Anybody have advice about adding hens of other species to their early teal spread. It kills be to buy a bunch of teal decoys for just a couple weeks out of the year. Lots of hens (mallards, gadwalls, etc...) resemble the early season teal....I figure they must work just as well. Any input?

I use teal decoys for more than just early teal season.. Sometimes they're all I use later in the year where I hunt..

Yep, they work. Comparitevly speaking, they aren't hunted as much as others so they are easy to decoy. Not much science to it.

Early season teal hunting is mainly being on the x in my opinion though. If you are where they want to be you can kill em with coot decoys.

Some people add a large blue patch to mallard hen wings to simulate a large blue-wing decoy.

really doesn't make a difference...I use alot of brown decoys but havent noticed any difference when I use drakes...stick a mojo in the mud, they'll come.

Also curious why you don't use teal decoys during regular season? I have more teal decoys than anything else...they're always used.

For teal season, I throw out about a dozen teal decoys and maybe 2 or 3 black duck decoys. And a mojo or 2. Then sit back and get your 4 birds.

I will mix in hens of various other ducks with the teal dekes.

The bulk of my teal spread used to be mostly mallard hens, wood duck hens, and gadwall hens with the few teal decoys I have. But I don't use my teal decoys during teal season anymore. They are for filler during big duck season. Last year I dug out my old flambeau Mallard hens, some I had used 30 years ago. I painted big blue patches on the shoulders to turn them into magnum teal. Unnatural for resting teal, but I wanted to focus on a long distance visual effect to make them stand out. As well they have unweighted keels so they are light to transport on my back or in my kayak. It worked so well I dug out more old decoys to splash some blue on this year to add to the teal kit. But really any decoys will attrack teal. You could have all mallard drakes and they would land in them.

teal are dumb, any decoy works

They're suckers for any decoy species actually.

I have Two dozen GW Teal hens I use. I also put 4 mallards hens out also.

^^^ you have a gap you need to fill!!!!

need some shovelers for that gap!

Ha Ha G&H dont make a shoveler.

I think more curious than anything else.

Teal love a little spoon action.

I place teal on one side and spoonies on the other, bluewings always prefer the spoon-side. Green wings will go either way.

That's what I heard too.

The secret is a robo-DOVE. Something about the faster moving wings drives teal crazy.

I like to have a dozen pintail decoys out (for the white) that way the birds can see the decoys further away...

I typically use 2-5 dozen Teal decoys!

Seems to work good for me...

J.J.

I use hen trumpeter swan decoys and a crow mojo

wont make much of a difference on what kind of decoys you use, be where those teal wanna be or where they can see the mojo an you ought to be fine.

MUST HAVE DECOY

If I couldn't hunt with one I would probably just sleep in. Don't forget to stock up on teal tags too

All you need is a mojo. Throw out some rubber duckies if that makes you feel better.

Stick 4 mojo dove about 4 inches over the water and get ready

damnit judd you beat me to it!