Surefire Duck Spreads

I shot my first duck in 1974, a waiting to grow up kid in a too-big canvas coat toting a too-big--or at least it was at that time--Winchester Model 24 16-gauge side-by-side. It was a hen mallard, a one-legged hen mallard at that, which collided with my hastily thrown charge of hand-loaded #5 lead shot. To tell you the truth, I don't know who was more surprised--me, my Old Man, or that very first duck.

Back then in Bob Wolfe's Swamp, we didn't use decoys. "Don't need 'em," the Old Man would say. "The ducks are either coming here or they're not." Most evenings, the wood ducks and mallards, with a sprinkling of blue-wing teal early and green-wings later, would make an appearance; all sans decoys. The C-Pattern and the Fishhook Pattern, jerk cords and battery-powered mallards with LED lights; hell, they were all as foreign to me as was molecular quantum physics.

Three and one-half decades later, though, it's not that way anymore. Decoys have become as much a part of my personal duck hunting exploits as has my shotgun, chest waders, and female black lab named Jet. Over the past 35 years, I, like so many of my 'fowling brethren, have become a student of decoys and aspire, with each outing, to set my plastics just a little bit better; a bit more effectively, than I did the last time. I search, as do others, for the ultimate deception; the Holy Grail of decoy spreads. For the precise combination of placement, species, gender, movement, and variables infinitum which produces results day in and day out.

Does such the perfect decoy spread exist? Sadly, it does not; however, lest ye give up hope, permit me to quantify my comment. While there is no single universally productive duck spread, there are a handful of rigs which have proven themselves over the years and across the country, irregardless of the situation, weather variables or location. One of these spreads, combined with in-depth scouting, emphasized concealment, and competent calling--or no calling at all, if the case warrants such--should result in birds on the strap.

Duck Decoys: A Primer
Before we get into the specifics of the spreads themselves, let's talk briefly about duck decoys in general. Let's start with a question I've heard many times at the close of my waterfowl seminars--is it possible to use duck decoys incorrectly?

"Technically, yes and no," said Travis Mueller, Iowa-based Territory Manager for Avery Outdoors, and one of the finest waterfowlers with whom I've had the pleasure of hunting. "Often, decoys are a scapegoat for the guy who didn't properly blind his boat or didn't incorporate movement into his spread. It's not what he did, but rather what he didn't do. This guy," Mueller continued, "sets his spread too close to this same poorly camouflaged blind, so in essence--yes, he set the decoys incorrectly, so to speak. However, with puddle ducks, it's tough to place realistic-looking decoys in such a way that they're in and of themselves detrimental to the hunt. Of course," he laughed, "you could leave them upside down or half submerged. I've seen that before, and that, generally speaking, is the wrong thing to do."

With today's choice among realistic decoys, including such variables as species, poses, and sizes, being almost without number, is having the most lifelike spread on the water a viable factor in the equation known as success?