Avian X Teal Decoys Review
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- čas přidán 18. 04. 2017
- Today I'm looking at the Avian-X Greenwing teal, Bluewing teal and Early season teal packs. AvianX makes some very realistic decoys, and I really like the soft plastic bodies.
I'm really happy with these decoys, and in my opinion, they're the best duck decoys I've used.
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Been running 24 to 36 ghg and avian teal for about 3/4 years now. I also mix a few 2-6 pins in or mallards depending on what's in the area. I LOVE it. You won't only kill teal but will hammer big ducks as well. Ducks get so used to seeing the same mallard spread all down the flyway that when you mix it up and throw all teal or something else they eat it up. Also the most important thing as to why I use those teal like that is they're SUPER light. I've had a few back operations due to playing ball in college and I really have to watch how much weight I'm lugging into the marsh. The teal have helped me be able to throw more than a dozen or two when hunting alone. The ghg are a bit lighter but both are an awesome decoy ! Pick up a couple dozen. You won't be dissatisfied!! Also run teal Mojos with them due to how light they are !! I've had some of my best hunts over teal dekes on pressured birds. Never have had a problem decoying mallards wigeon and pins with them !
Yeah, I'm mainly talking about that early teal only season, but I definitely want to add variety to our regular season spread as well. During teal season every spread I see out on the marsh is mostly mallards, so I want to change our spread up. In September we aren't even seeing mallards.. but the mallard spreads do still work, to an extent.
I'm probably going to get 24 blue wings and 12 green wings. As we move into regular season, I'll probably start leaving the blue wings at home. I also want to get some Gadwall, Wigeon and Pintail decoys to add variety to our regular season spread.
Yeah, I forgot to mention how light the teal decoys are. I run them with 3oz weights and they're super light rigs. If you don't already use one, I would highly recommend getting a sled. If you do a lot of walking through water, they are life savers. You could strap it to a car if you travel across dry land a lot. I have back issues as well, though not quite as severe as having surgeries done.
In the Pacific Flyway, we have green-wings and Cinnamon teal from Oct to Jan...as an "Avian-X only" guy, I wish they would produce a cinnamon decoy. I reviewed the Mallard Avians on my channel and you are spot on that the quality is just better, period.
Cinnamon teal decoys would look amazing
Good review, Drake! I'm x2 with you on these. I have 2 doz GW and a 1/2 doz BW (we don't get as many BW on CO Front Range, but use them on migration days) and agree that AVX dekes are near the top for realism/quality/durability. Yeah, they cost some $orinos, but you get what you pay for. I have some of their goose and turkey dekes as well. As for when to put out what, I won't speak to early teal season, but will speak to regular and late duck season. A lot of peeps think teal are wimps and bug out in the cold. I have killed teal the last three years here in ice holes chopped (or Ice Eaten) through >6" ice in very cold temps. I keep a smattering of teal in my spread until January. Cheers, Drake!
I'll leave the GW dekes in the spread all year. BW are the first to show up each year, with a few GW mixed in. The real push of GW seem to come with the mallards. We were still seeing good wads of GW in early January this year, and the last year we shot a pretty GW drake on the last day of the season (very end of January).
99% of the BW are gone with the first good cold north wind. I saw a video of some guys (can't remember the video) that shot a blue wing on the last day of their season last year (I think it was Wisconsin). Seeing a BW that late is really strange.
I don't any reason to use any mallard decoys at all for early teal season. These are birds that have not been hanging around mallards or seeing them at all! All teal spread + Teal call = more decoying shots.
I know a lot of guys that use mallard hen decoys, because aside from the beak they would just look like magnum teal lol. But yes, I do agree that once the blue wings start moving south they seeing many mallards, other than maybe some local ducks. I'm definitely going to get a teal call for this year as well.
Freelance Duck Hunting what teal call do you use again? You decoyed them and called them excellent this past year.
It's just a 20 dollar duck commander teal call. Once I started using a teal call I noticed an immediate difference!
Freelance Duck Hunting Thanks! I remember you saying it was inexpensive. But it worked and made the ducks turn.
I agree for the most part but I don't think teal are smart enough to know the difference especially during early teal season. Few years back opening day on Fork we had a big spread and 3/4 of the decoys were not teal. Got checked by the game wardens and he said after checking about a dozen boats we had by far the most birds (I think we had like 24).. Just saying teal are extremely stupid and easy to shoot. Btw Drake I think the motion holes are also so you can change the depth of the string easily which is what I love about the Avians, I can use the same decoy in 10 ft if I need to or 6 inches with no extra line to get tangled with other decoys. Got a dozen mallards and six GWT last year and I like them more than any other decoys. Dakotas look good new but the velvet heads don't hold up over time. Stick with Avian X people.
