Preseason Prep for Teal Hunting, sponsored by HEYDAY

Wakeup Call: It’s Time to Prep Your Spread

While big ducks and geese are still a few months away, teal birds are knocking at the door, which can only mean one thing: It’s preseason prep time. If you’re anything like me, you hang up your spread at the end of the season with the best intentions of getting a head start on next year, only to discover the early teal is knocking at the door and you’ve once again not touched your decoys since the last hunt. Well, take this as your wakeup call. There’s still plenty of time to Clean, Organize, Replace & Expand your spread. With a couple of tools and a few hours, the only thing you’ll be worried about the night before season is whether or not you’ll be racing someone else to the hole.

Step 1: Cleaning Your Decoys

The first thing I like to do is get all the decoys out and cleaned up. Cleaning up one of my HEYDAYS is real simple. I use a bucket of soapy water (some dawn dish soap will work great), a soft bristled brush (I grabbed mine from the auto parts store), and a garden hose. I start off by giving all the decoys, lines and anchors a good rinse with the hose. After letting them sit for a few minutes, I begin working through them with the soft bristled brush and soapy water. I’ll typically do a dozen at a time, working on any mud, dried vegetation, or crickets that have latched on, before rinsing and hanging the dozen. It’s as simple as that.

Step 2: Organizing and Inspecting Your Spread

Once all the decoys are cleaned and hung up, I begin to organize and check the spread. I like to keep my decoys organized by species and rig length, color, and weight. Despite my best intentions at the outset, they rarely end up that way. Once I get them all sorted out, I’ll start checking for damaged or missing rigs or birds. I’ve been known to run a longtail through a spread on cold mornings when I can’t keep the hole open. I’ve also been known to throw a short-lined decoy into water that’s not only deeper than I thought, but faster moving as well. This can lead to severed lines, missing decoy, or anything else. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has tossed out the jerk rig anchor, only to discover that was, indeed, the only part of the jerk rig I had been holding. For cases like that, there’s nothing to it but to order a new one. Once the damage is assessed, I’ll check the back stock of mismatched decoyed, rigs, or whatever else to see what I can pull from and I’ll make a shopping list for anything else that’s missing.

Step 3: Replacing and Expanding Your Decoys

Once my shopping list is curated, typically a set of 4’ 4 ounce rigs, some UpRight Keel Weights, and maybe a new jerk rig (whoops!), I’ll also order a few new decoys and rigs to expand the spread, or at least expand the options. I know once or twice each season, I’ll find a new hole and think “Man! This spread would be perfect with a dozen more teal in the grass!” or as daylight breaks, you realize you’re sitting behind a beautiful spread of greenheads, but all you’re seeing is gadwall. This is the time to rectify it.

Final Touches: Beyond the Decoys

Once you’ve taken care of that, all you have to do now is: check the motor and battery in your boat, shoot 4 dozen boxes of clays, work with the dog not to break, get a functioning alarm clock for your hunting buddy, finally learn how to blow that cut-down, and a half dozen other tasks you told yourself you’d work on February through August. Good luck, out there this season. If you knuckle down now, and follow my lead, you’ll at least have one less excuse when you get skunked this season, ‘cause your spread’s gonna look good.