Hard core decoys and durability

[Maxxed Out]

There have been lots of threads on this board and others about people wondering about the durability of HC decoys. I took a bit of a gamble this year because I sold off about half of my spread to switch to HC (I'm a guide in MN), and I usually run about 100-150 fullbodies. I'll be honest I did this because I was able to get a very good price and was able to nearly double my numbers after I sold off my old decs which were Bigfoots and GHG.

I don't guide seven days a week because I have career here in the cities but I guide Sat & Sun and sometimes Fri. or Mon. We pick up our decoys every night and if things aren't working out as planned after the morning flight I'll pick everything up and move before the evening hunt.

I bought bags for the decoys anticipating that I would need to use them to keep them in good condition (HC's bags are designed to fit in the slot with the motion base attached). I bagged about 18 decoys before my first hunt and realized this was going to take WAY to much time to do every day so I rolled the dice and went without.

Here's my year end review:

Positives:

1. Couldn't have been happier with there durability. Dec's look like new. A few scuffs on maybe a dozen of them, but other than that they look like new (except for the three that were demolished by clients terrible shooting :roll: ). Again these dec's were taken in and out of my trailer no less than 50 times throughout the course of the season and that's a very conservative number. It's not just the paint, but the flocking as well held up very well.

2. This is probably the reason I was happiest with the decs the year. The motion bases are designed to stay attached to the decoy. It's a one piece ring base that has a little hook that you hook with a bungee type cord on the bottom of the decoy (very similar to Dakota's). Now you may say, big deal. However throughout the course of a season when you put decoys in and out of your trailer that much it gets old. Very old. And when you have that many to put out and take down you want to do it as fast as possible. Well with the attached one piece ring bases you can actually carry 10-12 decoys each time out of the trailer. THAT'S HUGE! When you look at GHG with the non attached bases or stakes you can only carry 4 or 5 at a time. I just can't tell you how big of a time saver this is when you are putting up and taking down large spreads.

Negatives

Really the only negative I had was the size. I sometimes wondered if there were birds that weren't seeing us because we didn't have the profile of a Bigfoot or a GHG.

I also bought about 100 HC floaters and I was very happy with these as well. The only issue I ran into was on long tosses in the water there was a few times that the heads came off.

HC shells were a bit of a dissapointment because they are very low profile. They look great and are durable but only stick up off the ground maybe 8 inches.

[creepworm]

I have a buddy that bought a few dozen hard cores this year and I second your comments. The motion bases staying attached is a very nice feature. The size is really where I think the hard cores lack as well, they are the size of a lesser.

[mozy]

Did you try the full body mallards? I've been looking at them, wondering how they hold up compared to GHG's.

[Maxxed Out]

I didn't but based on what I saw from the geese I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

[Roosterslayer05]

Good to hear. I have GHG and I will never buy them again. They look good but the paint chips. Not durable at all. I was thinking about geting the bigfoot B2's since the paint is molded in the plastic. What is more durable in your experience, bigfoots or hardcore's?

[poutpro]

The one thing I didn't like about the B2's is that they appear to not be made of the same material as the standard Bigfoots. The standard Bigfoots have a flex to them where you could stand on one and the sides would just buckle in, but then once you got off, they would pop back out. The new B2's are more of a solid material. Anyone have actual field results from the B2's?

[bustumup]

I bought some last fall and the only thing that i noticed was was when you attach the feet, it was tough to get the tabs pushed in. But once you have it assemble there's no reason to disassemble so I don't worry about it much. They are bullet-proof from what I've heard, just haven't had them long enough to confirm.