you can kill birds over 250-400 decoys if you can position yourself in an area with multiple roosts. Tougher to pull migrators over a spread like that, but that many decoys on a pasture pond or cornfield sheet water set can pull those high fliers some days. Last spring our first set was on a pasture pond during the lead edge of the migration and 2 of us shot 36 or 37 birds in 1 afternoon and the following full day of hunting.
The more decoys the better though. You can get 44 dozen skyfly socks for $1500. 50 dozen econo sillosocks can be had for under $1700.
As far as pressure goes, there’s more and more every year in SD. with 65+ outfitters, along with resident and non resident freelance hunters, the flightlines can get a little crowded. I’ve started to hunt an area that sees less birds and less pressure, mainly hunting traffic/migrators on the same 2 or 3 farms all spring.
Everybody and their mother “waits” and scouts juvy feeds now days. I was caller number 14 on a feed last spring and the land owner chewed my ass on the phone for 5 minutes for bothering him. I do most of my hunting now during the main migration, content to pick away at adult birds hanging at 50 yards over the spread, with the occasional nice flock finishing right to the guns.
If you are thinking about booking a guide, book for the whole trip. typically on a 3 or 4 day hunt, you’ll have one good shoot, a few so/so shoots, and probably get skunked or shoot 0.5 birds per gun one day. Spend the hunts talking with the guide, asking questions, see if this is really something you want to invest thousands of dollars into doing the following years. Or, conversely, just buy a pile of decoys and give it a shot. You can alway communicate with other hunters via social media to combine spreads and maybe pick up some new tips & techniques.
