Add some realism to your decoy!

[mainebowhunter]

I don't really do much turkey hunting anymore. I used to go at it pretty hard. Did a lot of "bowing and running". In order to really get drawn, I needed the tom to strut/attack my decoy. And did they ever!

Here is an idea to add even more realism to your turkey decoy. Works fantastic.

I used to hunt with a real stuffed tom. But it was really kind big for bowing and running. So I took a decoy with a real looking head, dried wings from bird I killed, dried a saddle and stuck them on. The wings are zip tied on and the saddle is glued on. I took an arrow and threaded a bolt into the insert which keeps the arrow attached to the turkey at all times. Attached a string to sling over my shoulder and really works well.

I know here in Maine, we really struggled with archery gear getting the turkeys to commit. Once we started using the more realistic turkeys with real feathers, our success rates rocketed.

This bird is pretty beat up. I have lugged this thing for miles and miles through the brush, needs a rebuild. But the beauty of it is, kill a bird, dry the wings and rebuilt it. Takes 2 seconds to put a new fan in. Zip tie on some new wings, glue on a new saddle and your ready to go.

[Ack]

Nice. I hot glued feathers over my entire strutter years ago and it has been, without a doubt, the best mid I've ever done to increase success.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[wiscoz7]

I do the same thing Ack... It increased my success tremendously. They usually come right in and attack my strutter with the real feathers. This year my bird came in and beat the snot out of my decoy. It completely knocked the wing feathers off, so now the bully tom has graciously donated his wing feathers to my decoy!!

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[mainebowhunter]

Honestly, I could never figure out how guys on TV were doing so well with the Pretty Boy. We would try it here in the Northeast and have 0 success with it. Birds just really did not like it. I watch the Primos guys using the b-mobile and dekes like that...just never get the same response. That is until we started using real stuff birds and dekes with feathers on them. The difference was night and day.

Its also interesting, I owned a real stuffed hen and tried that one year. One of my buddies, swears by it. I gave it a whirl. It worked..but not nearly as well as a tom. When you are bowing and running in the woods, its really critical to have pinpoint accuracy with the toms approach to the decoy. With a hen, I would be kneeling behind a tree, bird would come in and strut for the hen. However, he would strut, 5yds away from her where I could not shoot. So went back to a male bird setup. Since toms will try and smash the decoy, it puts the bird right where I need it to shoot.