10 Best Turkey Decoys of 2021
Hunting with turkey decoys makes your life easier and increases your hunting success each time. The use of decoys bases on the turkey's natural mating instincts and it has been proven effective for ages.
The issue, however, is that different manufacturers offer different types of decoys and this can lead to a little confusion, especially if it's your first time in the market.
That's why this turkey decoys review tries to make things easier by providing you with a list of the market's top offers, as well as a helpful buying guide.
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10 Best Turkey Decoys – Review
- 1. Avian-X Breeder – Best Overall Turkey Hunting Decoy
- 2. Montana Decoy 042 – Best Budget Turkey Decoy
- 3. Avian-X Feeder – Best Feeder Hen Position Turkey Decoy
- 4. Avian-X Lookout – Best Lookout Position Turkey Decoy
- 5. Avian-X Strutter – Best Strutter Turkey Decoy
- 6. Montana Decoy 0050 – Best Multi-pose Turkey Decoy
- 7. Primos Hunting 69065 – Lightweight Submissive Hen Decoy
- 8. Primos Hunting 69066 – Ultra Realistic 3D Jake Turkey Decoy
- 9. Montana Decoy 0061 – Compact 3D Turkey Decoy
- 10. Mojo Outdoors HW2308 – Remote Controlled Turkey Decoy
- How to Buy the Best Turkey Decoy
- Conclusion
10 Best Turkey Decoys – Review
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PRODUCT |
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1. Avian-X Breeder (Best Overall) |
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2. Montana Decoy 042 (Best Budget) |
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3. Avian-X Feeder (Best Feeder Hen Position) |
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4. Avian-X Lookout (Best Lookout Position) |
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5. Avian-X Strutter (Best Strutter Decoy) |
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6. Montana Decoy 0050 (Best Multi-pose Decoy) |
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7. Primos Hunting 69065 (Lightweight Submissive Hen Decoy) |
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8. Primos Hunting 69066 (Ultra Realistic 3D Jake Decoy) |
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9. Montana Decoy 0061 (Compact 3D Decoy) |
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10. Mojo Outdoors HW2308 (Remote Controlled) |
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PRODUCT |
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1. Avian-X Breeder (Best Overall) |
2. Montana Decoy 042 (Best Budget) |
3. Avian-X Feeder (Best Feeder Hen Position) |
4. Avian-X Lookout (Best Lookout Position) |
5. Avian-X Strutter (Best Strutter Decoy) |
6. Montana Decoy 0050 (Best Multi-pose Decoy) |
7. Primos Hunting 69065 (Lightweight Submissive Hen Decoy) |
8. Primos Hunting 69066 (Ultra Realistic 3D Jake Decoy) |
9. Montana Decoy 0061 (Compact 3D Decoy) |
10. Mojo Outdoors HW2308 (Remote Controlled) |
1. Avian-X Breeder – Best Overall Turkey Hunting Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Dura-rubber
- Dimensions: 5.3 x 11.5 x 11.6 inches
- Weight: 1 pound
If you want just one turkey decoy to go hunting with, then you should check out this offer from Avian-X. It's a hen in a receptive position, which includes a forward stretching body position and a lowered head with dropped wings and a high exposed rump.
These features combine to let any oncoming gobbler know that she's receptive to courtship with a dominant gobbler. It's also very effective when used alone and is completely collapsible for easy transport.
Another of its great features is the attention to detail and its very high realism. Avian-X does a great job here with their dura-rubber material, which both makes this high realism possible and is additionally very durable. All these features combine to make it our overall best turkey decoy.
Its only issue is that you can get cheaper offers such as this Primos Hunting submissive hen decoy . But you'll need to consider the quality of those offers as few designs can beat Avian-X's quality. The package also includes a carry bag and a stake that helps it with a natural lifelike motion.
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2. Montana Decoy 042 – Best Budget Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 2D
- Material: Fabric
- Dimensions: 31 x 9 inches
- Weight: 0.5 pound
With this Montana Decoy, you get a low-priced offer that's great for those on a budget. Made using the real photo of a hen just before she bred, you can rest assured that her posture will bring in lots of toms.
The picture is screen-painted on fabric, which is flexible and easy to fold down into a small disc for easy storage or transport. It's also very lightweight at just 0.5 pounds, making it a great choice for those in search of lightweight gear.
But, asides from being the best turkey decoy for the money here, it's also the only 2D offer. This means that it may fail an up-close inspection, but you don't need to wait that long before shooting. So, it still offers great value for its price.
