New Product for Waterfowlers (need your input)

rubberdown

rubberdown

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Ontario
Mods if this is not allowed, my apologies, please just remove it.

Okay guys, a little about me, being relatively new to waterfowling, this past season was my first fully dedicated season but I did a little waterfowling the previous 2 seasons. It has become my favorite type of hunting so far for a few reasons, no need to worry about my smell, no need to be super quiet the entire time, we almost always get to shoot and the comradery is GREAT since you are always hunting with buddies by your side.

Now for the problems with waterfowl hunting. The gear adds up in a hurry for those of us that want to hit the water AND the fields to maximize our time knocking birds out of the sky. Decoys are not cheap, and they take up a lot of room either in your garage, your shed, your trunk, trailer, bed of the truck, side of the house, etc etc. And in order to hunt both water and land, you need decoys for both. I searched and searched for methods of using my floating goose decoys in the fields and there are some options out there. The options I found dont stack well, and they look like formed wire frames, they also dont look like you would get much motion out of your floater on the stands that are out there now. So I tried a few different ideas and prototypes and have come up with a great product (in my opinion). The ONLY problem I see with my product is the cost to my fellow hunters I would like to sell them too. I think the part will last a life time 10 times over, and it will stack great for less space required, and it will allow you to turn your floating goose decoys into FULL BODY field decoys with a bit of motion and VISIBLE FEET and LEGS that may help sway wary birds into landing in your spread.

Okay, all my talk aside about why these are going to be great, my cost to build and powder coat them puts the price up there a fair bit more than other options out there. This is the reason for my topic here. Would these be worth it to YOU and could you see these being a useful tool in your bag of tricks to shoot more geese. I would market them in sets of 6 or 12 stands, half being the taller stand and the other half being the lower stand. And think about NOT needing to buy more FB's for field hunting when you can now use your FB Floaters. Anyways, heres the pics. Still working on my laser cutting costs to bring down my manufacturing cost to make them affordable to guys just like you and me, but if there is little to no interest, I'll make enough for myself and my buddies and call it a day







 
As a "veteran" waterfowler who has owned every conceivable brand and style of decoy out there and has seen numerous devices to make use of floaters for the field I think the concept is good but steel is heavy and if it is something I have to assemble in the field in the dark prior to use it's a no go for me. As it is we are usually setting up 14-20 dozen full bodies and to slow us down having to assemble feet to turn floaters to full bodies is not going to happen, not with me at least. With larger spreads it will be too time consuming and downright heavy. Also I see you have to anchor the bases to the ground with anchor pins? No thank you. Plus I know I do not want to contend with anchors and anchor lines on my field spread.
I think they will be great for the limited budget hunter running 1 or 2 dozen decoys who can't afford both a water and field spread and doesn't have time restarints trying to set out a huge spread.
 
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Thanks "the spank", no assembly required, you just slide the decoy onto the stand. Anchoring them in non frozen ground will be as simple as pushing in the stakes for a silhouette decoy. The water lines could be left on your decoys or removed, it works either way. The material on these prototypes is 1/8" thick, they are pretty light, but I will be testing a set in 1/16" thick steel as well to cut my cost and weight for anyone needing several dozen sets.

 
Like I say I believe they are good idea for the small spread hunters but they are still technically an "assembly required" in the field. You still have to mate the decoy to the stand after anchoring the stand in place. I currently run Dakota full bodies and real geese silos for field hunting. I leave the stands on my FB's and just toss them in a pile in the trailer or truck. Pull them out and set them on the field. For the odd occasion when I hunted water I had floaters. Since moving west I have not hunted water for geese and only a couple times for ducks. In fact I was discussing with my hunting partner the other day the idea of selling all my water gear as it has been three seasons sitting in his garage unused. I hope you do well with your idea.
I'm impressed with the design and looks of the quality of them. Neat concept.
 
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good idea and nice workmanship. I think you could market those. As Spank says, they would likely appeal to hunters using a small spread. If they were cheap, I'd consider them.. but honestly the birds up here are pretty naive and full body field dekes aren't generally needed. If the birds are close enough to notice their plastic friends don't have any feet... then they're close enough to shoot!
 
Look great, the fit/finish is nice, and they look solid, well done. However, I think the market would be somewhat limited. Most guys have come to the conclusion that the majority of geese are shot in fields and tend to buy gear to suit that style of hunting. If someone goes and invests only in floater goose decoys and also wants to hunt land, I'm sorry, but that was a poor investment if you really want to play. I think most who would want to use water decoys on land would be thinking more along the lines of duck decoys and they wouldn't need something this heavy duty. Like you said there are some out there already that sort of look like formed wire, its 1/4" steel, but they are plenty strong enough. They also are a base type design and don't rely on tent pegs to hold the stand secure which would be a lot better for hard/frozen ground, and set up time.
 
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I hunt water mostly, I think it'd be good to have a few of those to add some standups along the shore on somedays instead of dragging standups to where I hunt.
If there's one thing waterfowlers do, its spend money!
Even if they aren't going to use them, a lot of guys will buy them just to have. I know my garage is full of waterfowl stuff I never use.
 
Thanks guys. I think a product like this is geared more towards guys like me that try and hunt both water and land and know that adding your floaters to your field setup would be just enough decoys for the field without needing more field decoys LOL.

