Whiteface vs red-faced decoys?? What's your preference?

[whitetaildonky]

With all the decoys on the market, for those of you who use decoys, anyone have any preference of a male decoy being more white in the head than red? Or specifically had better success rates with one or the other?

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[simpzenith]

Based on my experience with a tame, "wild turkey" gobbler, red is the color that will trigger an aggressive response the best. Whenever I wore a red shirt in the yard, he would haul butt over there to attack me. Any other shirt, he didn't seem to care.

[ChiefBubba]

There's a thread on here someplace about this very thing. Someone paints all there gobbler decoys white. I tried to search for it but couldn't find it. Bubba

[MK M GOBL]

Well I can give you 20 years of experience with a "White Head" I designed/developed this back in 1999. I have upgraded decoys over the years from old foam body Feather Flex up to my latest DSD Jake Strutter that I "Gobblerized" and added my White Headed design to.

Here's a link to the DSD post and a lot of "How to Hunt Decoys Right" in there too.
http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,70971.0.html

I also have a story on the why and how the White Head came to be. I'll post here too.


MK M GOBL

[MK M GOBL]

Time for an update, It's seems my "secrets" out, I have had a number of questions here and elsewhere about the "White Headed" Gobbler Decoys I designed/ developed back in 1999 and how he came to be. And like most things there is a story to how this came about. Recently the questions have been with the DSD Strutter I use, he has been a progression of decoys I have used over the years and I made my first White Headed "DSD" Strutter back in 2012, I have made and sold a number of these, I have given many seminars on the subject and have 18 years of in the field use with this design.

Here are a few pics that have been requested on how I have "painted" my DSD's, as you can see the head is an overall white with redish/pink coloration in the head and neck. The reasoning behind this is taking the strutter out of "Fight" mode and putting him in to "Breeding" mode, even with this being the most dominant (Alpha) stage it is not an intimidation to other birds jakes and toms alike. All birds will come to a decoy at this stage, some to fight yes if they are the (Alpha) but Betas, Omegas and even the jakes will come to him. There is a lot that goes in to this and how to hunt a Strutter "right" and decoys in general.

The pics are of the DSD Strutter, I have made several upgrades to him. I also added some closeups of the head and neck and how I paint these. It is a pretty easy upgrade, I use just regular bottle of "White Out" with a foam tipped applicator.

If you have questions feel free to ask or PM me on this.

MK M GOBL

[Dtrkyman]

Ever try the white head on a jake?

[MK M GOBL]

Nope, doesn't fit my hunt, I use a jake as a sub in my sets (with strutter) I want the "red" on him for this. I hunt the Strutter as the Alpha, in the White Head design he is at "breeding" stage not fight mode.


MK M GOBL

[MK M GOBL]

My Story with the White Headed Gobbler (it's a read)

Here is my story with the White Headed Gobbler and this starts back in the early 1990's when I first started turkey hunting, I originally had a H.S. Motion Hen decoy and a few years after that time I had purchased the Feather Flex hen decoys and a jake decoy called Bubba. I hunted these new decoys and had some good results and had a few toms that took to beating on my jake decoy.  Over the next couple of seasons I seen some of the same results and in 1997 Bubba took the worst beat down he had seen and the foam body was torn. After seeing how toms responded to the jake decoy I decided to buy another, I also found that Feather Flex made a full strut jake decoy called Tommy and bought him as well. The next year I am using the new strutter decoy and he gets beat and beat bad, a tom had done some damage to the decoy and the foam fan was torn and pulled from the body and in need of repair.

So here we are in 1999 and as they say necessity is the mother of invention and a little ingenuity. As I started with the repair of the decoy I needed to replace the "foam" fan for the decoy. I had several fans from birds I killed and was able to cut the back of the decoy and fit the real fan to it, and it looked good! I the thought about what else I could do to improve the decoy. So one thing I was thinking was that both of my "jake" decoys had red colored necks and just a white top on the head. Now part of this goes back to the farm turkeys we had raised and I studied and learned from and what I learned about the head color of the toms, and when they were showing dominance at that fight stage and that the head/neck was predominantly "Red" at this point, and when the tom (dominant) went to breed his hen his head went to an almost all "White" color. I also noticed that the other male jake/toms would be around him but not always aggressive to him. I learned about the Alpha/Beta/Omega social structure and how this worked within our flock and some of how they displayed this to one another. There were more behavioral keys I learned as well but that is another bit of this story.