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3. Avian-X Feeder – Best Feeder Hen Position Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Dura-rubber
- Dimensions: 11.6 x 11.1 x 4.9 inches
- Weight: 3.3 pounds
Here's another top turkey decoy from Avian-X and this time, the hen holds her head low and in a relaxed position. This is the perfect feeding hen that an accompanying jake decoy will help to make irresistible.
Avian-X makes it using dura-rubber, which is a tough, collapsible, and durable material that easily folds down for storage or transport. Then, there are the highly realistic colors with no-flake paint that make this decoy almost like the real thing.
The only issue that may pop up is weight, although it's not that much heavier than similar offers. Avian-X includes a folding stake for setup and natural movements, a storage compression strap, and a drawstring carry bag to make handling easier.
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4. Avian-X Lookout – Best Lookout Position Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Dura-rubber
- Dimensions: 5 x 11.5 x 11.5 inches
- Weight: 3.4 pounds
Avian-X's Lookout hen brings a new twist to your hunting game. This turkey decoy arouses both toms and hens with its posture. It has its head held high with an upright position, which shows she is dominant but relaxed.
She also has dropped wings and a high exposed rump, meaning she's ready to mate and willing to fight for it. This hen decoy drives dominant hens crazy and may get attacked from time to time while getting more attention from jakes and toms.
Avian-X also makes it with the same high quality and realism that it's known for making the most realistic turkey decoys. It features a dura-rubber construction, includes a stake for natural movements, and comes with a carry bag.
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5.
Avian-X Strutter
– Best Strutter Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Dura-rubber
- Dimensions: 15 x 12.3 x 8.4 inches
- Weight: 6.2 pounds
Another impressive Avian-X offer is this strutter decoy. It poses in a dominant strutting position, challenging the pecking order, and it's 15% smaller than real turkeys, making it nearly irresistible to older gobblers.
Avian-X makes it with the same dura-rubber material that it's known for making highly-realistic turkey decoys with. Also, the colors are vibrant and look very real, plus the material is guaranteed to last a long while.
One perfect use of this strutter is near a submissive hen, as it hardly fails to increase your chances of landing a big old tom.
On the other hand, it will scare off many non-dominant jakes and toms, and this is its downside. But when a big tom does come along, then it's usually a very big one.
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6. Montana Decoy 0050 – Best Multi-pose Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Cloth fabric
- Dimensions: 17 x 13 x 3 inches
- Weight: 1.7 pounds
This Montana-Decoy's big feature is its flexibility. Its head and neck are adjustable, so you can either set it up as a breeder, a feeder, or a looker to get the reaction that you want.
Its other feature is its lightweight design. It weighs just 1.7 pounds and is perfect for the hunter that needs to move light and fast. Montana Decoy uses fabric to cover a collapsible spring wire, thereby making it a 3D decoy able to shrink down easily for transport.
Its major issue is that it isn't as realistic as many others. It's still effective though, and its low price, compact design, and setup flexibility make it an attractive offer.
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7. Primos Hunting 69065 – Lightweight Submissive Hen Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: EVA (Ethylene-vinyl acetate)
- Dimensions: 16 x 13 x 7 inches
- Weight: 2.1 pounds
Made from EVA (Ethylene-vinyl acetate), this turkey decoy is both lightweight and very realistic. Primos Hunting uses an HD paint scheme with very detailed artwork to fool even the leeriest toms.
It offers two submissive postures for you to choose from and is offered at an attractive price. Besides, its EVA material is collapsible, so you can easily collapse it for transport or storage.
For cons, the included stake is a 2-piece design and prone to separating and falling apart when you don't want them to. But asides from that, the overall construction is good and effective.
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8. Primos Hunting 69066 – Ultra Realistic 3D Jake Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Rubberized plastic
Primos hunting also offers this ultra-realistic turkey decoy that's sure to fool the wariest tom into thinking an outside intruder is on to his hens.
This jake is set in a submissive posture to help pull in the toms. Keep in mind that it works best near a hen, so the tom has very little time to think before rushing in to put the jake in its place.
The body is collapsible, so you can easily fold and stick it into your turkey vest. Other valuable features that help make it one of the best inflatable turkey decoys include a mesh carry bag, a low and attractive price, plus two stakes in the package.
