What's y'alls take on rag spreads?
 

What's everyone's take on rag spreads for hunting specks primarily?


I know it's not something I'll do every hunt, but I'll have the option to do so. I'll be in a pit with big cuts (dry, plowed, & set aside) on each side of the levee. Our farm typically doesn't hold specks or snows, but later in the season we get a decent snow flight. Skinny levee but not bare, pretty fluffy. We currently have a few doz FB specks and snows, but usually only hunt over a doz or less FB specks.


My questions are:


1) What days (weather wise) would be my best bet on putting out a rag spread. I know wind is key for rag movement, but what about foggy, clear, or cloudy days? And should you avoid putting them out with little to no wind even if the rags have spines to keep them full?


2) What's the minimum amount of rags you'd be comfortable with along with say 4 doz FB snows mixed in.


3) What's the best placement for the FB snow dekes amongst the rags. I'm not trying to land 100 snows in the dekes lol. Or should I try and use the rags as fillers, and try to use the FBs to hide the rags?






4) Should I separate the FB specks from the rags and how far?


5) How far from the levee (with brush, not bare) should the rags start?


You don't have to format an answer like my questions by any means, just trying to pick you guys' brains that's had experience doing this.


Thanks in advance,
CB

I am not very good with spread hunting, But the handful of times I did it the guy that i hunted with was admit about being in the middle of the field in layouts he said it works better and the birds come closer and make better shots. we put decoys 360 degrees around us. Ever day he wanted to hunt were cloudy windy days. Hope that helps a litte.

1. dont waste your time on cloudy days.. sun and wind, is yo friend! fog is an exception.

2. as many as you can afford.

3. i would put the FBs on the leading edge of spread, so this is the first decoy they see and focused on. rags in the background upwind behind you.

4. do not separate.

5. to me it would depend if you run your spread way up wind behind you or if you are setting decoys out down wind in front of you.

also, the snow geese that make it down here tend to be a little wiser, in my opinion. we dont see half of the fresh batch, the juvies, the ones you want to kill, the ones you can fool into decoying.

ask any outfitter in midwest, they live for the juvies. you will not get an adult bird to decoy near as easy as a young bird.

agree with this.

Also, I've seen ducks hit these kind of spreads alot also, just coming to see what all those "geese" are doing down there. May throw in a few FB mallards too.
I've got too much time on my hands, so I made this not long ago while discussing with another friend...

I'd rather take a kick in the nuts and go right back to bed!

Most days it seems you end up doing all the work to end up killing a limit of specks and maybe a handful of snows. I would definitely not waste time with it on a calm day, even if it's sunny. I have hunted the blind yall got 2 times on hard north winds, and the snows got pretty cozy and low in yalls big south cut.

Specks love em, so if it's not electronic caller season I think you can bank on atleast your specks.

If you have a "few dozen" full bodies, I wouldn't waste my time putting rags out. If you are in the right spot thats plenty to do the trick

specks love big spreads period.

this too, got to be where the birds want to be.

I hunt primarily specks, primarily out of large spreads. I used windsocks with back bones, although i do have a few hundred "rags". I have found rag spreads to work much better in stubble vs bean/plowed fields.

1. Don't put out rag spreads if there's no wind. Period. The birds will hit a wall at 75 yards everytime. Sunny/cloudy doesn't seem to have a difference.
Winds over 25mph or so are also disadvantageous.

2. I hunt with a minimum of 200 windsocks. I can hunt 2 people in that size spread. Add 200 windsocks for every extra hunter.

3/4 Fullbodies on the bottom end of the spread, 20 yards or so downwind of you. You don't have to separate. But the downwind side of my spreads are very loosely set anyways so they become separated be default.

5. I hunt mostly laydown blinds. Bottom edge of the spread. However, if i hunt from a levee, i put about 75% of the decoys in the cut upwind of me, and 25% in the cut downwind. Set the ones downwind very spaciously, create a large landing zone. You don't have to set them very far from the levee. Sometimes I'll even put decoys on top of hte levee where the grass is short enough.

Great info guys. Appreciate it.

Yea I've heard they scout for the highest percentage of Juvies even if they have other larger bodies with more adults, they'd rather set up on the smaller body of young ones. Must be nice to have options lol

Yea that's not the case here. We just pull trafficking birds. And really don't see that many as far as specks. I think they feel pretty comfortable flying over our farm though. The times I've hunted the place in the past it didn't seem like they had a defined flyway, and would kind of just lope around semi-low. Now when we had good snow flights they (snows) had a pretty defined flyway. Again, I'm not planning putting out mondo spreads in hopes of killing 40 snows. If it happens, awesome. I've just seen what it takes to kill specks here and how few chances we had to get a limit. The guy that's had this place doesn't make many mistakes and more times than not if we saw specks, we'd have a chance at killing them. Now that I'm a member of this blind and will probably hunt it a good bit when he can't be there, I need all the help I can get to up my chances.

We'll be in a plowed field...

man it is just like anything else, if you do it enough, you will figure out what works and what doesnt.

just pay attention to what the birds are telling you.