So I decided to fix up my decoy to what I had seen from this, and this is where I designed/developed a "White Headed Gobbler" decoy, the old foam fan was replaced with a real fan, a fan from a gobbler and then I needed to replace the beard as the decoy had a jake beard, I ended up using some fly tying materials as I didn't want to use one of my "trophies" beards. I tied up a beard and kept it shorter to replicate a young tom and then it came to the head, I wanted to show a tom at the breeding stage, not as a fighter. I did have much other than jig or fly paints and then it came to me "White Out" yup just the regular old white out for fixing errors on paper. Now I may have made the first of these decoys with a little to much white and left just a little red at the very base of the neck, later on as I did more of these I learned to paint in a better fashion to show some of the redish/pink coloration with the blue coloration around the eyes, snood color and the overall white head. Upgrades in decoys in this progression was also key to this as well. So now I had a "New" decoy with a real fan, a "real" beard and the White Head design, now the other part of this was in my thoughts... When a tom is at this stage he is ready to breed a hen, and the hen was ready to get bred. My hen decoys were on a stake and not on the ground like the hens I watched when breeding was going on, solution cut my stake short. I later made up a number of stakes at varying lengths to accommodate some other needs as well.

In 1999 I killed my first tom over my White Headed Gobbler Decoy that year, had a double on jakes with a buddy of mine, also a first and Dad killed over him. I also guided several birds over the White Head Decoy. Feather Flex also came out with Signature Series Decoys and I upgraded to these in my hens and a standing jake decoy too.

I have been hunting over a "White Headed" Gobbler Decoy I developed / designed since 1999, I have made a number of upgrades to this design and even game him a name "BIG PUFFY" and there is more to his story and history but that's for another day. Over the years I have made, sold and even given seminars on what I have learned with this.

As the upgrades were made I also started hunting with Dave Smith Decoys, hens at first and then in 2012  I made a White Headed DSD Strutter Decoy  and to say the least he is deadly!!

I have been hunting over a White Headed Gobbler Decoy for the last 20 years, I have learned a lot kept making improvements and still making those, I learned how to hunt not only a strutter but decoys in general "right" and still learning those longbeard lessons. My latest has been my DSD Jake Strutter, I "Gobblerized" and added my White Head Design and lil' PUFFY is as DEADLY as his namesake!

It's been a long read and hope you liked and maybe even learned a little from these insights!

As the story continues,


MK M GOBL

[MK M GOBL]

And yes even Jakes will come to the White Head.
"Use the White Head and He's Dead!"


MK M GOBL

[whitetaildonky]

Thanks for all the valuable Intel and time MK M GOBL.
From what I've seen, my Dsd strutter is going to get a facelift today. I've been on the fence but all your posts and Intel makes me feel confident of making the change.

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[Dtrkyman]

I painted my mounted strutter decoy head white 15 years or so, i do not hunt it very often but it works quite well even though he looks like he's been drug down the road. I use some white testors model paint and I think I got the idea from that knight and hale struter decoy, pretty boy I think they called it.

It had a big obnoxious white head on it.

[MK M GOBL]

I painted my mounted strutter decoy head white 15 years or so, i do not hunt it very often but it works quite well even though he looks like he's been drug down the road. I use some white testors model paint and I think I got the idea from that knight and hale struter decoy, pretty boy I think they called it.

It had a big obnoxious white head on it.

Would be around that timeframe... here's from my notes

Feather Flex "Bubba" 1994

Feather Flex "Tommy T" 1997

*BIG PUFFY "White Headed" Strutter 1999

Pretty Boy released 2003

Primos B-Mobile released 2007

DSD Strutter released 2011

*White Headed DSD 2012

*lil' PUFFY 2019 White Headed (Jake Strutter)


MK M GOBL

[Greg Massey]

Agree white head ..just like MK M Gobl .. posted

[Dtrkyman]

Was out scouting this morning, watched a flock with 3 strutters, one suddenly went snow white, minutes later he was riding a hen.

His two buddies just stood off to the side likely shedding tear!

I see this behavior often in regards to one of the birds doing the breeding. The other birds heads remained mixed color!

[brittman]

Either is fine.

I love watching hung up gobblers go from red & blue to all white and then back again.   

I always thought a full white gobbler was in full aggression / attack mode.