Decoys and Duck Boats

There are three fundamental reasons why waterfowl will come to artifi­cial decoys. They are gregarious and like to be in groups with their kind. They assume that flocks of similar birds indicate the presence of food. And the sight of unmolested birds gives them a sense of safety from predators. Imitation duck and goose decoys have been made from many diverse materials ranging from stuffed canvas, old shoe boxes, tin cans, and crumpled paper, on up to lifelike statues carved in wood and painted with the skill and fidelity to detail of a Renaissance artist.

SIMPLE DECOYS

Some of the simplest decoys have shown results. Canadian honkers have been successfully decoyed into a field in which old mail-order catalog pages or balls of crumpled newspapers were scattered. Similarly, a dozen brown paper bags, blown up and tied shut, and placed on the stubble of grain fields with their crushed tops bent upward like a crude head, have brought in birds.

Another simple decoy is a bunch of grain straw, tied with "straw strings" taken from grain bundles; the straw is fashioned into the rough shape of a duck, then rolled in earth or mud for darker coloration. A few of these, scattered among other decoys, adds to the overall effectiveness of the set.
For use in stubble fields during the fall flights, another simple decoy is the head decoy. This is either the head of a live bird killed a day or so previously, an imitation head carved of wood or cut of dark pasteboard, or even knots of dark-colored wood. In any case the head is staked with a wooden or wire pin into the earth at such a height to resemble a duck's or goose's head sticking above the stubble. Seen at a low and oblique angle, the decoy looks authentic.

On sand bars or muddy beaches, a simple decoy often is made by bunching up mud into the approximate shape of a bird, and equipping it with wing tips cut from previously killed birds and saved for the oc­casion. The shadows and coloration afforded by the mounded "birds" and real feathers are often sufficient to draw in passing birds.

In all instances where such simple decoys are used, the set is always added to by the real birds as they are killed. A proven way of placing the real bird is to lay it breast down, and prop the head up with a forked stick shoved into the earth; or to fold the head under the wing as though the bird rested. By the position of the stick, the dead bird could either be made to look ahead, or better, have its head dropped over as if feeding. The addition of a number of propped birds adds to the stool's effectiveness.

An interesting thing about make-shift decoys is that their use follows the hunting pressure northward along the "line of necessity" created by the increasing awareness of waterfowl to the incidence and ways of man. In the Arctic and Alaska, the use of decoys has been negligible. Farther down into the nesting grounds of northern Canada the necessity of decoys similarly has not been acute, due largely to the top-heavy ratio of birds to population and hunters. But in southern Canada (due partly to in­creasing nonresident waterfowl hunters) and in the United States, decoys are necessary to any consistent success. That is the situation today. With birds scarcer and hunting pressure increased, the greater the need for more and better decoys.

SILHOUETTE DECOYS

As its name suggests, the silhouette decoy is cut from light metal or card­board and will cast a shadow. The cardboard kind is usually painted to resemble the live bird. Silhouettes are staked with a wooden slat nailed to the back into the earth or shallow water. Their advantage is that they are cheap, easily made, and portable. Their portability is an advantage when used in stubble fields, where considerable walking is required.

A popular decoy today, either for geese or ducks, is the folding card­board decoy. This decoy is made of two sheets of cardboard, suitably  \

painted on the outside, spread apart to form a thin A shape, with the bottom portions either held open on a forked metal stake, or formed into a flat base to float on the water. Usually the goose versions are used with the metal wire stakes, in shallow water or on sand bars. The duck decoys of this type are usually floated by means of a flat, light board which spreads the decoy at the bottom, to which the cord is attached. Seen from

Folding  silhouette  decoys  are  becoming   popular  with  waterfowl hunters because of their portability.

the front, these "folders" look like open isosceles triangles, but viewed at any angle, they appear entirely lifelike. A real virtue of the goose decoy is that, for purposes of folding, it is constructed with a movable head-and-neck. This allows the staked decoy to be used upright, simulating a goose in natural feeding position.

RUBBER AND PLASTIC DECOYS

Other portable decoys are made of rubber and are blown up, like toy balloons, into life-sized shapes. Rubber decoys ride high on the water and are virtually unsinkable. Their drawback is the normal tendency of rubber to puncture and deteriorate, though there are few instances of a hunter using them having a blow-out.

Plastic decoys are in common use and are popular because of their portability. As with rubber decoys, they are usually short-lived, especially when used in extremes of freezing weather and ice.

WOODEN DECOYS

It is hard to better the old-fashioned wooden "block" decoys, and many old hand-carved blocks are still serving well into the second or third generation. Block decoys are often made of a light, straight-grained wood such as Port Orford cedar, or of hollowed-out pine. Sometimes they are shaped out of one piece; often the body is made first then the carved head is installed on a wooden dowel.

