Painting decoys

[FOXHUNTER1]

Has anybody got any experience of painting the white wing bars on their decoys and consequently using them only to find birds wouldn't decoy. I painted mine a few weeks ago and used them yesterday,  loads of birds about but nothing would decoy so I brought them in and replaced with dead birds , the birds then decoyed all be it not all of them but ended up with 88. Has anyone had this happen before ?

[enfieldspares]

Some say that the best white paint is UV paint. But to my mind I'm not even going to ask if that you used gloss paint? 

[FOXHUNTER1]

Has anybody got any experience of painting the white wing bars on their decoys and consequently using them only to find birds wouldn't decoy. I painted mine a few weeks ago and used them yesterday,  loads of birds about but nothing would decoy so I brought them in and replaced with dead birds , the birds then decoyed all be it not all of them but ended up with 88. Has anyone had this happen before ?

Double post.

[FOXHUNTER1]

I used emulsion ...would that make any difference?

[clangerman]

your question has the answer the dead birds worked so after all the effort to find them lug the kit and put it up why put a load of shiny plastic out stick with what works best dead birds 

[FOXHUNTER1]

I know dead birds work best but I never had any to start with only the decoys until I shot some. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, you may find some info if you do a search on PW, there was some previous posts on this including what type and color of paint, I use flocked decoys, crows are easier to do, in fact anyone with the old rubber pigeon decoys can spray them £ shop Matt black, I did 6 for a friend and work well, 

[ditchman]

i believe you can get flocking kits...to re-do plain plastic decoys......may be better than just painting them

[TIGHTCHOKE]

We just use a bottle of Tippex correction fluid to brighten wing and neck bars up a bit.

[lakeside1000]

I bought a 1/2 litre bottle of white UV paint from eBay, I repaint the white on the decoy necks and wing bars every few months with it and birds come in and land within inches of them, does not work as well as fresh dead birds but always a good fall back if dead ones are in short supply. I only use fresh dead as I believe the UV in the feathers fade once they have been dead for a few days,

One thing to be aware of is, if there is any light reflection from the decoys that will cause them to veer away , I get the same reaction when the sun reflects off my glasses , 

If its a bright sunny day dead birds work far better, but if its cloudy and overcast the plastics work almost as well. 

As for the glasses unfortunately I cannot see with out them so I now find on sunny days wearing a wide brimmed hat and keeping my head down works ok, 

[enfieldspares]

8 hours ago, lakeside1000 said:

I bought a 1/2 litre bottle of white UV paint from eBay, I repaint the white on the decoy necks and wing bars every few months with it and birds come in and land within inches of them, does not work as well as fresh dead birds but always a good fall back if dead ones are in short supply. I only use fresh dead as I believe the UV in the feathers fade once they have been dead for a few days,

Thanks for posting that. As I'm too mean to invest before I'd heard what others said. Is it, please, this UV paint that very much better than the same "deeks" with bog standard as it comes form the factory and/or Tippex white paint? And does it as have done my standard paint "deeks" get attacked more by birds of prey or less by birds of prey?

Edited July 26, 2021 by enfieldspares

[old'un]

On 25/07/2021 at 21:54, FOXHUNTER1 said:

Has anybody got any experience of painting the white wing bars on their decoys and consequently using them only to find birds wouldn't decoy. I painted mine a few weeks ago and used them yesterday,  loads of birds about but nothing would decoy so I brought them in and replaced with dead birds , the birds then decoyed all be it not all of them but ended up with 88. Has anyone had this happen before ?

whenever I have touched-up old decoys I just used any matt water proof paint or as TT said Tippex works well.

I guess the question is, was it the decoys putting birds of or something else? Have the birds been shot at locally within the last few days?

You do get the odd occasion when birds are shy of any type of decoy, also I have noticed the time of day seems to make a difference to how the birds react to the decoys.

[marsh man]

Apart from gloss paint I have used whatever is available when needed , White undercoat , White eggshell and I have even gave them a drop of White Sandtex ( masonry paint )

Mine only get touched up once a year and normally early spring when I give them all a good wash and touch the wing and neck bars up when they dry off . mine are a good twenty years old and apart from a few air holes coursed by stray shot they still look good and will more than likely see me out .

[FOXHUNTER1]

7 hours ago, old'un said:

whenever I have touched-up old decoys I just used any matt water proof paint or as TT said Tippex works well.

I guess the question is, was it the decoys putting birds of or something else? Have the birds been shot at locally within the last few days?

You do get the odd occasion when birds are shy of any type of decoy, also I have noticed the time of day seems to make a difference to how the birds react to the decoys.

Birds had not been shot at and been feeding on the field for a week prior.  Maybe as you say it was time of day as this was in the morning,  they decoyed much better in the afternoon using dead birds 😁

[Scully]

As above. No need to buy anything especially, although being a painter I have a plentiful supply of matt white paint. Zinsser All-Coat is a favourite at it sticks to anything. 

[WalkedUp]

I’ve used anything around, which is typically children’s paint or old acrylics. My decoys looked like they were in drag as the colours were hideously garish and application cack handed. Still worked a treat though. 

[Westley]

30 plus years of using Tippex  worked for me.

[Westley]

These work very well too, they are over 15 years old now.

[lakeside1000]

On 26/07/2021 at 19:37, enfieldspares said:

Thanks for posting that. As I'm too mean to invest before I'd heard what others said. Is it, please, this UV paint that very much better than the same "deeks" with bog standard as it comes form the factory and/or Tippex white paint? And does it as have done my standard paint "deeks" get attacked more by birds of prey or less by birds of prey?

Sorry Enfield, have not been on here for a while, I have never had a bird of prey attack a decoy, but I have had buzzards try to take the odd bird that has dropped out at distance and I couldn't be bothered picking up until the end of the session. to be honest if anything finds one of my shot birds a tempting snack they are most welcome, so far I have lost birds, one to a fox, one to a buzzard and one to a stoat, although to be fair the stoat just ate a piece of the dead pigeon before running off, the fox found a bird that had fallen into a huge bramble bush right next to its entrance hole, and the buzzard was attracted by the bird flapping around on the ground about 100 yards from the hide, he made off with it despite my shouting at him, cheeky beggar,  

[enfieldspares]

Thanks LAKESIDE. The one that usually is the one that gets attacked is the one that I've put on top of those "Swiss Roll" type bales. I've never had one attacked pegged directly to the ground but only on top of a bale.

[WalkedUp]

First time I went decoying on a local farm, on pasture with air rifles, was 22 years ago. A sparrow hawk hit the plastic full bodied decoy, we just watched and eventually it got the message that there was no meat so it flew off. 

[Longbower]

On 03/08/2021 at 19:24, WalkedUp said:

First time I went decoying on a local farm, on pasture with air rifles, was 22 years ago. A sparrow hawk hit the plastic full bodied decoy, we just watched and eventually it got the message that there was no meat so it flew off. 

As above . Identical incident , including the air rifles.

[kamyonsofor]

I was quite lucky 2 people gave me a bag each of plastic bodied pigeons so I made wings out of thin plastic off my wifes medication trays and sprayed them rattle can grey primer and the white used emulsion , now this week some one was giving some thin flexible acetate sheets away on a freecycle site so got 20 sheets I get 2 wings out of each sheet , I fit a pair of wings onto the decoy back with a self tapping screw and can adjust the wings as needed. I am painting them in grey chalk emulsion and see how they go.