We've been upgrading the decoys about a dozen at a time. What kind are you guys using? In our area we typically shoot mallards, wigeon, and gadwall.

Over the last 2 years we've slowly been trying to upgrade our decoys to "better" ones that aren't as beat up and have a little more realistic color.

What type of decoys would you suggest?

We already have a dozen wigeon, a pair of GHG feeder mallards, a pair of QUIVER butts (mallards), a half dozen green wing teal (old flambeaus), and about 3 dozen older flambeau mallards (bought on sale at Academy years ago).

The number that we throw out depends on the time of year, etc. but the max we typically put out would be 3 dozen at a time... but sometimes split up and hunt several spots.

Do you guys like the GHG decoys better than the Avery (final approach, I think) or the Drake waterfowl decoys? Also considering maybe adding a few standing full-body mallards to place on the bank. Would you upgrade the floaters before doing this?

**I don't plan on purchasing a whole new replacement set at once, and I would like to get a nice set that will last until I upgrade the others.

A buddy told me to hold-off on buying a dozen ghg gadwall decoys, because he said they were "dumber birds" that will decoy to anything. Any truth to this? We shoot quite a few of them over the mallard decoys now, so it makes sense. He also suggested the mallards over the widgeon to "add color to the spread." Thoughts?

I mainly use ghg or FA. Though if your going to spend the money get something that looks real and that will last. If I had the money I would buy columbia river decoys.

I'm still hunting over some 1980's G&Hs and a mix of old Flambeaus. One thing is for sure.... they just dont make decoys like they used to. Sure my old decoys are as pretty and high definition as a lot of the new ones, but they have held up over years of hunting. They've held up better than decoys that I have bought in the past couple years. Another reason I still have them, my dad passed them down to me, those decoys have seen a lot of memorable hunts.

Just googled the Columbia River Decoys and WOW. Beautiful decoys, but I think 500 dollars per dozen is out of my price range. Maybe one day?!

Get you some teal decoys. You can caryy twice as many as the bigger decoys, and everything will set with the teal. We used to hunt with mallard, pintail, gadwall and teal decoys. We would put the teal right in front of the blind, because no matter the species, everything seemed to land into the teal.

It's smaller ponds... we really don't have teal land on the tanks very often for some reason.