# spinning wing decoys



## killingtime (Apr 29, 2009)

just wanted to know what most of you think about these decoys. i was down at my cabin in arkansas this last week of season and heard that the feds are thinking about banning them nationwide. they say alot of first year birds are getting shot over them with the older birds are wise to them. we have noticed that hunting in the timber that you will be working alot of birds at once and then all the sudden a couple birds just decoy right in and the rest of the birds will leave but the ones that come right in are young birds therefore puts proof to what they are saying that too many young birds are being shot over the spinners. another reason they are trying to ban them is the birds are very wise to them and by the time they get to the south end of the flyway they have seen them from canada all the way down the flyway and are very educated by the time tey get to the south. me and my friends dont like them but i just wanted to see what everyones opinion is on them.


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## WeekendWarrior (Jan 20, 2008)

killingtime said:


> just wanted to know what most of you think about these decoys. i was down at my cabin in arkansas this last week of season and heard that the feds are thinking about banning them nationwide. they say alot of first year birds are getting shot over them with the older birds are wise to them. we have noticed that hunting in the timber that you will be working alot of birds at once and then all the sudden a couple birds just decoy right in and the rest of the birds will leave but the ones that come right in are young birds therefore puts proof to what they are saying that too many young birds are being shot over the spinners. another reason they are trying to ban them is the birds are very wise to them and by the time they get to the south end of the flyway they have seen them from canada all the way down the flyway and are very educated by the time tey get to the south. me and my friends dont like them but i just wanted to see what everyones opinion is on them.


Your post kind of contradicts itself. 1st too many young birds are being harvested, then the birds see them all the way down the flyway which equates to less birds being harvested.

I too hunt Arkansas, they are worthless in the timber. The AFG did outlaw them in Arkansas up until 2 years ago. As for my opinion on them they are great for fields, poor for lakes and marshes. If homework is done correctly, the ducks will decoy in with pop bottles as decoys.

The only movement we use in the timber is the kicking of water. Perhaps the rice fields have better success with them. My .02


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## killingtime (Apr 29, 2009)

i was trying to put a alot of information into a short post and i guess i got a little off track from what i was wanting to say. again while i was there i heard some of the reasons they are considering banning them. we dont like using them at all but when everyone around has them sometimes it dosent hurt to have a few. we most certainly do not like using them especially in the timber we just like to go use a jerk cord and kick the water also but this year they really seem to be wise this year mostly because there was not alot of migraters and we were hunting the same birds for over a month. we had alot of young birds commit but we did get our share of mature birds also. i dont care one way or another about using the spinners i just wanted to hear what other people thought about them we would just prefer not to use them. yes you can kill ducks when you do your homework correctly we even killed them in the timber with no decoys. do some scouting and find birds in the thick buck brush and set up the next day and just do a little calling and kick the water and you can put them on the water with no decoys. when they are decoy and call shy this is the best way to kill them. in the rice fields this year they were the same way you would get birds coming at you and when they got to where they could see the spinner they would flare 100 yards out. there are pros and cons with the spinners but since i dont hunt in ohio hardly anymore i was just wanting to here the opinions from guys that hunt with them here in ohio and what they think of them.


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## InlandKid (Aug 29, 2006)

I've tried them and rather use a jerk cord and three quiver magnets. I hate having to mess with the spinner when a flock of geese come in. The quiver magnets are nice because you don't have to kick the water to make your decoys move in calm water.

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## ducky152000 (Jul 20, 2005)

Any more I only use em in fields and the first week or two of season on water


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## NorthSouthOhioFisherman (May 7, 2007)

They are AWESOME in the field and have worked in the marsh too. Aren't the young birds the dumb ones that get shot no matter if there are spinning wing decoys or not? I think so! I would hate too see more regulation but what ya gunna do.


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## Mad-Eye Moody (May 27, 2008)

I'll stick my neck out....they do work, and I don't use me anymore. I tried them out, and I killed more ducks over them than I would have without. But over the last several years I have become less concerned with killing birds and dont judge the quality of the hunt by how many birds ride home with me.

By a lot of guys insist on being the rock stars of the waterfowl world and need technology to compensate for talent (I used to be one of those guys, I'm not judging) so have at it.


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## russ9054 (May 4, 2011)

They worked more when they first came out. I really don't use em anymore. If you can master the call and pay attention to detail in your spread, you really don't need em. They are good for bringing far ducks in and making take a look but if you keep it running it spooks em and if you turn it off you get a duck with a stick up its ass. In other states they work great but in ohio there's just not enough ducks and they all get used to seeing this crap. If the majority duck hunters are using the same thing ill usually stay away from it, ducks in this state get shy very easily. Lets face it, ohio sucks when it comes to ducks.

