Any thoughts on the best type of wood to use for carving decoys?

A lot of the guys use cedar

White, or red cedar?

A lot of the old time makers that put out thousands of them used old telegraph poles. I believe that they were red cedar. I've used white cedar and not had any problems.

Sailboat mast

What about tupelo?

Basswood!

Thanks all for the input.
Any pictures of decoys anyone has carved?

Basswood + 2 also known as Linden tree. A Chesapeake Bay favorite for 200+ years.

Basswood again as it rarely if ever splits.

I have carved several thousand gunning and decorative decoys I use basswood because of availability to me. It is a junk wood to burn and I can get it for free. All of my hunting decoys are hollowed out to get them to float correctly and cut down on weight.

I can get all the white cedar I would ever need for free on my land but there is a lot of waste because of pin knots that you would need to fill with plugs to get a smooth water tight surface. It also takes 75-100 years to grow a white cedar to to a size that you can get a block from it. The trees make a better winter cover for the deer than a decoy.

For a competition decorative decoys I use tupelo because it holds finer details better. If tupelo was a cheap local wood I would use it all the time. My source for tupelo is in Louisiana.