Gang Rigging Decoys.

[Gator Slayer]

Does anyone gang rig puddle ducks (mallards specifically)? It seems others only gang divers? If so how far apart do you space them and how many will you put on a line. I hunt alone a fair amount of time and any other tips (other than "fewer decoys") that will speed up putting out and bringing in deke's would be appreciated. I've tried nearly every weight/line combo short of ganging up on em.

Thanks in advance.

[shamrock7]

If you hunt with a dog, i would discourage the use of gang rigs. We almost lost a dog that got tangled in a rig when retrieving a duck. Pulling one decoy across the lake is one thing, pulling a dozen is a good way to lose a good dog. After that little episode, we decided that it really didn't take that much extra time to put them out one at a time.

[BoxMN]

Have you tried Texas rigging them on snagfree line? I used this in North Dakota (shallow water) this past weekend and it worked great! Granted, I only at most 8 decoys... but I could see using a dozen or so this way pretty darn easy. I used about 2-3 lines, and only half strips of strap weight and worked great. I have weighted keel, so water keel would be even lighter and you could carry more. This was wading. If by boat, I still like simple wrapping around body, two wraps for shallow water and the strip weight around neck. Pretty fast and easy.

edit: BTW, if you are from boat, and not a little pirouge or Puddler style, but a bit higher up, the spreaders work pretty darn good and fast. Only thing is it is not as good if you are right at the water level, as you need a bit of height to spread the arms out. But from a boat (like a 12' of bigger alum boat or similar) it would work great.

[whitewolf6647]

I use 6 gang rigs for my diver spread. 3 15 decoy lines and 3 8 decoy lines and about 24 loose singel decoys as fillers. What I did was take that tangle free cord and attach a weight to the end, those old window sash weights work just great for this, on a aligator clip with how ever many feet of line you want. Then I tie loops every 4-5 feet appart on the long line itself. You can make a line as long or as short as you want. Then I attach another piece of the tangle free cord to the decoy. The piece I attach to the decoy is about 1.5 to 2 feet in length and at the end of this line I attach another alligaotr clip to it. So for picking up and putting out all you have to do is clip the alligator clip to each loop and you have your line. I myself can set out all my lines and my single decoys, just shy of 100 decoys, in about 20 minutes. Much less time with more than one person. Also make sure that the line from the decoy is at least 1.5 feet in lenght for the afore mentioned problem of dogs getting tangled in the line. I have been using this setup for 4 years now and the dogs get tangled more in the single decoys with their own weight than the gang rig. Somthing else I started to do was attache an alligator clip to the end of each long line also so if I want to I can make a 69 decoy long line if I want to (never have before cause I've never had to) Just so you can mix and match a little better.

I've never gang rigged puddle ducks about the only "puddle ducks" I've even see swimming or forming lines on the water consistently are spoon bills and only later in the year on bigger water is where I've seen that.

I hope everything makes sense. Good luck.

[HugoBox]

White Wolf -

Any problems with the aligator clips snagging on the decoy bag? We used to have hooks on the droppers from the decoys but switched to just a piece of tanglefree line with a loop and on our long line we have caribiners placed about 6-8 feet apart. I've also found that the window weights work well. If you are running a short line and don't want to mess with a heavy window weight a 16 OZ claw hammer works well too. I've held up to 20 magnum G&Hs in a 15-20 MPH wind with the hammer. I think the claw digs into the vegitation pretty well. I'm thinking of trying it your way to compare what's easiest to do with gloves on. I guess there's always a better mousetrap!!

erik

[whitewolf6647]

I acctually have all of my decoys that I put on my gang rig stacked in an ottersled if I do use a bag I use those Avery of GHG bags that have the very small mesh holes and have some kind of rubber coating on the them and I have never had a problem with the clips getting caught in the bag.

Yeah those sahs weights are the cats meow. But I also us tuna and small soup cans filled with led with screws sticking out of the about 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch if you have the ability to make your own those work great. I broke down and bought some of those collapsible 1 pound anchors from cabeals last year and those being so light supprisingly hold very very well in bigger waves. I'll have to try that hammer trick.

I'll have to admit the small gator clips can be a bugger with gloves but, very doable, last year I went with some of the bigger clips. Much easier to manipulate with gloves and not that much more expensive. I have to get a few more boxes this year for emergency sake.

That caribiner trick sounds like a pretty slick way to go also I may have to rig up another 8 line and give that one a try.

What I Like about having the clips on the on the decoys is if you want to rig the decoy up with just a single weight it's a snap to do. I almost always have at least 12 or more singel weights rigged up with line and a loop on the end for those particualr times.

[HugoBox]

What would you say your average spacing is between the decoy on the string. I have them ranging from about 15 feet (at the tail end of the lead) to abour 6 feet in close. Not sure what's best though.

[whitewolf6647]

I have mine set at 5 feet apart on the main line with the 1.5 to 2 foot decoy line. It's just enough that they move around alot and not so much that they get tangeld together.