Does anyone have any experience using the Academy brand decoys, Game Winner? I was considering some because of the great price but they looked kinda cheap. We just got our first Academy here in Tallahassee, FL and I know that they are all over TX so I figured this would be a good place to ask the question! Thanks!

they're not great, but you can kill birds over them.

They arent my favorite at all. Cheaply made, thin, not realistic looking. Im not a fan

Get what you pay for

I bought about 4 dozen when they were on sale for less than $10/doz. They aren't the best. They are thin. I don't care for the keels...but the ducks haven't seemed to mind. They have held up pretty well for a few seasons.

Have killed numerous birds over and in them.

personally i don't like these ones.

that's so true I've got a couple doz of their teal decoys they will work,plan to repaint in a season or two or just replace

gotta go with the consensus on this one, they are cheap and won't last too long.

The better you take care of them the longer the deks will last. Doesn't matter if you pay 1 dollar apiece or 40 apiece. They would be good for building a spread or beefing it up a little.

After all, its more about where you are than what you use.

Don't they have a "carvers edge" now? Those seemed to look pretty good in the store. I won't buy them, but I thought they looked okay. If you buy your dekes in the offseason sales, you can get the better dekes for a good deal. For teal though, you can't go wrong with the $10/doz game winners.

The new gwt the have this season actually look really good. My buddy had some for teal season. I was surprised, they aren't at all like the others

Yeah those new ones don't look bad at all. I'm pretty set with decoys for a while but yeah those Carvers ones look decent.

Although the new ones do look pretty good, they are built with the same quality. They are thin and the keels are terrible. I had a buddy that brought a dozen and a half and I put out 3 doz in half the time he put out his, due to him having to wade through the mud and turn his over becuase he couldn't throw them out and they land upright.

They wouldn't flip over with the weighted keel?!?!

The ones I have seen have been water keel and they will not fill up with water to stand the decoy upright. Also will get blown over in a strong wind

The new ones I saw were weighted keel and we're a lot thicker than the other game winners

I have some pintail ones and they were water weighted and would flip over in the wind, so I got some lead and put in the keel, we will see how they work on opening day

Putting lead in the keel would deff work. GHG hot buys are $30 doz, never had any but if they are as tough as the standard GHG deff worth the money and look a lot better.

Only problem with the hot buys is the paint scratches off super super easy and the hole on the keel you tie onto breaks easy too

I bought some storm front decoys the other day at cabelas for 24 bucks, used them every day of teal season snd I'm pretty happy with them. I'm rough with my decoys too

I don't like game winner decoys because they are so small. Its like teal sized everything

Buddy I hunt with just bought 2 doz mallards and 1 doz GWT in Storm Fronts and they look really good and are much lighter than my GHG

The water keels can be an advantage if you aren't hunting somewhere with a bunch of chop. There are downsides to them though and that is your dog can flip them over on a retrieve and they won't "right" themselves. For the stuff I hunt I would take a water or keel-less decoy and disadvantages ove a keeled decoy. I don't get any movement from keeled decoys.

Having said all of that, the game winners are a decoy that you get what you pay for situation.

Good luck!

Save up a few more $$ and buy some better decoy's