are looking for snow goose decoys.

Craigslist is a free online classifieds market that allows anyone to post items for sale or items they want to buy. It was once popular in only large cities but has finally stretched out and has become popular in rural areas of the United States.

Unfortunately, there are many folks who abuse Craigslist and try to take advantage of people who are just looking for a good bargain by searching for goose decoys for sale.

We always recommend that people look at buying goose decoys as a lifelong investment and to understand that what may seem like a steep upfront price for some of today’s best brands is not one at all. You’re buying the highest quality long lasting dekes that will keep working great for you over decades.

Successful waterfowlers know the Big Foot name means quality. The Floater decoy epitomizes every aspect and desire of a knowledgeable goose hunter.

Soon after bringing goose hunters the original Big Foot, hunters started asking for a floating goose decoy that had the same realism and same rugged construction. Along came the Big Foot floating goose decoys and goose hunters haven’t looked back.

These decoys feature a tough polyethylene body with a weighted keel for added stability, and insure a smooth ride in the roughest of waters. The weighted keels also make these self righting under most conditions.

Using today’s most advanced manufacturing methods the innovative folks at Real Geese have been able to replicate the most life-like goose decoys in the form of the lightweight and durable silhouette goose decoy.

You get a dozen of the highest quality silo goose decoys in 12 distinctive and different poses. These goose decoys already come with the perfect blend of active, feeders and upright standards. No need to worry about the perfect ratio in your decoy spread.

A unique feature to these decoys is the 3D effects you see when observing these decoys from a far. They come complete with legs and are approximately 15% larger than a 12 pound Honker and weigh a light 9 pounds per dozen.

Silo decoys are an excellent way to fill-in or complete your decoy spread because they are lightweight, durable and are often goose magnets since their two dimension design creates perceived motion from above.

These beautiful honkers have been crafted by world famous sculptor Doug Eck with the help of renowned honker expert Bill Saunders. This four pack of Final Approach High Definition decoys will impress hunters and lure blind shy geese.

Each Final Approach field honker is designed using compelling high-definition detail, including an incredibly detailed Sculpture Flock head, a very realistic feather texture, perfect anatomy, strikingly lifelike legs and feet, and vivid, custom-quality paint schemes.

The goose decoys also boast an industry-first Dura-Connect head attachment system, which lets you swivel the heads to different positions.

And to further bolster the realism theme, the decoys come in multiple postures: two appear to be feeding in front of them, one is tilting its head to the left, and the other is tilting its head to the right.

Click the link below to learn more about these incredible goose decoys.

Most goose hunters will tell you that transporting and setting up your hunting decoys is one of the most important and sometimes challenging parts of hunting waterfowl.

Goose hunters already are committing themselves to wake up well before dawn in freezing cold temperatures and head out into the fields or on the frigid waters. You cannot afford to waste precious hunting time transporting and setting up your goose decoys. We do this all for the lure of the big honkers.

Regardless of whether you’re taking a dozen Flambeau decoy to a rice field or four dozen Carrylite decoy to a flooded timber you’re going to need a good strategy for transporting and setting them up. Long time goose hunters have their rigging and bagging strategy down to an art form.

There are several different tools and methods of transporting your hunting decoys. The following is a list of five essential tools you’ll need to save time and successfully set up your hunting decoy spread this goose hunting season.

There was a time in my life where the thought of silhouette goose decoys made me cringe. I couldn’t see how something that was a cutout of a goose could ever be useful. I’m happy to say that those day are over and I’m now a big fan of the silhouette decoys, or silos for short.

I grew up around my father who used to hand carve goose decoys out of blocks of wood. I would help him paint them and we put a lot of time into the details of each of the feathers and the beautiful black neck of a Canada goose.

Nowadays the amount of detail and craft put into silo decoys is unbelievable. The images are the highest quality photographic reprints you’ll ever find and the new anti-glare coating virtually eliminates the possibility of shine or flare from above.

The 3D effects that are being engineered nowadays can create some three dimensional spreads that look like full bodies from afar. It’s safe to say I’m now sold on the high quality silos. They’re one of the best types of hunting decoys around today.

I recently ran across a video online where a fellow goose hunter talks about the benefits of using silo goose decoys in the snow. He makes a great point about the benefits of silos over full bodies during a snow. The reason for their advantage is that you won’t have a snow covered decoy. Silos are thin and the snow just falls all around them and never covers them.

