Carve And Paint
Duck Decoys
Am I a professional when it comes to knowing how to carve and paint duck decoys? Not even close. In fact I don't paint at all. But I am fascinated looking at and admiring wooden duck decoys. How people carved and spent their time painting duck decoys. There are some mighty colorful waterfowl out there and I love when someone with special hands brings their features to life on a piece of wood, painting duck decoys with such precision of colors and technique. Anyone out there with painting tips, instructions or other information on this topic, please feel free to send me an email and I will post it on this site. I am sure they are people out there who would love to receive this information. info@paintduckdecoy.com
I did carve and paint some duck decoys and hunt the birds
I once hunted those waterfowl and loved it more than anything else. Setting out rough looking, wooden decoys I carved and painted myself, which was taught to me by my father. We would go long before daybreak. Many times we would have to construct some kind of makeshift blind before sunrise. Oh, how I loved everything about duck hunting when I was younger. I started when I was twelve going with my dad and my oldest brother. I would go to hold the leash of a rather anxious retriever who would actually shake with excitement when he would see a duck. Much like myself. When he heard the shot go off he would be a real handful to keep from retrieving the duck right away. At fourteen I was allowed to carry a shotgun for hunting purposes with an adult. Every chance I got, I went for many years after.
We mostly hunted merganser, black duck, teal, golden eye divers and a rare mallard. I believed in the motto only shoot what your going to eat. The first of the season was usually only good for Black ducks and teal. It was still warm in the first week of October. Later it was great for merganser, but mighty cold in the duck blind with snow piling in on top of me. I remember once looking back at a black Lab I had only to see a curled up ball of snow. There was not a lot of action that morning.
Observing waterfowl became more important
After a while, once I got used to the excitement, I used to take notice how the ducks would come in and pitch for the hand made and painted wooden decoys. I was getting more excitement out of that, than shooting them. How they would come in with their wings stretched out and the swoosh of water as they would land amongst the wooden decoys. My favorite was the merganser. I remember one morning, a friend and I were sitting down in the blind talking. There wasn't much action that morning and my friend asked as he looked in astonishment "what's that noise" I could hear it myself as it was quite loud because it was so still that morning. We both took a peek out through the blind to see a common merganser drake pecking the head of the drake wooden decoy I had painted up. He was there with two hens and looked as though he was trying for domination over the nine wooden hens I had painted up. They must have swam up along the shore as we didn't here them pitch and and it was a very calm morning.
Well enough of the hunting stories because I could sit here and type all day long about some of the wild adventures I had. Now I don't hunt and I just love to admire the ducks. I love seeing what other people create in wooden decoys and how they paint them. I also like photograghs of ducks and other waterfowl.
It seems I am always too tired with a hard days work to do any carving and painting wooden duck decoys. I hope as I get older I will be able to find the time to get into carving the wooden duck decoys and painting them. I have been looking around but there seems to be very few books on painting wooden duck decoys. I would love to find someone who is a good wooden duck painter out there who would do, kind of like an interview with me through email so I could do some topics on this website for readers interested in painting decoys. I am sure there are a lot of avid waterfowl painters out there.
Don't knock learning how to carve and
paint duck decoys as an alternative
Just as a thought. I am not against waterfowl hunting as I once did it myself and thought there was nothing like it in this world. I respect ethical duck hunters and I have friends that are. I just like to say if your going to hunt do it ethically. There is also an alternative that is very satisfying. Carving and painting decoys, setting them out and photographing or filming them. hey, don't knock it until you've tried it.
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