Wooden Decoys

love2hunt

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Has anyone hunted over a water spread of all wooden duck decoys before? Thought it would be cool to build a spread of a dozen and a half of wooden decoys from autumn wings decoys. They are spendy and I have no idea if there are any pros to it but it seems like a cool concept getting back to how it was done in the olden days.
 


KDM

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I did it ONCE and it was nostalgic and I don't want to rain on your parade, but here's what I learned from the experience and talking to the guy that used them. We put out 3 dozen hand carved/assembled wooden deks and they were heavy, spendy, didn't sit right in the water, cracked, split, absorbed water, flaked, needed tighter environmental conditions for storage, and took 10 times the work to set up and take down compared to modern deks. So unless you plan on building them, using them once or twice, and then putting them up for decorations in your man cave, prepare yourself to spend a good amount of quality time keeping your deks in good condition. Good Luck!!
 

love2hunt

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I did it ONCE and it was nostalgic and I don't want to rain on your parade, but here's what I learned from the experience and talking to the guy that used them. We put out 3 dozen hand carved/assembled wooden deks and they were heavy, spendy, didn't sit right in the water, cracked, split, absorbed water, flaked, needed tighter environmental conditions for storage, and took 10 times the work to set up and take down compared to modern deks. So unless you plan on building them, using them once or twice, and then putting them up for decorations in your man cave, prepare yourself to spend a good amount of quality time keeping your deks in good condition. Good Luck!!

Well than that solves that. I had four dozen water dekes and sold all of them years ago when I went to strictly field. After buying a hunting dog this past year and her only getting to 40 pounds I'm going to start hunting water every now and than again so need to reinvest. Now for the next question, do I invest in duck dekes or goose water dekes. Heard a few people that said they run only canada water dekes and said not only do they get the geese now they swear they kill more ducks over them than just duck decoys. What's your guys thoughts?
 

KDM

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Big water hunting or little?? Big water I can see using some honker deks in the mix as they show up really well at long distance, but if you're looking to hunt 4 acre ponds or smaller, then whatever you want. You can also use your field honker deks on the shoreline of big water so you may not need floaters. If you are hunting small ponds, I don't see a lot of honkers sitting on small ponds, but it does happen. 4 floater honkers take up about the same space as a dozen standard mallard deks, but weigh about 30% more so the question you have to ask yourself is would you rather have 12 duck deks or 4 honkers in your spread?
 

Lou63

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just did yesterday, people that come out here from Maryland that make their own. we even hunted with one that had the ashes of one of his four legged hunting pals inside it. they sat right in the water and between the three of us hunting we ended up with 14 ducks before 9 am and should have limited out but our accuracy was a bit lacking. just used the decoys and no calling.
 


KDM

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Did you get some pics of the spread lou??? That would be a cool pic.
 

Lou63

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I didn't get any pics, didn't think about it and it was pretty foggy. I "borrowed" some pics from Alan Eastman's FB page, he makes the decoys and silhouettes himself.
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the picture above is the decoy in which he placed his dogs ashes and he uses the decoy so the dog still gets to hunt with him in a fashion.
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KDM

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Cool Pics!! Thanks!! I'd be afraid to hunt with those. I'm too rough on stuff.
 

Lou63

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lol he has shot several of them and just patches em up and repaints them
 

Duckslayer100

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In my old job I got to duck hunt all over. One of the places was out east in PA. They are big, big duck carvers on the east coast. The guy I was with had an entire rig of hand-carved, hand-painted decoys that he just left in the middle of the Susquahana River all season. They used the rig to scull. Had their sculling boat anchored upstream and wait for ducks or geese to land in the rig. Then just unhook and scull down on them to get the shots. It was a helluva lot of fun.

Then a couple years later his entire rig was stolen.

Other than nostalgia, I can't imagine taking care of, hauling or managing a spread of wooden decoys that size, let alone a dozen or so for my pothole hunts. The feller gave me one to use and I put it out one time just for the heck of it and that was it. It was neat to see, but otherwise yuck. Plastic may not be as traditional, but it's a helluva lot more practical.
 


ND 41 Hunter

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Luo63,
Do you know if the full body dekes are hollow? I was thinking of building some myself for a nostalgic hunt.
 

Lou63

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I dont think they are hollow, he has some in the local cafe that I handled and they are heavy. I didnt ask but someone said that they were told the decoys were cork bodies with wooden heads and tails. his prices marked are $80 to $90 I am thinking for the future of getting one for my current dog when he passes and hope it gathers a lot of dust before its used. Tripp was born July 1st this year so maybe the wife will use it for me instead lol
 

dean nelson

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Might want to look at doing foam decoys wrapped in burlap. Easier to make and use and the end product can be as fancy or not fancy depending on how much time you want to put into it.
 

snow

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Grew up hunting over wood dekes,old man bought a dozen herters cedar mallard blocks and 6 cork dekes when he came back from korea in the early50's never had much $ but loved to hunt,still have them on display around my house,heavy cedar blocks,very tippy in the slightest wind until we added lead weights to the bottom of the dekes,took many ducks over that small spread growing up.
 


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From what I've heard, and it isn't a lot, decoy carving is as pretty much an art. It takes some know-how to have them float and bob correctly. If you watch ducks on the water they generally float pretty smoothly. Real ducks don't bob up and down and tilt much. The same can be said for factory made decoys, some float better than others.I think the fun in carving your own decoys is the thrill of making a decoy yourself that will actually bring in a real live duck. That and it gives you something to do all winter.
 

snow

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I remember one show of duck dynasty when the crew visited a master decoy carver,said the dekes sell for $2500/doz,yikes! Kinda like the old days of hardcore goose hunters using "stuffers" for they're spread.
 

fnznfwl

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I did it ONCE and it was nostalgic and I don't want to rain on your parade, but here's what I learned from the experience and talking to the guy that used them. We put out 3 dozen hand carved/assembled wooden deks and they were heavy, spendy, didn't sit right in the water, cracked, split, absorbed water, flaked, needed tighter environmental conditions for storage, and took 10 times the work to set up and take down compared to modern deks. So unless you plan on building them, using them once or twice, and then putting them up for decorations in your man cave, prepare yourself to spend a good amount of quality time keeping your deks in good condition. Good Luck!!

Sounds like you hunted over some poor quality decoys. I have a small spread that I hunt over every couple years. A well carved wooden decoy will ride better than any crappy plastic decoy any day.
 

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