Decoys

When I first hunted with my Dad, we used a couple dozen paper mache Mallard decoys. He bought them used and repainted them with Herter's paint. A couple of them had the bills broken off and Dad whittled new bills for them. They did OK. Unfortunately about the time Dad got serious about hunting over decoys at Indian Lake, duck hunting seemed to be gaining popularity. Big spreads of decoys became almost a necessity due to having a lot of hunters within just a few hundred yards of each other.

We bought a big bunch of used decoys from Louie Brucken. Repainted them all as Mallards and Black Ducks. Bought our first new decoys, a dozen Herter's Model 63 Bluebills. Next I bought a dozen Model 63 Canvasbacks. Dad bought 2 dozen Mallards and we were getting there. Dad and Harry Fleming bought 6 Canada Geese from Bruce Shoup. He had made a mold from a Model 81 Herter's goose and mixed his own chemicals and made decoys. We were competitive with the other hunters at Indian Lake with that spread of about a hundred decoys.

When I joined the service and had some money for the first time in my life, I bought 3 dozen oversized Mallards, Herter's Model 72, and a dozen Canvasbacks. Changed the heads on the dozen small Cans to make them Bluebills. Ken Henderson added a dozen oversized Blacks. Then we made a deal with Bruce Shoup to make decoys on a 50/50 basis. He supplied the materials, we supplied the work. We ended up with 36 really nice geese of our own. From some of the bodies that didn't turn out well, I made a bunch of oversized Bluebills. So we sold off all our standard sized decoys (except for a half dozen of my original Model 63 Canvasbacks) and ended up with 50 Mallards/Blacks, 39 Canada Geese, 12 Canvasbacks and 26 Bluebills. We hunted that spread of 127 decoys for several years. Kept them all painted up nice and I think we out-decoyed all the hunters on Indian Lake.

But, styrofoam decoys won't last forever and some of that spread are gone now. I still have 42 of the puddleducks, 4 of the divers and 30 of the geese. I have added more Model 72 Bluebills, Cans and Redheads. Bought about 3 dozen Restle oversized Bluebills. Painted a few as Goldeneyes and repainted half the geese as Brant. So my current diver spread is all oversized, hand painted, many years old, but as nice as you'll ever see on the water. Not a season goes by that other hunters don't stop and comment on my decoys. I repainted the old Model 63 Cans and kept them as souvenirs, a pair for me and a pair for each of my sons.

I own 10-12 dozen plastic decoys; Teal, Gadwall, Wigeon, Pintails and even 2 dozen Bluebills. The puddleducks are for the Gameland Impoundments we hunt occasionally.

I use the 2 dozen little Bluebills to augment my 32 decoy Seaduck rig. All oversized cork, I made almost all of them myself. They are real big, real heavy, and look great out in the rough, open water. Scoter can't pass them by :-)

I have a few semi-decorative decoys, but nothing of any value. I have a half dozen LL Bean cork Blacks but don't get to use them much. I even made some canvas covered Swan decoys a few years back. They were too big and cumbersome, besides, we hunt Swan in fields. I have some field shell Canada's and Mallards.

It would take me a half day to count them all, but I have enough. I could go back to Indian Lake and make the other hunters throw up.