[Introduction]

0:45 How you doing? I'm Seth Bogdan and today I'm going to give you a couple of tips on how to use decoys while hunting spring turkeys that hopefully will make you more successful in the woods next spring.

1:00 First, one of the things I want to talk to you about is where I'm setting up my decoys. One of the things you might notice is, the decoy's not straight out in front of me. When I set a decoy up, I like to set the decoy up typically somewhere around a 45 degree angle, off to my right or off to my left. That way, when the bird's coming in, he's not looking right at me behind the decoy. In this case, the bird's off to straight off in the direction where the barrel is pointing. And by setting the decoy up the idea is that I'm going to draw the bird out into this opening and the focus is going to be on that decoy and not on me here on the tree.

1:45 Next, one of the things I want to talk about is the distance of the decoy from where I've set up. A lot of people like to set their decoys out at 20, 30, sometimes even 40 yards, thinking they're going to draw the birds in. I like to set my decoy out somewhere between 10-20 yards. This one here, in this case, is about 10 yards to my right. That way, the bird's going to get in nice and close. And the idea is to draw the bird in front of me for a close shot. After all, isn't that the name of the game? Getting the  birds in close so you can get a clean, humane shot on the bird.

2:27 Finally, the last thing that I want to talk to you about today is selection of what style decoy you're going to use. When I say what style, you might have noticed that I'm using a feeding decoy today, a hen decoy that's in a feeding position. You can get hen decoys in alert positions, hen decoys in ready to be mated positions, jake decoys, full strut gobbler decoys. The options are unlimited. I like, you might notice too, this is the end of the season. I like to use a more relaxed position decoy because I know the birds that I'm hunting are hard hunted birds.

I hope next time you get out in the woods that this tip helped you be more successful. Remember, good luck, hunt hard and hunt safe.