Awesome video and channel. There are not enough decoy reviews on CZcams, I appreciate it. Subbed
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I plan on doing some more decoy reviews in the coming weeks.
Good video! Last year for teal season, we ran mainly teal with a few woodies mixed in for variety since woodies are so plentiful around here during teal season. Tossed in a couple Mojo Teal and if birds were around, they worked great.
Theoretically, if you got a greenwing hen pack, you could use them effectively from first day of teal to last day of late season. That's not something you can say about many dekes. I just got my Tanglefree greenwing dekes in the mail a few days ago and am stoked to give them a shot.
We get quick a few woodies around during teal season too. I wish we had an early wood duck season like some other states.
They don't make a hen pack that's all green wings, but I have no problem running a normal green wing pack all season. Let me know how you like the Tanglefrees.
Drake Valley Outdoors I believe GHG makes an all hen gwt pack. I came across one on Amazon. I'll let you know about the Tanglefrees!
I just ordered a pack of green wingers
Good video, Drake. What camera did you end up buying? Auto focus seems to work nice and your quality is great! Thanks for sharing. You may want to consider just filming some so called b roll for cut aways while you are talking, rather than just holding up the decoy while you are talking. It would just give a nice feeling and mix it up a bit. You could still hold the decoy up and talk about it, but sometimes a few high quality pictures or some good video cut in helps! I'm not a pro or anything, I just know I like it when others do that. Again, great job!
I'm using a Panasonic G7. I'm really happy with it so far. I haven't quite ventured into b-roll stuff yet, but I might give it a try. Thanks
I mainly use 2-3 doz mallard hens with 2-3 mojos, avian x decoys are the best in my opinion. Best paint and plastic!
Yeah, I know a lot of guy just run a bunch of mallard hen decoys. Kind of like magnum teal lol. I'm loving the Avian X, I want to get some other species to fill in before I eventually replace all my floaters with Avian X.
Defiantly cost a pretty penny but they're gonna out last any hardcore or flambeau deke
I bought those same decoys last season. Planning on spending the money on some more avian decoys next year since almost all of my hard cores fell apart last year. Have you seen the fowled reality torture test they did on these decoys? They held up really well.
Yeah, I saw those videos. From what I saw DOA or AvianX were the better decoys across all their tests. Definitely going to be picking up some other species later this year.
Wish you luck with the Avian-x. Their a well built decoy just hope you do not have to deal with their Plano Synergy customer service at any point.
I'll not buy any more Avian-x or any Plano Synergy product for that matter, first and last time purchase of Avian-x this year during the Gander Mountain going out of business sale. Bought a box of their topflight mallards, got home opened the box and 2 of the decoys were missing. Contacted Gander mountain they gave the old all sales are final shtick and said it may have been a box they opened in the past and took some out for display.
Ok so thought, I'll contact Avian-x through the Plano Synergy customer support and see if maybe they can do something. First email back was sure we can replace them, which 2 were missing and can you send a copy of the receipt. Fine and dandy, done, next correspondence was can you take pictures of the decoys you have so they can see which ones were missing. Done, then get an email back saying they were going to be sending a shipping label later that day to send mine back for a replacement box.
Never received that label and they have not responded to any of my emails since. Even tried starting a whole new support ticket thinking maybe the old one got deleted somehow and they have not even responded to that.
I was going to buy some of their new Canada goose shells but that sure is not going to happen now that I see how much Plano Synergy values their customers.
That is interesting information. I haven't had to deal with their support yet. As far as the missing decoys from Gander Mountain, it seemed like a lot of that was happening during their liquidation sale. Always had to check the ammo boxes to make sure the boxes were actually full.
Yea, I would have been fine with it if they said sorry can't do anything for you as you bought what you bought even though the box looked unopened to me, but to string me along all the way up to saying to expect a shipping label and then not following through or explain why it never came when I sent subsequent inquiries is what put me off to their family of products.
Do they come with weights?
No they do not, but I have another video on how I rig these decoys. czcams.com/video/NK316BcgsYU/video.html&ab_channel=DrakeValleyOutdoors
How did the all teal decoy spread do this year?
Opening day we shot a couple birds shy of a 4 man limit. But we probably would have done just as well with an all mallard spread being opening day. After that, the teal were being hit so hard, it was very difficult to get any to work the way we wanted no matter what spread we tried. I still like the all teal spread for realism and having more decoys in a small, lighter package.. but I don't think it's necessary.
Where do you get your computer background?
There’s an application called Wallpaper Engine. It is available through that.
is it the one that costs 3.99 on steam?
That is correct.
Thanks a bunch! Can't wait for this season to kick off!
Bbbboooorrrrrriiiinnnngggggggggggg Jesus guy. Couldn’t get past 30 seconds of this video. You gotta be more enthusiastic. Just a tip but some people can’t handle honesty