Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Anyone carve decoys?

Just that?

I started carving in the early 70's first to hunt over then in carving competition shows.....I have done very good in competition all over USA and Canada....

Now I only do commission carvings and do very few of those....

Actually was thinking of selling all my books and carving supplies.....

Thanks Wacker, any pictures?

Check out killery's ring neck decoy further down this forum.

killerv....killery is a different poster than me




Palm Frond


Another Palm Frond




Canvas bird, just for fun

Sons first bird, recent youth competition

Nice birds!
My Dad and uncle both carved.
We hunted over their wood decoys all the time in the 60s and 70s.
I'm lucky enough to still have some of both of theirs on the shelf today.

Good stuff! I carved some ducks, but mostly songbirds, shorebirds, and birds of prey. Some fish, too. The guy who cut my deer in Md is a big decoy collector. I made him a duck each year. Traded for deer butchering. Worked at Calvert Marine Museum, in Southern Md, with Skip Edwards, a very talented carver. Competed and did well at the Ward show for around 10 years. Don't do much anymore.

WOW! Those are good.

Wow, killerv that’s impressive.
I have collected a few over the years, mostly at DU banquets, yours have more detail. What is the palm frond decoy? A style? Or actually made out of palm frond?
That turkey decoy looks interesting, any more pictures of that one? Seems to work well. 😎

Styles are regional, california carvers back in the day started using what was around them and made decoys out of palm fronds. It's still relatively popular in competitions and a lot of folks still messing around with them. I just did it to do something different. My idea behind the turkey one was to eventually ad a real jake fan to it, which I have just havent done yet. It obviously worked as is. Just cool to kill something over something you made.

The canvasback palm frond I think turned out great, it has a self righting keel, made to hunt with.

Check this one out someone did

Pretty fancy turkey. 😁 more art than decoy, I think.
Yours look much more real and useful.

When carving do you use Dremel tools or possibly fordom?
What wood do you typically use? My high school wood shop teacher made goose decoy’s out of stacked pine. I have been thinking about making a couple decoy’s mainly for display.

I use a couple foredoms

As far as wood, its a regional thing, whatever is available, white pine, white cedar, tupelo, basswood, etc

I use mostly tupelo out of North Carolina

Would like to buy one of the palm frone Turkeys.gw