Mark Schupp
Mark Schupp from Missouri. I started this great quest twenty some odd years ago, and have enjoyed it immensely. I have been influenced by many of the taxidermists, decoy carvers and boat builders in the Mid-west. I started carving about 12 years ago and quickly finished a set of teal decoys, I hunted over them and was hooked. Ever since then I've tried to complete an entire rig but everybody wants a pair and I keep giving them away or selling them faster than I can carve them. About this same time many of our state wildlife areas started wade and shoot hunting. My evolution to hunting from a marsh boat took several years but old jon boat and duck blind habits are hard to break. Several years ago in a rush before duck season I bought a Four Rivers boat (the big one) from the Area Manager at "Four Rivers Wildlife Area", now you know where it got its name. Once I bought that shrinking ray to get all my decoys in a marsh boat I started to figure out the intricacies of hunting from a shallow draft boat. After watching several friends build and hunt out of their own boats I decided to try my hand at it. A friend and I completed two boats with a little personal touch (an original pen and ink drawing on the bottom of each boat) in a weekend. We borrowed, OK stole this idea from the boat building guru in our area, Rob L. In many respects the hand built boat is more functional than the all glass boat (glides better, maneuvers better) but you don't want to leave it out in the field in the rain. I'll sell the one I built this year and start the whole process over again. I'll document the construction of the next boat a little better. In the mean time here are a few pictures of the boats in and out of action and some of the decoys I've been working on.
Prototype number one of the boat dock foam decoys. This one is covered with a two-part epoxy. (The epoxy is too expensive to continue using)
I know these won't qualify for entrance into Runamuck, but they've fooled a few ducks. Amazing what an idiot and a hatchet can do. I did these in "96."
Before and after of the foam decoy covered in burlap (the head is a higher density tan foam). "God this is sacrilege".