Click the link below to see this great video.

It’s that time of year again where my fellow goose hunters are searching online for goose decoy spreads and pattern layouts for this season. I’m also doing some searching to see if I can find some informative tutorials for you so you can get some good spread ideas.

I found this video from a few years back on YouTube and I thought I would share it with you. One of the best parts of this video is when he discusses a secret tactic used by goose callers to get the geese to hit the landing zone.

I think the video is worth watching just for that one bit of advice. It involves doing something that you duck hunters would never do. You start to aggressively call the geese the closer they get to your landing zone.

Why would you do that? Well, it’s pretty simple. Geese are competitive eaters and they often can be heard honking as they fight each other over food on the ground. Aggressively calling them into landing sends a signal to them that there’s good food on the ground and the other geese are all fighting each other for it.

I recommend watching it and giving some of these tactics some thought. It may or may not apply to you but it’s always good to see different goose hunters’ point of view.

This is part of the sport that makes it very exciting. You get to apply your own strategy and thinking to the layouts and try to optimize every decoy and pose. You’re the hunter so you’ve got to study your prey and get wise to their behavior.

Most goose hunters understand that our mission here is to recreate a natural feeding spread with our goose decoys. Migratory geese are landing to stock up on food and catch some rest since they sometimes can travel up to 1000km in one day.

You’re trying to place your decoys in smaller family groups of three to seven. You can experiment with the distance between families. I think most folks get this right. They get the correct species, place them in groups of families and tinker with the distance between groups.

The next part is where I think some folks don’t do enough. It’s in choosing the appropriate number of geese poses and styles for your decoy spread.

Since the mission for migratory geese is to land to eat and rest you want to make sure that you have a large number of feeder and resters in your spreads. This is a signal to geese, whether flying very high up or coming in for a landing, that there is food on the ground and that it looks safe to land.

Geese have lookouts, or sentry geese, whose job is to keep their heads up and look out for trouble. They are going to sound the alarm if something looks dangerous and warn the others to get their heads up and get ready to fly away.

You want to make sure that you do have sentry geese in your spread. Once again these are decoys that have their head up. You may see them referred to as “standards”.

Don’t use too many “standards” or sentry goose decoys. Why? Because if you’re about to land and you see there are too many geese with their heads up then that spells trouble for you. It means something has startled them and they are getting ready to fly away.

As fall looms you’ll start to see a change in many men. The excitement of the upcoming football season and the starting of a new hunting season is a big part of this change. The discussion of life and football in the hunting blind is something you’ll find all across the United States this fall.

There’s something therapeutic about waking up before the birds and crawling into a goose blind and watching the sunrise. You hear the stillness of morning, feel the dew on your nose as you breath the freshest air of the day. You discover your mind is clear and your reflexes start to become sharper.

Ask any lifelong hunter and you’ll discover that after hunting for several years you start to see that there’s so much more to life than just your work and getting caught up in the awful rat race of our society. You begin to see and feel the beauty of life and understand that it transcends your family and kids. It goes far beyond your work and your legacy too.

Goose hunters, along with many other hunters, look forward to the upcoming goose hunting season because it’s our escape. Our place to go and feel the pulse of life and feel alive ourselves.

One of the biggest stories each football preseason is whether or not the future Hall of Fame pro football quarterback Brett Favre will return for another season. He’s gotten quite a name for himself for being a man’s man, one who hunts and clearly enjoys the peacefulness and therapy of a good morning’s hunt.

He’s forty years old and by NFL standards he should have been retired a few years. Brett is recovering from a serious ankle injury and is currently battling it this preseason. All signs suggest that he should have stayed in Mississippi this year and exchanged his cleats for his shotgun and camou.

It’s that time of year again where thousands of folks flock to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man. One of my favorite parts of Burning Man are the mutant vehicles. The amount of time and creativity that these folks put into their vehicles is awe-inspiring.

Burning Man actually has a Department of Mutant Vehicles to help facilitate the large number of mutant vehicles they have each year. There are undoubtedly some waterfowl hunters there in the mix and some of them do a great job of designing waterfowl themed mutant vehicles.

I often visit Flickr and do a search for mutant vehicles and Burning Man and discover pages of crazy vehicles. I decided to see if I could find any waterfowl themed vehicles and though I didn’t find any goose related mutant vehicles I did find plenty of duck related ones!