Wooden blocks have the advantages of standing abuse very well, and wood takes paint beautifully. The action of blocks on water is realistic, too, due to a comparable weight to that of the live bird. Lack of portability is their only drawback, but when used in conjunction with permanent blinds and boats, they are ideal.

PLACEMENT OF DECOYS

The placement of decoys to simulate live birds is an art taking many seasons to master. The best possible way to learn, of course, is to study the live birds themselves; then utilize the artificial decoys in a way comparable to the habits of the live birds.

Broadly speaking, waterfowl will decoy to large numbers of their own kind. This means that the more decoys the hunter has, the better his chances to pull flying birds in. For this reason, the pooling of the decoys of two hunters will result in more birds than if each shot alone from separate blinds.

An exception to this is shallow-water ducks feeding in potholes. Often a half-dozen to a dozen decoys in a single pothole is sufficient—simply be­cause that is the way the live birds would work the spot.

Another fundamental is that each species will decoy best to birds of its own species. There are exceptions to this, also. Mallards, as one example,

Decoys along a bank should be arranged in natural feeding posi­tions. The three at right are too uniform to be effective.

A few goose decoys mixed in with a set of duck de­coys will help to bring in the mallards.

On large expanses of wa­ter, the V-spread decoy layout is very effective. The legs of the V can ex­tend for about 75 yards, with female decoys placed up toward the point.

will often decoy well to a setup containing Canadian honker decoys. Or again, one species of shallow-water duck may decoy if decoys of another shallow-water species are included in the stool. However, it is basic that the decoys of the shallow-water ducks and those of the diving ducks should not be mixed. The reason is simply that the two groups do not mingle while feeding or resting.

The decoys for diving ducks may be set closer together than decoys used for shallow-water ducks. Mallards, as an example, spread out into small groups when feeding, and only bunch up tightly just prior to taking off. To bunch up mallard decoys, while trying to simulate feeding birds, would look unnatural. An exception to this is that mallards resting along shore­lines and river banks during foul, bitter weather tend to bunch far more than during feeding.

Again, when placing decoys to simulate feeding birds, it is apparent that some of the decoys should be placed with heads down, as though feeding. All decoys with heads up would resemble a flock just set down or ready to take off and would not suggest the security of a feeding flock to birds overhead.

The J spread should be used when there is not much water in front of the hunter and therefore only a limited feeding area. It is good for divers in deep water and for dippers in shallow water.

Effective on small bodies of water, the triangle spread leaves an opening for incoming birds. It should be placed opposite blind.

Ducks and geese flock to realistic-looking decoys better than to those that look artificial. While it is true that waterfowl in virgin country will come to most anything that looks like their kind, heavily hunted birds will not; and in most areas today, the better the decoys the more chance of at­tracting birds. This applies in proportion with the season's progress. The younger birds coming at the beginning of the season will decoy better than those at season's end.

The placement of decoys in relation to the blind is most important and should be compatible with the habits of live waterfowl. Birds like mallards and honkers, as well as many other species, will make their final swing into decoys, upwind. The position of the stool should take advantage of this fact.

Experienced hunters have found that such details as the color of the decoy anchoring cords has a bearing on the ultimate success. Cuttyhunk

For deep-water ducks in Chesapeake Bay, many hunters have been successful with a spread that simulates a few stragglers swimming up to join the large feeding group.

and similar light-colored line has often been used. But from a bird's-eye view, such cord in dark water often shows up as an unnatural white line and tends to keep wary birds suspicious. Better color for the cords are green, dark brown, or even black. The best cord is monofilament nylon fishing line of ample strength, which won't show at all.

Often a stool can be made less suspicious-looking to flying birds simply by placing a stuffed owl or crow or magpie decoy in a tree or on a post along a river bank where such a bird would normally sit. Flying waterfowl

When a large set of decoys is placed offshore on a lake or river, use the oval spread 2 or 3 yards offshore slightly downwind of the blind and covering an area about 20 yards wide and 25 yards long.

soon learn to interpret the behavior of these wary birds, and suspicions are allayed if such a bird is unalarmed—an example of the brotherhood of the wilds.

CALLING

The final step in decoying waterfowl is to call them in, once they have spotted the decoys. This applies only to "talking" species. Calling, like the arrangement of decoys, is an art in itself and is successful in proportion to its authenticity. The skill to do it successfully and consistently comes with observation and practice.

Calling can be learned from a veteran waterfowler, from phonograph records of experienced callers, from the sounds of the birds themselves, and from practice.

