need decoy help... now

[tomtaker123]

ok so this is my third year of turkey hunting and i am going for my last youth hunt in a few weeks. i have a feeding hen, a semi alert hen, an alert hen, two alert jakes, and a strutting tom. sense the youth season is 2 weeks early this year and the birds should be in prime mating season on opening day. what should i put out? i was thinking that i should put a jake fan on my strutter and fold his beard and take a red sharpie to his head. but allong with him hoe many hens should i put out? i was thinkin the strutting jake with a feeding hen and a alert hen, with a jake of 15 yards to the side, is that too much? please help me out. im not going no decoy because i havnt had luck like that in the past.

[cornfedkiller]

Personally Ive had success with a jake (both regular jakes and strutters with jake fans - and better luck with strutters with jake fans) and two hens.  This season I will only be using one hen, but just because thats all I have for this season.  If I were you, I would use the strutter with a jake fan, face him towards you, and then put then feeding hen broadside to the strutter, between you and him, and the semi-alert hen off to the side.  I would be careful using an alert hen because toms tend to hang up if they think a hen is alerted by something..

[tomtaker123]

how do i get them to stay facing one way? my dekes always spin allot.

[mountman62]

to keep them loooking in one direction with a little movement, just break off some sticks and place one on each side of the tail so that it can move some in the wind but not spin around

[tomtaker123]

^ perfect, thanks for the help guys.

[matchbook454]

Personally Ive had success with a jake (both regular jakes and strutters with jake fans - and better luck with strutters with jake fans) and two hens.  This season I will only be using one hen, but just because thats all I have for this season.  If I were you, I would use the strutter with a jake fan, face him towards you, and then put then feeding hen broadside to the strutter, between you and him, and the semi-alert hen off to the side.  I would be careful using an alert hen because toms tend to hang up if they think a hen is alerted by something..

The decoy manufacturers might label them as "Alert" hens but I label my mounted decoys as "Yelpers".  What do think that hen looks like when she is calling to that tom?  I run 3 mounted hens - a feeder in front, a Yelper in the middle, and a relaxed hen in the back.  ( out of 10 times the tom goes to the yelper.

Since you have several hens  as well as Tom or Jake decoys I'd put a relaxed hen in front of the Jake or Tom and would bet that the tom will go to the Jake or Tom Decoy.  Don't worry at all about having an alert hen decoy.

[glennz]

Jake over submissive hen, feeder off to left, looker off to right