Snow goose decoy advise

[fishuhalik]

I've gotta start building a snow spread & I found a site that sells Texas rags made out of a thicker fabric (Windtamer is the brand) and they're under $40/100. My budget is +/-$500. Would I be better off going for quantity and get around 1000 rags and a couple doz used shells for realism (found shells for $50/doz on Clist) or should I be more focused on quality of the spread, aka buy more shells? Also, do honkers & snows hang out together? can I throw some of my field honkers in to add some realism to the spread?

Short version:

If you had $500 to spend, how would you spend it? Thanks for any input!!

[Meyer8043]

No rags, no shells, WINDSOCKS. Snow goose hunting is a rich mans sport, or a sport where you have a lot of friends that have decoys already and are rich themselves. You have to have a very large investment up front to make it worth it unless you are in it for the bird watching aspect of it. If thats the case then go with the texas rags. But since I'm sure you're not in it for that i would keep saving and then when you think you have enough save some more for all the gas you'll spend driving around scouting.

[TylerS]

To be honest, I'd be checking online selling sites and looking for folks dumping their spreads. You will not believe how many people simply sell all of their snow goose decoys at a crack because they quit hunting them. Check C.RAIG.Slist and whatnot. Heck, HSOlist probably has some, too.

[Roosterslayer05]

Both ideas are terrible! You ever set out 300 shells? If you want to spend 4 hours messing around with shells go that route. What you should do is buy 10 dozen econo silo's then spend the rest of your money on a good e-caller. Heck, you can even make your own e-caller for allot cheaper and its not that hard. 120 decoys isn't allot but its a start. Then you can add 50 here and there when you have some extra money. You would be surprised how many snows are shot over small spreads of around 300 windsocks. The key here is to hunt a new field that's an X everyday. It takes about an hour or less to set up that many windsocks.

[Skjefte]

I think you should go for quality first and then quantity. What I mean is that you should get a few dozen more realistic decoys then fill in with socks or rags to get a bigger spread. You will not get as big of spread doing this but I feel like more birds will come in when comparing just 10 dozen socks or something. Also look the used route if you can. People almost throw away there setup, you can get 3-4 times the amount for the same price as new. This is just my thoughts I have only been Snow Goose hunting for 2 years but the first year we got all socks and made some of our own and didn't get anything to come in. Last year we got some 3D socks and 2 dozen full bodies to make it more realistic and flocks of 100+ were coming in left and right.

[fishuhalik]

Thanks for the heads up guys. I was thinking I could get into snows for a reasonable price, but after spending, well, too much already this year on building my duck & honker spread, it looks like I'll have to stick to pass shooting & jumping snows. A guy's gotta draw the line somewhere right? I'll keep an eye out for online sales though. Maybe I'll get lucky & find some rich guy that's cleaning out his garage and wants to dump his 2000 Avery fb's for $500 lol

[TylerS]

Both ideas are terrible! .

Really? What's so terrible about waiting for guys to dump their snow spreads???