Hello,

I normally hunt public land on the coast bc it is drivable from Houston (Mad Island, Justin Hurst, ECT.) All I see down there is teal, spoonies (shovelers), coots, the occasional pintail, and even more occasional gadwall. I have about 5 teal deeks, 7 pintail deeks, 7 scaup deeks, 4 mallards I have painted to look like coots, and a bunch of mallard drakes and hens (2 dozen). I have gotten by the past few seasons using just my pintail, scaup, teal and coot deeks. So I have a spread of about 2 dozen and the 2 dozens mallards sit in my garage

I havent used my mallard deeks bc there are no mallards there. Should I include them in my spread anyway? I assume birds know what is in the area and mallards may seem unrealistic. But some folks say just use them anyway and even old soda bottles painted black/white work.

I dont have enough posts to be able to post on THF to swap my mallard deeks for teal or shoveler deeks or sell them on here but may try facebook market place. Any advice? Should I use them? or head to facebook to swap/sell? Will they work in an area with no mallards?

You can throw them out. Species doesn't matter.

Of the species you mention, only pintails are picky about what they decoy to, at least in north Texas. From what I hear, for some odd reason pintails turn dumb when they get to the coast. But when I first started duck hunting, I never shot any pintails, for a few years. Then I found 1 pintail deek, added that to my small spread, and immediately started shooting pintails.

Add the mallard hens. I typically used all gadwall, teal, and hen mallard decoys until I started seeing mallards later in the season that had migrated then I’d throw in some mallard drakes.

I grew up hunting those areas and we put out all species of decoys. Never made a difference in what worked. You are fine using them. In some cases, more the better.

We hunted years ago at San Bernard NWR and they left decoys out all season and most of the were mallards, we shot ducks mostly teal and shovelers...

Depending on what you’re hunting… Bigger water and the species out there. If you’re seeing big groups, you need a big spread small groups on the water. Small spread have plenty of motion and don’t set up everything in one blob.

The more ripple typically the better

Black jugs added always helped. Cheap way to expand your spread and work just as well.

If you have to choose, Coots and more Coot decoys. They are the best.

I have been painting and flocking my decoys for over 20 years. Every off-season I restore them during the summer months. Decoys can take a beaten during the grind. Most important to me is a realistic spread and being concealed.

I’m currently finishing up fully re-flocking on a dozen pintail drakes. I have the black and white to complete and they really make a difference with spread.

I guided on the coast (corpus area) for almost a decade. I found most ducks would decoy to basically anything that resembled a duck. Location plays a MUCH larger role in my opinion. A diver is already going to be looking for a certain area and so will a teal, widgeon, etc.

Like what was said above, pins are picky. The best thing I ever spent money on was half a dozen full body pintail decoys. I would put them in the sheet water close to the bank within shooting distance of the boat blind. Those things were pintail magnets. I also had a couple full bodied black duck decoys that doubled as Mottled ducks. Most ducks on the coast tend to relax if they see a pair of mottles on the bank.

just my two cents.

I guided in Paris TX for 17 years, we hunt timber, wetlands, and open water. We hunt North Texas, Arkansas and Missouri boot heel. Full Bodies are great to have with a variety of floaters, as mentioned depends where your located. Keeping your decoys in good shape will bring success along with calling the right note to them birds.

Puddle ducks feed with puddle ducks and divers feed with divers. They may all roost together but if you hunt them where they roost you will blow them out of that roost and they will leave. Unwillingness to respect traditional roosts by the new breed of waterfowlers probably has more to do with sporadic hunting on public access than any other factor. Lots of idgets today that have no problem with blowing the birds out of a marsh system for everyone for a couple good shoots. These are the same guys that bemoan how refuges that set aside roost areas have birds all year and blame du for their poor hunting after they blow them out of the roosts where they hunt. Rant over. Back on topic. Your Mallard decoys will work just fine. Especially if you have a lot of birds in the area and need a bigger spread. Pintail are picky about habitat. In the right habitat the feed right alongside other puddle ducks. Their affinity for the right habitat is a big part of why their numbers remain low as well as why certain places always have them. Greek laid it out pretty straight.

I've never seen a difference in what species you use. I've always used 6 teal and 6 whatever..nowadays it's gadwalls. Hunting public land, the ducks going to come in or not. They don't have enough time to circle around and look at your decoys before someone shoots and scares them away.

Decoy spread will stand out with a mix. Not only Pintails committing to spread but trick them Gadwalls too

We set up 8/9 dozen on public water. Saturday morning will have big spread