When it comes to duck hunting gear and duck decoy spreads there is one truism that leads all others: make it look real! When it comes to standard duck decoys they lack one key thing - motion. As I have said many times on this site adding motion to your decoy spread can be one of the key things you can do as a waterfowl hunter to get ducks to commit and finish. Our review today goes over one of the decoys on the market that tries to get motion added to your decoy spread - the Windwacker duck decoy. If you haven't seen these in action check out the videos and other great information on the Windwhacker website.
To start with let's understand why and how to use the Windwhacker duck decoy. The why of course is to add motion and realism to your spread. The flashing produced by this decoy is meant to simulate the back peddling of a duck as it attempts to land. If you haven't seen this in the wild check out mallards as they are landing in a agricultural field, the human eye can especially see the vision these decoys try to simulate. Now there are many decoys on the market that attempt to mimic this motion, most notably the Mojo Mallard decoy and the Edge Expedite Lucky Duck. I have personally used both and they work excellent. The Windwhacker is a different animal completely. The Mojo and Edge Expedite run off of a battery, the Windwhacker runs without the aid of anything, but mother nature's wind. Now, with the wind driven spinning wing decoys I have seen in the past have left me wanting quite a bit. Put plainly, they simply didn't work. The wind simply never blew hard and constant enough to get them to give that true flash that brings in the ducks.
So first and foremost, in order for these to be effective they must be able to flash dark and light in low wind conditions. The Windwhacker uses snap swivels on a large scale similar to those that are used in fishing (for those that are familiar). I was impressed with how well they allowed a little amount of wind to get them moving. I would estimate it will work great out in the field. The true test will be how the duck react to it.
Secondly I look at how well the decoy is put together. The flashing wings are made of metal and should hold up over time well. The stake that you use to put into the ground (or bottom of the lake) is a composite that feels very strong and should hold up well to the rigors of duck hunting. The standard unit won't work well in deep water, but they do offer a model that works in deep water.
On to the shortcomings of this in my opinion. 2 jumped out at me. The first is the "pony tail holder like" part that holds the wings to the snap swivels. I would guess these don't hold up that well over time after seeing my daughters go through these like water, but I guess time will tell. The second one may just be my issue. The directions included in the box were lacking to put it together easily (no pictures) and it said to check the site for more information. I didn't see anything on the site that was directly aimed at showing how to assemble. Looking at the pictures of it in action helped a bunch, but a quick article with pictures on how to assemble would have been nice.
Overall I would give this decoy a thumbs up for adding some motion to your duck spread. I will check back after the hunting season commences up here and let you know how it works out in the real world. If you have had experiences with this decoy please feel free to comment below.