Goose Decoy numbers?

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Greetings to All,
I was wondering what you guys (and gals) think is an adequate, average number of decoys for a realistic working WATER spread. I am currently making a half dozen goose floaters, and have some other plastic floaters and field shells, but I usually hunt by myself and trying to put out huge numbers of goose decoys is not only expensive and time consuming, but impractical as well. How many do you folks feel is necessary to give the impression of "realism"? Thanks in advance.

[yoda]

I can only talk for the U.P. Mr 16 gauge, we get by with 2 doz magnum goose decoys for 90% of our sets in the fields. We don't do much water hunting but when we do, a doz floaters and then a hodge podge of shells scattered in the shallows works fine. one thing I must say about the water hunting, the birds we shoot are right out of canada, and beat, they have more than likley been flying most of the day and just need to set down, I think floating milk jugs would work on them :)

[Dutchman]

You can make some in expensive floaters out of your field shells by cutting some 2"thick blue board to fit in the bttom of your dekes. Just secure them together by sticking a nail through the deke into the foam.You will have to trim the foam to get the right float,but its a nice way to get double duty out of something you already have!

[dux43]

Unlike most of the other goose hunters we do 90% of our hunting on water...River and a private lake and,flooded cornfield. On the river and lake we use about 25 or 30 floaters and and a few shells on or near shore. In the flooded field we use less. The field is primarly used for duck hunting.
I think we only took 6 or 7 geese there last season as compared to 126 on the open water. And over half of those were taken in the jan. season on the river. ...Not much ice last winter,but lotsa geese.
So you dont need big numbers of decoys unless your on really big water or , you"ve got a lot of competition.

[3006]

The best (easiest) way to make Goose shells into floaters is to use pipe insulation. You know, the tubular foam kind. Can get it at any hardware store. I use zip ties to secure to the shell. Best of all, you can still stack them and use them in the field. May want to test a few different tube thicknesses to see what works best with the decoys you have. I'm sure it would be no problem even doing this with the Supermag shells.