Types of Motion Decoys

Tired of birds circling your spread and deciding to fly away?

You need some motion in your spread!

In this post we'll cover the different types of motion decoys and which one is best for you

Why are motion decoys important?

Adding motion to your decoy spread is one of the easiest ways to improve how realistic your whole decoy spread looks.

Which means more birds landing in your decoys.

Spinning Wing Decoys

This is the classic motion decoy!

Mojo first made these [oppular back in the day, but now you can get them from a few different brands.

What sets spinngin wing decoys apart from other motion decoys is their ability catch deucks eyes from further distances.

Another positive is that you can use them over water of in a field, which makes them more versatile than some other styles on this list.

The drawback with this is they can be too much motion once ducks get in close, so late in the season some ducks will flare if they see them...

So now almost every brand has an option for using a remote with them to stop the wings when birds get in close.

This is an absolute must have if you plan on hunting ducks and geese out of the same spread because geese HATE spinning wing decoys.

Splashing Water Motion Decoys

Splashing decoys are the second most popular type of motion decoy for ducks.

Almost all of them look like a butt up style decoy, with a small motor inside of them to imitate ducks feeding in shallow water

They add a good amount of motion to a spread without being too aggressive and flaring birds.

Since they move water, they also add movement to other decoys around them, doubling down on the realism of your spread.

​The obvious limitation here is that you can only use them in water

Swimming Decoys

Swimming decoys are arguably the most realistic type of motion decoy you can get.

They movement they have is EXACTLY like a duck swimming.

TO mkae them even more realistic, companie slike Avian-X have even added timer functions so they start and stop as they'r emoving across the water.

The subtle swimming motion is realistic, BUT it doesn't draw the most eye balls to a spread.

To get a little more movement and attention, you can rig 1 or 2 standard decoys to the back of your swimmer to have a small group swimming around instead of just 1.

Flapping Decoys

These are a newer type of motion decoy that are mainly used in goose hunting.

Geese don't love the motion of a spinning wing decoy and this is the adjustment to that.

If you're familiar with a goose flag, this is basically an automated version.

They're GREAT at drawing in birds from a distance...

And depending on the brand, the realistic motion puts birds in the bag.

Rippling Decoys

Rippling decoys are similar to splashing decoys, but they are more subtle.

More or less, they shake side to side and put small amounts of movement onto the water to keep it look more realistic.

In my experience, because these are more subtle if there's any wind the motion from rippling decoys isn't very noticable.

The upside with these is they are less expensive than splashing decoys