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## killingtime (Apr 29, 2009)

we have had mixed results over the last 5 years with the spinners. this year we killed over 800 ducks in public timber with the guys in our club and another 400+ in rice fields and about 70% of these birds were shot with spinners. 3 years ago when arkansas outlawed spinners we shot over a 1000 birds in the timber without spinners and over 600 in the fields also without spinners. so we have had mixed results with and without them and like i said before we would prefer to hunt without them. i dont blame anyone for wanting to use them i just thinks its fun to go hunting with decoys, your calls, and a pocket of shotgun shells and see what happens.


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## Mushijobah (May 4, 2004)

I like that idea too. Not a huge fan of over regulation but it helps us solo hunters and hunters on a budget. Saw a 5 spinner spread at Nimi this year that was literally a magnet for ducks. Our one spinner couldn't compete.


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## WeekendWarrior (Jan 20, 2008)

Our group had a decent year in Ohio this year. We harvested about 150-160 ducks mostly out of the same flooded corn field. 80% came without the use of the spinner. We actually pulled the spinner after the 2nd hunt. 1600-1800 ducks in one year? Not that I don't believe you, but the private club I hunt in Lonoke Arkansas is next to the Bayou Meto and that club manages about 400-500 on good years. 300 (full limits) is a lot of good gunnin!! That equates to 6 guys hunting 50 straight days and filling a full ticket of 6 ducks. I may need to buy into a club where your at!! With the water situation this year, I think my group in Ohio harvested more then my club in Arkansas.


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## killingtime (Apr 29, 2009)

WeekendWarrior said:


> Our group had a decent year in Ohio this year. We harvested about 150-160 ducks mostly out of the same flooded corn field. 80% came without the use of the spinner. We actually pulled the spinner after the 2nd hunt. 1600-1800 ducks in one year? Not that I don't believe you, but the private club I hunt in Lonoke Arkansas is next to the Bayou Meto and that club manages about 400-500 on good years. 300 (full limits) is a lot of good gunnin!! That equates to 6 guys hunting 50 straight days and filling a full ticket of 6 ducks. I may need to buy into a club where your at!! With the water situation this year, I think my group in Ohio harvested more then my club in Arkansas.


alot of the birds didnt make it to bayou meto until the last couple weeks of season this year. they just never got any snow to get the big push of ducks they needed. there are atleast 5-7 guys that hunt atleast 50 days a year. most of them are local guys that hunt until noon everyday and then go to work. first 3 weeks of the second season they shot almost 400 of them birds when they got alot of rain during the split and some new area flooded and a decent push of birds made it down. when we have birds located good sometimes we will have 10-15 guys hunting that spot until it runs its course and by then we have birds found in another spot. we are always scouting in the afternoons to find new birds to shoot the next day. everyone really puts in the time and effort to have good hunts. this past week we didnt shoot alot of ducks but we put the goose spreads out and did really good on the snows and specks and we did shoot 1 banded bull pintail this past week. i am not much for snow geese but when they decoy right in and land next to your coffin blind it gets a little exciting. we hunt the dave donaldson wma around delaplaine arkansas. me and my buddy that lives in paragould went halves on a cabin in delaplaine and started our little club where everybody gets along and does there part to help. we also have 8 members from out of state that hunts the fields only and they do real well. in the timber we also shoot alot of teal along with the mallards and some gadwall and some other oddballs to help out with 6 bird limits and not just a 4 mallard limit. 3 days in row 6 guys limited on teal in the timber without 1 mallard being shot so thats how the numbers get high at times.


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## WeekendWarrior (Jan 20, 2008)

Trust me, I wasn't doubting your #'s at all. That's just some real serious gunning! I have made the voyage to Arkansas many times over the past 5 years, I know how crazy the duck #'s are. The club I have a standing invite for has 400 acres of flooded timber and they only rotate 3 holes. Heading into the timber their is a slough that get's rested until the last part of the season. Fortunately, the neighboring clubs allow for hunt swaps to allow certain sections of the area to rest at the appropriate times. My Arkansas group is not big into rice field hunting. As many times as I have gone, I have begged to get into a sink blind. Only to be told NO WAY  

This year the water at the club went from nothing to 60 inches over the Thanksgiving weekend. The amount of water in Stuttgart/Lonoke County was out of control. The river bottoms of the Cache and White were the areas holding the ducks. If you were remotely close to those areas, I guaranteed you banged them good!!


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## killingtime (Apr 29, 2009)

the cache runs about a mile from our cabin and when it gets out of its banks we usually have alot of ducks. the black river runs right through the wma we hunt. back about 7 years ago we hit a 2 year span where we couldnt shoot hardly a 100 ducks a year it was so bad. i have seen it great and i have seen it poor but them ducks that come in the timber is what keeps me coming back. let me know when you get down that way WW and maybe you can swing by and hunt a day or 2.


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