Finding Decoys on the Water

Carl

Well-known member
Staff member
I should add that in addition to the ducks in the bag yesterday, I found a redhead decoy floating in open water with no line as I was going to my spot. Appeared to be brand new. I took it over the closest blind up-wind and asked if it was theirs. They said no. So new redhead decoy for me.

That's the 4th decoy I have found so far this year, have also found a hen mallard, a coot and an old Flambeau canvasback hen (the ones with the swivel heads). That hen can decoy has to be at least 15 years old, they haven't made them in very long time. In pretty good shape too.

Years back I found a Victor D-10 mallard (still have it). That was probably the coolest decoy I have found. Last year I found a mallard and a spoonie. Most years I find at least one.

What's your coolest or weirdest lost decoy find???
 
well I don't know that I've found many decoys out in the field. Perhaps a plastic carrylite gwt.


My most relieved decoy find was the blueyed teal that Lee Harker made for me. I've gotten very lucky several times with that little lady. She apparently likes to go off on her own but so far has always seemed to find her way home. We dropped her once on a dike that we had to ride in and out of. That year lots of people were doing the same thing. She jumped out of her window in the decoy bag. I was mightily upset that she had escaped when I realized she had. And so incredibly relieved when we found her chilling out on the side of the dike road, waiting to go home. That was the worst of the losses/finds for her. Other times she's just been playing hide and seek in boats or trucks. I don't have this much trouble with any of my other decoys....
 
This is not what Carl had in mind, but I once found 3 LL Bean whistler decoys at a yard sale asking $20 each. Got the set for $45.

The seller also had a slew of blacks and mallards, but was looking to get $40 each for them. He wouldn't take my offer of $250 for 10, and I am still kicking myself for not offering $300 or $350, which still would have been a more than fair price.

Sometimes I can't get past my inner cheapskate.

My found-in-the-field decoys have almost all been old plastic decoys that were cheap when first produced and beat up when I found them. They've mostly been passed on to youngsters looking to get a small rig so they can hunt on their own.

I did once find a working Mojo and pole left on an island I hunt. If that happened now I'd mail the package to Tod Osier, but back then I was new here and afraid he might be offended. LOL!
 
I lost a wildfowler decoy one year. Then about 10 years latter I was helping my friend move and spotted my decoy. When I told him that is was my decoy he said prove it.
Which I did, I had the others to that set at home. I got the decoy back after 10 years. talk about luck.
 
I did once find a working Mojo and pole left on an island I hunt. If that happened now I'd mail the package to Tod Osier, but back then I was new here and afraid he might be offended. LOL!

Since you admit to being a cheapskate, it would be more efficient to have Tod mail you a shotgun shell and you could dispatch the nasty abomination on site.

A couple years ago, Rutgers and I were hunting a marsh on the Kalamazoo river and found a deek floating, short cord and a lead weight. Paul was happy to get the lead and likely re-purposed it as keel ballast, we left the plastic flamboolzer by the ramp, I'm sure someone though it was their lucky day...
 
That's the 4th decoy I have found so far this year, have also found a hen mallard, a coot and an old Flambeau canvasback hen (the ones with the swivel heads)....

What's your coolest or weirdest lost decoy find???

You know Carl, every time I do a search from now on for "coot decoys" this post is going to show up!

So, to add to your post rather than just fan the flames of hate, I did find when I was probably 12, a foam blackduck. Not sure of the manufacturer, but I'm pretty sure it's still in my dad's garage attic. Been meaning to dig it out and see what it really was. I found it before I ever started hunting, me and the neighbor kid would throw it in the creek and follow it down stream, just before the lake, we'd pull it out and take it back up stream again...the things kids do for kicks.

Chuck
 
What a coincidence Carl - those are the exact decoys I lost a couple years back hunting the Mississippi. Guess we now know how long it takes a decoy to float downstream.

Once lost a deke on the Mississippi and did find it downstream later in the season. Found others that were. It in such great shape. One of them on this years opener. I was having so much trouble with my guy that when I finally got the gun to work I shot the recently found decoy. Very satisfying for sure.

Mark W
 
Nothing good, but I have found quite a few over the years. I always bring them home. Lot of them ended up in a scoter rig painted black several years ago, so that is a fun mix to look at.

This year we found a flamboober mallard hen and hunted her along with the rig I brought to Iadho. Nice lucky 13, since we did have some good gunning.

Oh, and I did find a spinner once, but it was under salt water.
 
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I've found, and consequently lost too many decoys to keep track of over my career. In my days of cheap plastics, I was never quite as concerned with losing them as I am now. I've found them in the water, at the ramp, and even along a highway. If there are any markings of who it may belong to, I certainly make a reasonable effort to return. However, the vast majority have no such markings, so they get put in the decoy bag, or up on a shelf as a memory.

