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Best Tactics for Using Turkey Decoys

Your turkey hunting season is quickly approaching. If you’re new to the sport — or even if you have a few seasons under your belt — the question becomes: Use decoys … Or not? Three veteran turkey hunters offer advice on how to answer this age-old dilemma.

By Scott Bestul

Despite an impressive upgrade in the availability and realism of modern turkey decoys, I remain conflicted about using them. For starters, the older I get the simpler I like my hunting gear to be. I’m always trying to trim down the “stuff” I carry, and decoys are an easy choice for my leave-it-at-home list. And like many hunters, I’ve had gobblers that were coming in nicely … until they spotted my fake and thought better of things.

The Avian-X jake and hen pair are about as lifelike as it gets when it comes to turkey decoys.

But, of course, any conflict has a flip side. I’ve also had decoys that absolutely, totally, and without question, were the deal-sealers on a gobbler. I’ve watched toms run 400 yards to stomp on a fake strutter, had gobblers attempt to breed even a ho-hum-looking hen, and witnessed more interesting turkey behavior as hens, jakes and longbeards toyed with my staked-out phonies. In each case, I was grateful I’d exerted the extra effort to tote and deploy my decoys.

THE BIG DILEMMA

So I’ve had a mixed bag of results and I think I have plenty of company. It’s little wonder why modern turkey hunters can feel conflicted about using decoys. If they’re gonna work, we want ’em as badly as a hot call and Hevi-Shot. If they ain’t, they’re not worth the vest space. What are the solutions? Though decoys obviously work, what can hunters do to eliminate the snafus associated with them? Should they consider them mandatory gear, or tote them only when chasing naïve gobblers? For answers, I turned to a pair of top turkey hunters. Their recommendations provide solid advice for when, where and how to deploy dekes.

DEPLOYMENT DO’S AND DON’TS

Tennessee gobbler guru Gary Sefton is a true student of turkey behavior. He’s continually analyzing why gobblers do what they do, and he’s got decades of encounters from which to formulate theories. When I asked him for his thoughts on how gobblers respond to decoys, he offered some interesting opinions. “Ideally, if you’re able to set up right, you don’t even need a decoy,” Sefton said. “But that ideal setup can be hard to come by. I like to be in the hardwoods, and to be near a dogleg in a logging road or just back from the crest of a hill. That way, the first time I see a gobbler, he’s in gun range and I can kill him.

Of course, finding those setups, or having the time to get to them, isn’t always possible. That’s when a decoy can really help you.” Sefton prefers open timber or field edges for decoy setups. “When you’re hunting a field, especially, you need something to make your setup better than the hundred other places a turkey can go,” he said. “I believe that a decoy closes the information gap for a turkey coming to a call. He’s heard a hen, now he sees it, and now he has a reason to come.

I believe that’s why a lot of gobblers hang up; they need a visual to complete the equation for them. If they don’t see a hen, they become confused. People think that gobblers hang up because they’re being cautious. I don’t believe they’re that smart, most of the time. They’re just highly programmed.”

Sefton’s comments took on particular depth after my friend Dean placed his full-strut decoy on a recent morning hunt. Dean set up in the corner of a field that abutted an oak ridge where we’d heard a gobbler the previous two days. Like proverbial clockwork, the tom roosted on the ridge and headed toward the field after fly-down, gobbling to Dean’s call. “But the minute he spotted that deke, he folded up and left,” my friend lamented. While Dean blamed the decoy for his failure, the more we discussed the details of the hunt, it became clear that the setup — not the fake — was probably to blame. My friend had placed the decoy near heavy gooseberry brush, and the real turkey didn’t spot it until it was 15 steps away.

Since Dean had not mimicked any gobbler talk as he worked his bird, the turkey was clearly surprised to see a rival gobbler as he approached. Even worse, the screening brush didn’t allow him time to size up the bird. Sefton believes situations such as this are a classic case of mislaying the blame.

“Sometimes, even when everything looks right to you, it doesn’t look right to a turkey,” he said. “There are simply some places where a turkey doesn’t like to walk, and you might be sitting in one. You can even experience different reactions from the same bird from day to day. One day you might be working a gobbler that’s been dealing with another tom infringing on his territory and he won’t come in. Come back a few days later, and the situation has changed completely.”

Ever the pragmatist, Sefton feels that there are no easy answers to the “when do decoys work?” question. “There are situations when they do, and others where they don’t,” he laughed. “The main thing for hunters to remember is that regardless of how they respond, turkeys are just being turkeys; they’re never holding a grudge or picking on you!”

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