I suspect there are plenty more out there and I will keep my eyes peeled to see if I can discover some more and hopefully I’ll find the golden goose. The two waterfowl mutant vehicles that stuck out for me are the Disco Duck and the Duck Flambe.

It’s no secret that it can take several dozen different types of decoys to get your decoy spread the way you want it this season. A top quality decoy can last you many years and give you a solid return on your investment.

However, as we all know, building up your spread isn’t cheap. You may hunt Canada, Specklebelly and Snow geese so you need to invest in those different species of decoys; or you may prefer to be creative and purchase numerous shells, full-bodies, silos and floaters of one species so you can build out one magnificent spread.

Building your spread, or the layout of your goose decoys in the field (or water), is an art form. It’s one of my favorite parts of goose hunting and it involves you thinking like a goose and really embodying the “hunter spirit”.

You absolutely need top quality decoys and many of them, but you also need to know that you can’t just throw money at the a lot of decoys and expect magic. You’ve got to work hard, get excited about it, put on your warrior face paint and build something beautiful out there.

If you’re new to goose hunting and this is one of your first few season then I urge you to take your time and slowly build up your decoy spreads. Buy your own and buy a few dozen each year. Ask any goose hunter and they’ll tell you that if you rely on someone else to contribute to your spread each year then you’re going to end up getting burned.

Like many of my fellow hunters I spend these late summer days dreaming of fall and the winter goose hunting season. I think about those beautiful Canada geese playing up north in Canada and in parts of Alaska and how as soon as the ground starts to freeze they begin their beautiful migration south where they will inhabit the southern regions of the USA and some parts of Mexico for the winter.

It always amazes me when I hear that scientists have tracked Canada geese flying as much as 1000km in one day. They’re clearly in a rush to get away from us hunters and to get safely down south during the off season. Another very interesting fact about them is that they will only have one mate their entire life. They stick with them, migrate together and stay together.

My father used to make goose decoys and I remember while listening to him talk about how much he admired these creatures as he would carve out their neck and wings from a block of wood. I would listen to him with deep fascination at how a bird could inspire so many people to admire them and to hunt them.

Each year when I’m planning out my decoy spread I always think about him and how far we’ve come with decoy technology. I know he’d be proud to see the realism in these decoys and just how well the engineers have been able to capture the beautiful nuances of a goose.

I’m always impressed by the quality of the goose hunting tutorials you can find on YouTube. I recently discovered a short yet very informative YouTube video about goose flagging. I wanted to share it with you because flagging and calling have become important accessories to a great goose decoy spread.

The most important components of a great goose hunting trip are the location of your landing zone, location of your blind, the number and types of goose decoys that you have spread out and finally your goose calls and flagging skills come into play.

There’s been an increase in flagging tutorials and use since the mid 80s and I hope the following video can help some of our new goose hunters learn something about this useful skill.

It happens every year. My fellow goose hunters stock up on plenty of sentry, feeder and silo goose decoys but wait till late in the winter to purchase the much needed resters, also known as sleepers.

If you’ve hunted long enough you’ve probably noticed that geese love to warm up a cold hard ground by lying down and resting on it. Once the ground is warm enough they will start to feeding beneath.

It’s good sign for geese flying late in the winter that there is food below when they can see plenty of resters and feeders below. I always recommend replacing some of your sentry decoys with resters as the season winds down and the winters get harsher.

As you might expect most of the resters start disappearing off the store shelves by the beginning of January. Don’t get caught without them and go ahead and make your investment now.

I get asked every fall about the best placement of goose decoys and I always respond the same way. I say, “Mimic the natural feeding spread of a family of wild Canada Geese”.

That answer never goes over very well. I get looks of bewilderment and lots of folks scratching their heads.

Today everyone is obsessed with the latest alphabetical shape variant. This has caused an unhealthy trend in goose hunting.

I’m going to tell you something that I hope you already know, but most folks seem to have not been taught; or have simply forgotten. The shape pattern whether it be U-shape, V-shape, etc doesn’t represent a natural grazing pattern.

These letter shapes are meant to be visual diagrams for you to determine where to place your landing zone. The layout pattern such as varying distances between geese, poses, family groups and direction are far more important than being obsessed with shape layout.

A general rule of thumb to help you better prioritize your spread is to focus exclusively on your blind setup and landing zone before you even begin to setup your spread.