I do have one in particular though. Has a name on it, and I know the rightful owner, but he burned a couple bridges with me over the years. That one will remain on a shelf.

By far, the best find was a nicely hand carved, drake Red Breasted Mergie I found in the saltwater on the East Coast about five years ago. No name or identifying marks on him, just a short piece of torn cord. THAT one was a real keeper.

Jon
 
I found a long-tailed duck decoy a couple years back. With no need for it I slid off the keel, put a coin slot in its back with an access hole in the bottom and made my son a "ducky" bank.
 
I found a giant Herter's blackduck decoy after a storm. Resting up against the Wantagh Parkway Causeway. I would think it came off of someone's dock or boat based the winds of the previous days.

Joe
 
One arm of a Y board of Brant while hunting Chincoteague. All others have been old Herters foam and some shot to heck plastics. Have found several field goose decoys over the years when we gunned out west, shell decoys & wind socks.

Best find was a pair of binoculars, while hunting the river for Wood ducks.
 
Great story Dani, I think Lee is doing that so you won't forget him - like we ever could :)

Sure miss that big galoot.
 
Found a couple of flamboo goose decoys in the middle of road one day. The best find was four GHG mallard decoys floating in the marsh one day....still use them.
 
Found a cork black duck on a super tide years ago, pretty sure an older LL Bean. It had floated out onto a grassy flat. Sits in the house now.
 
I've found bluewing teal that I've kept. One is a Mergie-Teal cause the bill is about 4mm wide. I like it and even though it is plastic, a pretty cool little decoy. Always wanted to bring it out to hunt for fun someday. I also found an old animal-trap bluewing that is magnum size for a teal. It survived a fire and shows some of it's original colors while also maintaining it's floating integrity. Never wanted to hunt it. It has a cool vintage look and came off a property my buddy used to lease and now owns. After all the hours I worked there it was one of the cool takeaways for me. Never found anything significant or valuable, but I have found a few of my own birds I'd left out weeks prior here in FL. Lily pads and emergent stuff makes it easy to lose sight of something you throw out in the dark...
 
Years ago we found a molded foam bluebill who as been aptly named billy or bobby or some other b name depending on the day . And man has he saved some hunts, at least that's what we tell him. This year we found 3 flamboo mallards fairly new all in same day. Found a small herters redhead that had maybe 2' of Line on it floating in 15' of water. And one really snotty day on the lake , it was like 4-5s we wer puttzing along and thought it was a buff but it was the buff decoy. It was way to choppy to turn around for it so we figured we'd let him do his job and pull all those dumb butterballs to him.

Tony
 
Stopped to ask permission to hunt a farmers field (Goose hunting). Farmer likes that we asked,opened the garage door and gives us 24 super mag shells, "some fella's left'm years ago" was his reply.
 
Good morning, Carl~

The ice taketh away and the ice giveth.....

One January, we rescued a dozen or 14 Herter's Model 72 Broadbill frozen in the ice of Great South Bay. The birds had been tied into one long trawl. And, it was not far from where my Dad and I had abandoned - because heavy ice had moved in on us with the change in tide - our own trawl of Herter's Broadbill about 10 years previously.

I gave them a fresh coat of paint to match the rest of my Broadbill stool and gunned them for many years. Then, one January afternoon on Narrow Bay, the change in tide brought a raft of ice down onto my rig. More concerned about getting myself and my ice scooter the heck out of Dodge - I picked up most of the rig but decided to abandon several of the birds. It was the right decision at the time.

Several years later, at one of the South Shore Waterfowlers Duckboat Shows - sure enough - there for sale was a Herter's Hen Broadbill with a Sanford paint job. The vendor was a friend of mine, my favorite bookseller. Although he offered me the bird, I declined - happy to give him the "provenance" for his merchandise.

All the best,

SJS

 
A little over a handful of years ago, I ran into the Mighty Layout Boys on annual group hunt on a lake up here. There was a big northwester building on Lake Superior and birds were pouring down the shoreline of the Big Lake, with flights dropping-in routinely over the course of the morning. After pulling my Hercules up onshore and securing it onshore out of the wind, I watched them setting-up their layouts as flights of a variety of birds were stacking-up above the lake to drop-in. I drove down to the resort they were hunting out of and said hello, admiring Bob Furia's decoys, I left the lake to them for the remainder of their stay. I recall Bob posting on the site that he had lost a decoy (wigeon) during their hunt. Bob attaches a name plate with his I.D. and address information on each of his birds. Imagine wandering down the shoreline through the hardstem bullrush beds and finding a Bob Furia cork decoy bobbing around in the line of flotsam!
 
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