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9. Montana Decoy 0061 – Compact 3D Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Fabric
- Dimensions: 12 x 11 x 3.8 inches
- Weight: 1.9 pounds
This turkey decoy is a different type of decoy from the other 3D decoys in this review. It's a folding decoy with an internal spring that makes it easy to fold and open. It also comes at an attractive price.
Montana Decoy uses fabric for the body and this helps to make it both compact and lightweight. Then there's the flexible neck, which allows you to mold it into any position you desire to fool even the wiliest of toms.
The good thing about this folding design is that it doesn't need to remain airtight to stay in shape, a problem that the best collapsible turkey decoys face.
For downsides, fabric decoys aren't very durable, since they have to withstand the weather and occasional attacks from toms. But on the brighter side, they offer a lightweight and highly-realistic decoy that improves your hunting success.
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10. Mojo Outdoors HW2308 – Remote Controlled Turkey Decoy
- Shape: 3D
- Material: Various
- Dimensions: 19 x 13 x 13 inches
- Weight: 9 pounds
This Mojo Outdoors HW2308 includes a remote control feature from up to 150 feet away, and this lets you do more with the decoy and make those old toms go crazy.
In one setting, the decoy will move around while simultaneously fanning its tail, just like a real gobbler. In the second jake setting, the tail is collapsed and pointed down, giving you flexibility in designing your hunting setup.
Where issues come up is with price and weight because it's both the costliest and the heaviest offer on this list. But its impressive realism, including the 150-ft remote features, make it worth it.
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How to Buy the Best Turkey Decoy
The following paragraphs list some of the most important factors to consider when choosing the best turkey decoy for your hunting trip.
1. Realism
Being a decoy, an offer's physical appearance will help to determine its true value, because it has to look and act as much as possible as the real thing.
You'll find different qualities of turkey decoys on offer, ranging from cloth constructions to those made from rubberized materials. Some look just okay, while others look amazingly perfect.
Some hunters will tell you that there isn't much of a difference between an 'okay' decoy and a very perfect one. In the end, however, it's best to maximize your chances and go for the best or most realistic decoy you can afford.
2. Type of Bird
The type of bird is also important because different birds will elicit different behaviors from the target. That said, turkey decoys are available in hen (the female bird) designs such as the Primos Hunting 69065 and jake (juvenile male) designs such as the Primos Hunting 69066 .
Keep in mind that we hunt turkeys during the breeding season, so this means that a hen will always draw attention from potential male partners. On the other hand, a lonely jake decoy will seldom bring you hunting success.
You can use a jake decoy, however, to bring out the competitive spirit in a gobbler by placing the jake decoy near a hen decoy. This infuriates any gobbler as he wants no one near his hens. So, when he comes to put the jake in its place, you'll get your chance to shoot.
3. Collapsibility
You'll find collapsible and full-body turkey decoys in the market and each type comes with its pros and cons. Full-body decoys, for one, always look real close up, while some collapsible decoys will fail that up-close inspection.
Other decoy types are fully-inflatable and will always look great up close. Their small downside, then, is that you have to pay slightly more for them.
As you can see, the value of a turkey decoy's collapsibility only depends on how you go hunting and how far you may have to hike. If you need to hike a long distance, then a collapsible and lightweight decoy may make sense.
4. Lightweight
Full-body decoys weigh more than collapsible models on average. But many collapsible turkey decoys can't compete with the impressive features that full-body decoys often offer. In the end, this is a decision you'll have to reach on your own.
5. Durability
This depends on the construction materials used for the decoy. Manufacturers use anything from wood to cloth fabric, plastic, and even rubberized materials.
Each material comes with its advantages, as well as its disadvantages. But some rubberized materials, for instance, offer both impressive advantages like highly realistic colors or physical realism and very long durabilities. Cloth fabrics, on the other hand, are the least durable, but also cheaper.
In the end, this is another choice you will have to make on your own between the material type, its realism qualities, and how long it will serve you.
Conclusion
We've come to the end of this turkey decoys review and you've seen the top offers out there. From collapsible hens and jakes to 3D remote-controlled strutters, you can see there's something here for all types of setups. And now, it's your turn to make a choice.
For the best overall offer, we recommend the Avian-X Breeder , with its submissive pose, durable dura-rubber construction, and very lifelike design.
Budget shoppers will appreciate the Montana Decoy 042 with its low price, 0.5-pound lightweight, and super-compact design.
Else, if you desire maximum action, then we recommend the Avian-X Lookout , with its dominant but relaxed hen posture, top-quality dura-rubber construction, and lifelike design.