Turkey Hunting Tactic: Make Your Decoy Move

Commercial motion decoys are very effective. But they’re also quite spendy. So take a tip from champion caller Ricky Joe Bishop, who puts life in his fakes for just pennies with 20 yards of fishing line and a cheap ­hardware-store eye screw.

“Attach the line to the decoy’s chest, then run it through the eye screw,” Bishop explains. “Set the screw in the ground below. When a gobbler shows, gently tug on the line to make the bird’s head bob up and down.”

To give you an idea of how much a little motion can help: Last spring I worked a gobbler for my dad that had its feet absolutely planted in the ground. Knowing we were the only ones hunting the area, I pulled a pair of dekes from my vest, slid the hen into a patch of sunlight at arm’s length, and placed the jake on top of her. I then rubbed the jake back and forth on the hen’s back. When the gobbler spotted this apparent coupling, he broke strut and charged in, offering Pops a gimme shot.