What's Sauce For The Goose...

Tom Sykes looks at how his decoys have evolved over the years and why Sillosocks have become his new favourite design

- Tom Sykes

I do my fair share of goose decoying on the foreshore over the course of a year. I no longer have the ground of my own to decoy inland, but this is not a problem when you have miles of foreshore with large numbers of greylag, Canada and pink-footed geese to go at during the winter months. As with all decoying, the thrill is convincing wild birds to flight in range. For me, it doesn’t get much better than wild geese with their wings locked and whiffling in to get the excitement levels up. Over the years I have used a range of different decoys and have found niggly issues with most designs.

Shells and full bodies

I started off in my youth with a handful of shells and full-bodied decoys that I was given by a family friend. These worked well and accounted for a good number of geese. But the size and awkwardness of lugging large and heavy shells and full-bodied decoys to my desired location became a chore. I remember years ago when trying to bag a couple of geese for friends’ Christmas dinners, I ended up shooting a triple of large Canadas. I thought the journey back to the car was never going to end as I crossed gutter after gutter, decoy bag laden with Christmas bounty swinging me off balance with every leap across the muddy creeks. The shells and full bodies were effective decoys despite being well used and beaten up, but I was constantly on the lookout for an easier option.

Texas Rags