November, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
585 
TO LURE THE CUNNING WILD FOWL 
HOW TO CHOOSE AND ARRANGE YOUR SET OF DECOYS SO 
THEY WILL NOT EXCITE THE SUSPICION OF INCOMING FLOCKS 
By EDWARD T. MARTIN 
I N his book, “American Wild Fowl 
Shooting,” written nearly fifty years 
ago, Joseph W. Long says: “One of 
the most important requisites to success- 
ful wild fowl shooting is a suitable flock 
of decoys.” 
Quite true, Mr. Long, and as it was in 
those good old days of plenty of game, 
so it is now, only I believe that a caller 
properly used is even more important 
than decoys, and of the two, I had rather 
be without the wooden ducks than the 
call, particularly in marsh shooting. 
“Decoys,” Long goes on to say, “are 
made in a multitude of ways, and of 
several different materials. The princi- 
pal objects to be attained, however, are 
naturalness and a proper shape to en- 
able them to ride -in an erect position 
during the heavy blows they are exposed 
to. This last is often overlooked in the 
desire to make the decoys as light as 
possible and of such shape as to take 
least room in transportation.” 
A light decoy, one made of cedar, and 
hollow, will jump about in a gale, lie 
sideways and toss about in a most un- 
ducklike manner, besides dragging its 
anchor, or else requiring a particularly 
heavy weight to hold it in position, es- 
pecially if the bottom is sandy and 
smooth. 
On several occasions when shooting at 
the mouth of the San Jacinto river, 
where everything is sand, a heavy wind 
would pick up the lighter of my decoys, 
carrying them away as if they had brok- 
en loose and lost their weights, while the 
heavier decoys remained about where 
they had been put, close to the blind. 
This didn’t matter so very much, but 
for the trouble of picking them up, be- 
cause the “cans” and the bluebills, flying 
against the wind, would follow up the 
line, looking for live birds and, in the 
end, would reach the blind, or, if by 
chance some lit, a note or two on the 
caller and a shot fired with the gun held 
low so the ducks could not see it, would 
start them going again, with the result 
that they would come to the blind as the 
others had done. 
The dead birds had to be gathered 
about as fast as they fell, and by grab- 
bing a few of the drifting decoys every 
time I went out, the labor was lessened; 
still it would have been better had they 
remained where put and behaved them- 
selves. 
M ANY attempts have been made to 
invent a decoy that will fill all 
requirements, of some other ma- 
terial than wood. None have succeeded. 
Rubber has been freely used as a sub- 
stitute, the decoys being inflated through 
a tube, as is a football. These bob around 
in a scandalous manner, crack, leak both 
air and water, and, after one or two 
campaigns, become little better than 
scare-crows. Let a chance shot strike 
one and it will pop like an exploding 
toy balloon; and if wild-fowl work to 
them at all after the newness has worn 
off, they will be drawn by curiosity — a- 
desire to find out what those strange 
appearing things really are. 
A Boston firm put on the market a 
decoy, the body made of tin and set on a 
wooden float. They were beautifully 
painted and, in a gun store window, 
looked like the real thing, but on the 
water would shimmer and shine, besides 
showing up like a flock of peacocks. Let 
one intercept part of the shot intended 
for a low-flying duck and it at once be- 
came a nutmeg grater. 
A mid-west genius invented a decoy 
that would flap its wings, stand on its 
tail and try to quack. Another patented 
a wire frame set on a wooden base, to 
hold — in a seaway — ducks that had been 
killed; but none of them were as good 
as the old-style wooden decoys that, the 
more one banged them around, the bet- 
ter they liked it. 
No solid decoy will roll too much if 
properly weighted; a rubber, or a hollow 
cedar one, nearly always will if there 
is any sea on. 
Ducks, unless constantly shot at, will 
work to almost anything except those old 
rubber things after they are shopworn; 
to round lumps of mud left by receding 
water; to the cork floats of a net; to 
little blocks of wood ; to mudhens — to 
anything that, by a stretch of imagina- 
tion resembles a duck; but when educa- 
ted, or not in decoying humor, it is hard 
to draw them into the finest layout that 
was ever set for their undoing, and this 
can only be done by the best of calling. 
They will even shy from live decoys, and 
from their own kind, skinned and stuffed 
at an expense of several dollars per bird. 
They know danger is there and keep 
away. 
I have found that teal will work read- 
ily to plover decoys; prairie chickens to 
ordinary wooden decoys; swans to a 
white shirt set on a bush ; wild geese to 
ducks; any kind of wild bird to any other 
kind. Their idea seems to be: “If it’s 
good enough for them, it’s good enough 
for me; if it’s safe for them, I’ll chance 
it ” Of course, though, the decoys must 
be set in a natural manner, and in a 
place where the birds like to go. 
O NCE, when shooting over plover de- 
coys on a mud point, I killed more 
teal than plover. Again, late in 
the fall, when prairie chickens were 
lighting on barns, trees and fences, I 
had them work to a few mallard decoys 
set on top of a haystack, and, later, to 
a flock of decoys set on a snow-bank on 
the sheltered side of a cornfield. Quail 
also swerved out of their course on sev- 
eral occasions to pass over a large flock 
of wooden ducks I had set in a little 
round pond near a stubble field. The 
more numerous the decoys, the more 
readily their own sort and other varieties 
will come to them. 
Most of us have seen a flock of “cans” 
(continued on page 609 ) 
Drawn by Wilmot Townsend. , - a . , 
A bunch of ducks swing in to the decoys with wings set and feet spread to break the force of flight 
