Recently, I practically gave away the last of my plastic mallard decoys. It was such a deal, that the guy I sold them to almost felt guilty. But I didn’t have use for them any more. For about two years, I’ve slowly been building up a rig of all wooden decoys. Most come from decoy carver friends of mine, others are antiques, and one I even carved myself.
You might think this is stupid, crazy, or just another hipster-hunter idiosyncrasy like shooting a side-by-side (and yeah, I do that sometimes, too). But for me, it adds something to duck hunting I wouldn’t want to lose. It started when I hunted with a decoy carver over a completely wooden rig while on assignment for a story. Now, I spend a big part of every day looking at old wooden ducks. It’s a bit of an obsession and not for everybody, but here are a few reasons why and how you might give it a try.
The Real Question is, Why Plastic?
Before the plastic decoy, everybody hunted over wood. Some companies made them, while many were carved and painted by hand in small shops across the country. We might look at plastic decoys as being almost disposable today, but a rig of carved wooden decoys would be passed down from generation to generation, getting touched up with paint each time.
When companies figured out how to make reliable plastic decoys, they took over. Plastic decoys were cheaper and easier to produce—and companies convinced hunters that plastic decoys were more realistic and, therefore, worked better. But even though plastic decoys brought in ducks, something got lost. And the argument for more realistic decoys bringing in more ducks is thin at best. (In fact, a hand-carved wooden spread is a sure way to set yourself apart from the crowd when hunting pressured birds.)
The kinds of decoys I like to hunt over are more the carver’s idea of a duck than an exact representation of the animal. They have motion even though they’re sitting still. They ride the water differently than plastic, and they’re a lot nicer to look at than just lying around the house. More importantly, traditional decoy carvers are keeping American folk art alive through unique regional styles. If you’re into that sort of thing, plastic decoys just don’t cut it.
You Spend a Lot More Time Looking at Decoys Than You Do Shooting Birds
I don’t need to tell you that a day of duck hunting is a day of staring out over the water punctuated with just seconds of intense action. That’s another reason why I prefer hunting over hand-carved decoys. They’re just more fun to watch on the water than plastic decoys. I get something out of setting each one, and I think of the person who carved it every time I go hunting.
Maintaining and carving wooden decoys also gives me something to do in the offseason. It’s way better than just hosing off a rig of plastic decoys and hanging them up in the garage. Instead, I get to display my hunting decoys around the house year-round. Some might need to be touched up with paint, while others just need to be cleaned. Unlike bird mounts, carved decoys only get better with age. I also get a lot out of searching for more wooden decoys at auctions, from carver friends, or decoy festivals. I’m only able to budget for about two to four decoys per year, but I’ll have them for the rest of my life.
Ready to Make the Switch? Here’s How
If you want to get into wooden decoys, there are a few ways to go about it and a few things to consider. For one, there is a strong collector market out there. Antique decoys can be outrageously expensive, but you shouldn’t let that scare you. Whether you’re buying from a carver or an auction, you should be aware that you’re going to spend in the thousands, not hundreds of dollars, to build up a rig of about a dozen-and-a-half ducks. There are some cheaper ways to do this, though.
I mostly buy new decoys from two carvers, Jamie Hand of Southern New Jersey and Jerry Talton of North Carolina. Each carve hollow-bodied decoys in regional styles that look more stripped down and sleek compared to what you’re probably used to with a plastic decoy. I also like to pick up antique decoys at Guyette and Deeter’s online auction house if the price is right.
Often, you can find decoys carved in the 80s and 90s that aren’t too expensive and aren’t too valuable to take on the water. The oldest decoys in my rig were two pintails carved in the 1950s. I prefer hollow-body cedar or white pine decoys as they are much lighter to carry and they float better than solid bodies. Cork is also popular, especially in diver rigs, but I’ve found it to be too heavy for the way I hunt.
Carved decoys roughly fall into three categories: gunning decoys, slicks, and decorative. Gunning decoys are built for hunting. They have less detail and are meant to get a little beat up. They’re priced accordingly at around $100 to $400 each. Slicks are more fancy and expensive and can cost upwards of $700 to $1,000 each. They’re the best a carver can produce, and most people buy them to put on a shelf. Decorative decoys look a lot like plastic decoys. They’re made to look like real ducks, not in a particular style. Personally, I don’t get a lot out of them. I feel they miss the point when it comes to decoy carving as functional folk art, and if I wanted a perfect representation of a duck, I’d just go with plastic decoys.
If you can’t afford to buy wooden decoys, you can always learn to carve your own. This is the most fun, but there is a learning curve. Try to find a good teacher (decoy shows are good places to look) or a good book, like Grayson Chesser’s Making Decoys: The Century Old Way. As far as tools, the best decoy carvers I know still use the kinds of tools you’d find in a woodshed—a hatchet, a wood carving knife, and some sandpaper.
Some carvers use power tools, but as my friend Jerry Talton Puts it, “If you’re running a grinder, you’re listening to a grinder and choking on sawdust. If you’re using hand tools, you’ve got sweet-smelling cedar chips falling at your feet, and you’re listening to George Jones.”
Buy at Least One
Contemporary and antique wooden decoys aren’t cheap, so don’t go out there expecting to build a rig of them overnight. If you’re a waterfowler, though, you should have at least one wooden decoy in your house. Decoy carvers are keeping an old waterfowling tradition alive, and they can’t do it unless we buy their decoys.
The easiest way to get into wooden decoys is to find one that you’d like to put on the shelf. If it isn’t too valuable, you might even want to add it to your plastic rig for good luck. And before you know it, you’ll be as obsessed with them as I am.
Feature image via Jerry Talton.
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