Generally speaking, the low, happy gabbling of feeding ducks is called —not the quack, quack made by alerted or frightened birds. With Canadian honkers the pitch, intensity, and duration of the habitual eaur-onk, eaur-onk is different when coming from a startled bird, such as one jumped from water, and that of a bird flying contentedly to others of its kind. These differences have to be learned, and it is best to learn the delicate shades of meaning in waterfowl calls from the birds themselves.
As with bugling for elk, calling should not be overdone. Decoys simulate feeding birds. Too much of an invitation means less available food for the resting birds and sounds suspicious. A basic rule of calling is: Once the birds turn to come in to decoys, never call again as long as they continue to come in.

Beginning hunters often figure that once the birds are within range it is time to shoot. Veteran shooters prefer to let any incoming birds, es­pecially geese, come as close as they will. Birds settling to decoys are slower-moving and easier to hit than birds farther out.

DUCK BOATS

Boats for duck and geese hunting are specialized craft and vary in design and size according to the conditions of different areas. Some boats are used to approach sitting rafts of ducks. Some are used largely to tend floating blinds. Others must be highly portable for car-top use in prairie pothole country. And some must be highly stable for stand-up shooting in marsh bullrush country. All must be seaworthy and generally are low in height, pointed at at least one end, and decked over. Their purpose is to conceal the hunter and remain inconspicuous.

One popular form is the sneak-box. This is a low, shallow-draft, pointed-end boat decked over fore and aft, with an open cockpit in the middle for the hunter, and is propelled by oars. It is usually made of wood.

Another highly useful craft is the scull-boat. This, too, is a shallow-draft boat with either a mild round or V bottom, square stern, decked over bow, and an open cockpit towards the rear in which the hunter lies supine. In this position, he can just see over the coaming around the cockpit and can propel the craft with a short paddle through a hole in the square transom. It is used to slip up noiselessly on sitting birds.

The punt is another craft used considerably on inland lakes. This is a double-end boat, decked over fore and aft, low at midship, with high coaming around the open cockpit in which the hunter stands and propels the craft with a long slender pole.

All these types and their variations may be grassed over along their decks for camouflaging. In use they look like drifting logs or parches of marsh. These craft are normally painted a drab green, brown, or varying shades, to resemble the natural foliage, and of a dullness which won t reflect sunlight. Some hunters paint their craft a mottled brown-green and use them with camouflage hunting clothing. During late season snow and ice, scull-boats are sometimes painted white, draped over with white canvas, or iced over. When used by a hunter wearing a white costume, the result looks like a floating iceberg. The pointed ends of all these craft are necessary for the penetration of marsh grasses, tules, etc.

The Eskimo version of these basic waterfowl crafts is the kayak, which he uses in much the same fashion, except that propulsion is by means of a long double-ended paddle. The kayak's cockpit is exceptionally small and a capelike parka is often spread over the coaming to make the craft watertight.

Farther north in the Arctic Circle, Eskimo hunters use a tiny, pointed, one-man skin boat. This puny craft is made by stretching the single skin of an oogruk, or bearded seal, over a wooden skeleton. The entire craft is approximately 7 feet long, and is moved by short oars.

Southward in Canada the standard canoe is usually used as a duck boat. This slender craft is easily moved, goes handily into shallow-water foliage, and is most useful on the sheltered lakes so common to the Dominion.

Square-sterned canoes, adaptable to outboard motors, are often used, minus the motor, for fall duck shooting, then double in summer as fishing craft.

For use in marshy country, the flat-bottomed skiff makes a good duck boat. This boat rides low on the water, is decked fore and aft, has the shooter's cockpit towards the stern, and has a square transom. Most skiffs are around 14 feet long.

The rail boat is patterned after the ancient dugout canoe. It is long for the beam width and has a slender stern. Usually it is pushed along with a long pole by a hunter standing on a pusher's platform near the stern. The shooter often sits on a stool near the center of the undecked craft.

Weighted boats, held down nearly flush to the water's surface by water ballast or metal weights, and called "sink-boxes," are not used much any more, due to their hazards in choppy water.

Since World War II, and the availability of rubber life rafts, this sea­worthy form of craft has been tried for hunting waterfowl. It has the virtues of being inexpensive, safe, highly portable, and rides low to the water. When draped over with camouflage cloth and used by camouflaged hunters, it often will suffice for such purposes as float-hunts on rivers, tending blinds, or crossing lakes and streams to good shooting locations.

But the rubber life raft's drawbacks are many. It is blunt and will not penetrate grasses and bullrushes. Having no keel, but with extremely high-riding qualities, it handles and moves like some big wooden chip. And the surest way to get a wetting is to stand up in one of the popular two-man sizes—it kicks out sidewise from under a person as if on ball bearings. Its chief utility is its portability. Weighing only 50 to 60 pounds, it may be back-packed reasonable distances into inland lakes.

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