Puddle duck spread question

Coots

 

this is a typical mix for my rice field sets

 

I think Mallards and Sprigs are the exception. Sure, you can kill just about any duck over mallard decoys, but I'm not sure you can consistently draw big flocks of mallards to an all teal spread, or an all gadwall spread. Likewise, if you want to consistently finish pintails, you better have a few sprig in your set.

A few of my spots are located adjacent to big reservoirs that are rest areas. For the most part, I try to mimic what is sitting on them.

 

We're all saying it doesn't matter. You can run diver decoys in a cornfield pond to shoot pintails and mallards. The was a thread in the main forum where a guy was using 2 liter bottles spray painted black and landing birds in them. Don't over think it, buy a bunch of used decoys and throw them out.

 

Pintails will decoy to anything with a little white on it, drake spoonies, drake buffleheads, goldeneyes, bluebills. Mix them in with the rest of the spread and you're in business. Where most people screw up with pintails is by not knowing how they work, they can fly away and show up several mins later to circle and do a kamikaze run.