Every respectable wild duck hunter should have the best duck decoys available on the market. The reason for this is because the chance of catching more ducks using these decoys greatly improves if they are used properly. The main purpose of these decoys is to create a more natural looking environment which will trick the ducks to fly overhead, thinking that it is a very safe place to land, which obviously it isn’t.

In the early days of wild duck hunting, tamed ducks were used in order to attract other wild ducks towards an area with water. The pond was manufactured using a wickerwork tunnel that was very long and cone-shaped. Barriers were wisely built to hide a so-called "decoy man" from the birds which were near the pond side of the tunnel, while he was being revealed to the birds that were in the near vicinity of the trap end of the tunnel. The decoy man employed the use of a highly trained dog as well as grain in order to attract the birds towards the tunnel. The moment they have entered the tunnel, the birds slowly moved away from the decoy man towards the dog. Afterwards, the birds are driven into a small-sized trap set up at the end of the tunnel where they were killed.

In the present, wild duck decoys are actually toy decoys that are custom made at home or bought from the local hunting store. There are many widely known wild decoy manufactures: Taylor Decoys, Columbia River, E. Allen and others as well. Of course, hunters have the possibility to purchase these decoys not only from local shops but also from the Internet; some of the websites have very good prices, even better than the ones in the local shop.

In order to give your decoy spread a more natural look, it is highly advisable to use a wide variety of wild duck decoys, such as: Mallards, Canada geese, Drakes, Gadball, Ringnecks and Pintails. Placement of the decoys is critical that is why experienced hunters recommend placing them so that you create a natural and alluring environment so that the wild ducks won’t find anything suspicious. Decoys should be placed facing different directions ( to improve authenticity ) so that it won’t matter from where the ducks will come, you will have great chances nevertheless.

Choosing the most optimal wild duck hunting decoys shouldn’t be a very hard thing to do, you just have to take few things into consideration: motion- the best decoys are those that use bobbing heads and flapping wings as these look more realistic and will attract more ducks; control- decoys should simply be turned on and then left alone to do their job; another wise choice would be purchasing duck decoys that are controlled using a wireless remote control; power- power is one of the most important aspects you have to take into consideration before purchasing a duck decoy that is why hunters should always check to see how long will the battery last because a decoy with a low-life battery won’t be efficient because you would have to change the batteries very often which will scare the ducks away.

All things considered, with a little bit of research and planning every hunter will have improved chances of catching more of these birds with the use of duck decoys that are placed optimal so that they can create a natural look that will fool these birds.