spinners — whos using them?

no its not a fishing post…

with sunday marking the first day of being able to use spinning wing deeks here in mN. i was wondering if anyone else still uses them and what setup have you found successful.

i have 2, a baby mojo (drake) and a mojo teal. i try to put the baby about 6-12″ off the water on the edge of our clump of mallard deeks, and the teal on the other side of my landing spread about 2′ in the air off our woodie spread.

so far its worked out well for us. we are able to get a lot more birds checking out our spread vs the rest of the competition on the lake.

best story i have from that is from a couple years ago. only had the baby mojo and it was just winding away. saw a small flock of teal buzzing everyone’s spread. some guys called, some guys just sat there, we saw them fly by all of them. as they were about to land in a spread 200 yds from us, they locked up and went in. all of a sudden they flared, and b-lined it right to the mojo and locked up on it. of the 6 that dropped in, only 2 flew away.

we had a blast and from then on, we swore to slow down our calling and let the spinner do the work for us. wish i had a pic to share of this, ill try to get some pics of our spread for ya this weekend. just got a new camera and want to take it through the paces.

good luck guys, and knock em down!

First two years they were out, they were like a tractor beam from Star Wars, just drew the birds in on a string. Nowadays, seems like it’s about 50-50, some days they really work well, and some days you need to pull them out to ge the birds to commit.

Moss Boss nailed it! I have 4 of them in the shed that havent moved in 2 years. When they first came out they were like magnets to young mallards and hens but never to the exotics such as pintails or cans.We dont use them because of the number of birds that they were flaring. If I get some low cloud cover next week I will give them a try in the flooded beans, but if its sunny I wont put them out. My spread is all magnum sized coy 16 geese 12 malladrs including butts, feeders, sleepers, and resters also a half dozen Pintails some teal and a few widgon and Gadwall. I will say the best luck I have had is from a robo in about 20 full body goose coy in a corn feild.

I think they work better field hunting then they do over water. But then again it just depends on the day. Won’t have it out this weekend.

I agree that when they came out the ducks couldn’t get enough of them, but now it’s hit or miss.

What I’ve found though is that it is not day dependent, if the birds are flaring its because of a glitch in the setup, either the mojo or other dekes. I always try moving the mojo if I’m getting too much flaring.

The water I hunt happens to be a decent size creek. 40-50 yards wide. My experience with the mojo is that it needs to be set up parallel with the creek, regardless of how the wind is blowing.

Good luck!

Eric

Not always, but we’ll use up to 4 in certain situations. They get pulled in a hurry if birds aren’t working.

There are definitely days they still make a big difference.

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I have 4 of them in the shed that havent moved in 2 years.

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want to get rid of them?

maybe a few times late in the season i will pull them out of the spread, but i always run 1 to 2 spinners if i’m hunting an area that i need to attract birds from long distances. when hunting small backwater ponds and sloughs, you usually don’t need them, the birds want to go back to those places already.

but, when you’re hunting migrating birds, i want as many decoys as i can put out, and as much motion as possible.

once the birds start responding to calls a little better and decoying better in the next week or so, when hunting staging areas, and migration paths, i will usually put out 100+ decoys minimum, 2-4 spinners, mallard machine, and bilge butts.

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, and bilge butts.

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what brand do you use, and do they work in real shallow water?

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, and bilge butts.

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what brand do you use, and do they work in real shallow water?

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build my own.

I think everyone has pointed out the pros and cons very well on the subject. The only thing I would add is adjusting the height you set your spinners at. I start at 2 feet, and depending on the amount and type of vegetation I’m working, I have had it set up as high as 6 feet. This required a piece of black pvc with a camo paint job on it, but it worked.

The mention of motion was key in one earlier post. Spinners are at times the magnet, but other times not. But what has been effective for years and is ‘almost’ a lost art of decoying is the use of the ‘jerk string’ to give motion in your spread. Ducks get excited when other ducks are calling, and that motion is ‘life’ in your set up. It’ll bring in more ducks. It can be a hassle, but it makes a difference when other things fail…

Awesome photo flatfish!

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, and bilge butts.

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what brand do you use, and do they work in real shallow water?

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build my own.

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x2, look for those cheap atwood disposables.. those seem to be best for me.

wire in a flasher and its a great lil setup to add motion to a dead spread.

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wire in a flasher and its a great lil setup to add motion to a dead spread.

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what exactly is that?

a flasher relay is what you use on your turn signals in your vehicle. it adds a different presentation when you can start and stop your duck butt.

kinda like this one.

Brad J.
Thanks, it was wet as you can see but that was my first outing and ‘if’ I could hit anything, I should have had my 6 limit> I sucked at shooting.

I actually broke some shore line ice last Sunday morning while duck hunting…it’s to damn early for that!