Pintail Decoys?

[Glenn W]

Next to a dozen Scaup or Redheads turning 90 degrees on their side, wings swept back and locked, and doing a flyby at 30 ft,

ain't nothing prettier that 2 dozen GW teal locking up like a swarm of bubblebees, pulling the trigger, and 5 fall to the water.

[HOLWACHAGOT]

The pintails seem to like landing in with the Geese more than any other duck I've seen. Could have been total coincidence but I have seen them land in the goose decoys fifteen times for every time I have seen them even look at a puddle ducks. What the hell do I know about ducks anyway...HOLWACHAGOT

Throw a couple Canadas off on their own and see what happens...

[Deep C]

I often set my deeks by what I see driving over local bridges or roads near water. I look for a natural type mix... I will go against the grain some days witha a couple ass to the wind birds in my main pack. I run mostly malard deeks and most of them hens in my main pack.
I only hunt duck for the week after Thanksgiving so I condense what I can into 12 short hunts basically working three river spots. One on open river and two in between islands in it.
If the season has been warm, I'll slip the teal deeks away from my mallards. I too never get the little buggers to set on them but I do like em as "confidence" decoys. I will run no more that two pintail in my spread. If you want however to get them to slam on the brakes a hooded merganser on the outskirts seems to help.
If its been cold a half dozen bluebills out and up from the malards works then two canvasbacks along the shore seems to pull a good draw...

[BTH284]

Glenn try keeping your decoys spread out more and mixed in species. I have seen all types of species decoy to all different types of other species. I have never had good luck separating species when I first started hunting.

I have noticed that if my spread is actually spread out more it looks more natural and lets ducks know everything is o.k. The reason for this theory is I did notice on a hunt a few years back was how tight ducks would group together when a hawk would scream overhead. Even had a bald eagle hunting coots one day and that eagle had a group of mallards with one redhead amongst them so tight you could not even see open water between them. I took a few things in mind that day. Tight decoys = something wrong/skiddish ducks.

I also use all types of decoys to block out areas I do not want birds to land in so it forces them to sit where I want them too.

I do like to use pintail decoys or widgeon or even some type of white accent colored divers mixed in my spread even when hunting timber, swamps etc for puddlers. It gets attention from far off birds especially on bluebird type days.

I also will go to parks, airport ponds etc and watch rafts and groups of birds to see how they are actually spread out and mingling with one another always see different species swimming and feeding with one another.

I also take into account as to what types of decoys "pressured" birds are seeing the whole way down the migration flyway. IMO mallards. So as the season progresses I will mix it up with different species as much as possible.

I would bet the reason the pintails are near the geese is that sprigs like to eat what most geese eat as well. Just my opinion.