Any time we have shot geese over water it was with a small 12 to 24 duck decoy spread (yes we hunt small water) and a small 6 or 8 goose decoy spread on the water and the geese where just a bonus to the duck hunting day. Now when we hunt fields, we never see ducks, so we set up strictly for the geese. Adding my 8 goose floaters to my small (but growing) field decoys is a huge help for us without adding another 8 full body field deeks.
 
I rather just put some shells on stakes. Way lower then a good full body like a BF, and none of portability of shells and silos.
 
sherlockbonez said:
I rather just put some shells on stakes. Way lower then a good full body like a BF, and none of portability of shells and silos.
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For me there is nothing more bothersome than assembling decoys in the dark. If you have stackable shells it usually means you are finding heads that match bodies, putting them together first, then stakes in the ground or in the decoy (a tiny hole in the back in the dark) then putting them in the field. I'll take FB's any day. Yes they take up room but they are stop and drop. Same with my silos. I can put 4 dozen in my silo bag and walk around sticking them in the ground in one non stop sweep. 10 minutes and 4 dozen are out. LIke I said, we hunt with a pretty large spread, usually 14-20 dozen mixed goose decoys. I used to hunt with a small spread back in Ontario and years ago when I had a much more limited budget there were a few years water decoys got used in the field too. Carry-Lite Aqua-Vacs actually. I think the OP's idea is great for a small spread hunter on a limited budget. 25 years ago I'd have been ordering some.
 
I've seen stuff like this before. However they usually don't catch on for whatever reasons. I think its mostly because they are frustrating to assemble or set-up, they are heavy/bulky or they are to expensive. Remember your catering to a certain type of waterfowl hunter here, low cost and ease of use is what you want....

Guys that run big spreads want ease of use and if it requires driving 100's of little pegs into the frozen ground or fumbling around looking for dropped pins in a field in the dark its not happening. For the walk-in only hunter carrying gun, gear and decoys plus a few dozen of those will get old quick, plus Shipping on those things would be killer.

Now if you could make them out of plastic to save weight would solve carrying and shipping cost issues and might make the manufacturing process cheaper and easier too. I would also suggest adding some sort of a heel to the stand in hopes of making it stand on its own thus eliminating the need for pins and all those nightmares. Finally if you could make it so a dozen stack up together neatly, I think you'd have a real interesting product on your hands....
 
Thanks guys.

Killswitch, as they are right now, they stack up perfectly and dont weigh tooo much at all, they are 1/8" thick. I have a dozen more on the go right now being made with 14g steel (0.075" thick) so even lighter. I did consider forming it with supports towards the back of the stand which would be great for stabilizing it, but would then make them much less stack-able. Its still early in the development stage and changes can be made :)

In the end, I know I'll use them rather than buying more full bodies (unless they are a killer deal) to add my 8 floaters to my meager spread. And I have a few buddies that will use whatever I have left over.
 
I'm an "urban redneck", so I've got a little shed and a basement workshop so I have to be very selective about my net total of gear. Like a good urban redneck, I drive a Subarua Forester, and I have no room on my city lot of a trailer. All this to say, space is at a PREMIUM for me both for storage and transport. I have sold all my goose decoys over time because they took too much room. All I kept was a set of silos to put up behind my duck blind just to try to get any passing geese to turn and take a quick look. So, in terms of your market research, I think I would be exactly your client. A few comments:
1. Anything that I can buy to make my gear more versatile and save duplication, is appealing to a guy in my situation
2. Someone mentioned the pins to drive in. I know from silos that when you get into frozen ground etc..., this kind of thing can be a lot more trouble than it looks in cold weather. Also, sometimes you want to made adjustments to
your setup. Gets difficult to do quickly if they're attached. But of course, if they blow over, that's even worse. So if there was a simple modication so that would not be needed (although I don't see how you could), then that would be good
3. Weight. COnsider that someone like me who is pressed for space (and is therefore likely to find your product appealing) is also unlikely to have a big truck, trailer, ATV. So everything tends to get moved on my back. Steel SUCKS in that regard!
4. To your question of cost. Given that goose decoys are so expensive, as your product stands now (steel, have to stake them down), I would pay 50$ for a dozen of them without worrying about it too much. If some of those limitations were resolved, I might pay more. I realize that price makes it not worth your while - just trying to provide the most honest answer I can for your decision on how to proceed.
Cheers,
-Dave
 
I would also think the US market might be a better place this could be used
Best is to find a market/strategy site and do some research in to it
 
killswitch said:
Pm me again, I think I have a way to solve this problem.
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Me too LOL, but I would need to change the length of the bend on every piece in each "set" so they would stack up nicely. I have worked out a better laser cutting cost as long as I build myself a brake and do all the forming in house (I design build ATV accessories as a full time side gig and supervise a machine shop my day for the last 25 years).

Its a work in progress and every time I sit and think about an item I build, it gets improved, and every time a customer finds a solution for a problem or a way to make things better, I improve.
 
Ya id agree above, weight of floaters in a field is big. Shells work nice, steel feet might be nice, just need to integrate a center spike to put in the ground and it that is hollow so it is stack-able
 
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