It depends on where you hunt, the farther east you go the more blue birds you are going to see while the farther west you go the more white birds you're going to see. Eventually the blue gene will take over the flock as it is a dominant gene.

 

I do a lot of sky carp hunting in sd and my spread usually ends up being around 30%-40% blue and juvies. You may to add more if there is snow on the ground, they stand out better than an all white spread.

 

Well I just drew up our new dekes for this spring earlier today. This will be our ratios of new FB's

18 boxes of Snows
12 boxes of Blues

A box is 6 GHG pro-grades with 2 juvies in each box.

11 boxes snow feeders, 7 boxes snow uprights
7 boxes blue feeders, 5 boxes blue uprights

It makes exactly 40 percent blues and it also makes exactly 40 percent uprights. That is the ratio we chose I think it will work well.

 

Last time I tried to order the blues they were out of them and said it could take months. Are they in stock?

 

takem1, are you referring to GHG blues? I'm assuming there shouldn't be a shortage, I have a bunch so I'm assuming everyone else does.

It depends on where you hunt, the farther east you go the more blue birds you are going to see while the farther west you go the more white birds you're going to see.

My thoughts exactly

 

Chris-Yeah I tried to buy some at the beginning of season last year and couldn't get them. Are you selling them? If so, how much? Also I had kind of directed a question to you about socks vs. Fb's to see what your thoughts on the subject were. I believe if i'm on the X then the Fb's are the way. I guess my question to you is day in and day out which spread do YOU believe will be most productive and why. I know a lot will depend on numbers so let's say 1,500 windsocks vs. 500-800 fullbodies.

 

Well I just drew up our new dekes for this spring earlier today. This will be our ratios of new FB's

18 boxes of Snows
12 boxes of Blues

A box is 6 GHG pro-grades with 2 juvies in each box.

11 boxes snow feeders, 7 boxes snow uprights
7 boxes blue feeders, 5 boxes blue uprights

It makes exactly 40 percent blues and it also makes exactly 40 percent uprights. That is the ratio we chose I think it will work well.

All we need to do now is buy another two or three hundred before this fall then we'll be set. Until spring that is :lol:

 

Goosebusters2- It would be pretty neat if a few of us that have about the same amount in FB's to get together and combine the spreads. We had a guy last year that was wanting us to meet him up by Squaw but we couldn't make it there. I think it would be interesting to see what a really enormous spread of those would do.

 

I sold every one of my snow goose decoys last last year and went to SilloSocks and Deadly Decoys. Who wouldn't want a large FB spread...but for me I wanted portability, numbers, and without taking up so much room. I find myself saying this a lot, but I'm not alone in the opinion. A good testament to a decoy is when you can rarely find it in the classifieds.

 

Back t the riginal topic.... As mentined it really depends where you are hunting. The Coasts are almost all Snows. Then the western part of the Central is 95% Snows. The further east you go the more Blues, in the Central flyway. I've seen 85% blues in flocks of 1000+ in MS Flyway--likely out of Rankin Island birds which have over 2/3 Blues now. I think most guys in ND use 10 to 40% Blues.

 

Thanks guys,
I think that my percentages are about right then. I hunt in SE ND so about 40% should be good. I can always add more blues if I need to later.

What kind of numbers do you run most of the time?

Im thinking about 500 Sillosocks. I know that there isn't a magic number, but is there a point where the numbers don't justify the work you need to put in setting them up?

 

With snow geese you can always use more decoys. But it just depends on how much time you have, how many birds are in the field when scouting, and how much room and help you have setting decoys. I know 1000 is a great round number. Plus a 1000 decoys in a field looks sweet!

 

I thought I read somewhere that geneticaly, the white gene is dominant, but that the mating habits of the females is making the blue phase the dominant phase.
Whatever it is, the blue phase is dominating, so look at real flocks, and determine what percentage are blue, white, and juvenile, and match it. These guys are right, the farther west you go, the more white youll see. I would say for most of north dakota, your going to be seeing live flocks of 60% blues or higher.

Personaly i dont use any juvenile decoys, (those socks get a little dirty and look like juvies). However I do use alot of blues.

Ive often wondered what a guy could do to late spring juvie flights with all or a majority of his decoys being juveniles.