Buoy decoys

are you talking about just painting buoys black and using them or making buoy birds?
 
I made a few of them. I cut the bouys in half and then epoxied 1x's to the bottoms. Then glued some really simple 1x heads on them. The wooden bottom boards make them self right.

My thoughts: waste of time, effort, and money. If your going to use bouys just paint them black and use bouys. If your going to actually put some work into making some decoys then use a good material and really make some decoys.

I ended up spending about the same amount of time it would have taken me to shape some real decoys and then ended up with a finished product that looked like a 3rd grader made it.

That being said. If you really wanted to you could make some interesting unique decoys this way. For the same amount of money you could probably buy brand new G&H plastic decoys though.
 
Carl, want to make buoy birds. Want to make eider and scoter for a long line rig. How much keel weight is needed and how stable are they? Never have seen them in use, only online. Looking for a little local expertise. Got a few buoys I'm going to experiment with when I put up the guns.
 
My uncle (Capt Rich Geminski) and I are actually thinking of making the buoy birds for sea duck shooting. I would like to use the larger buoys for more visability... they are also attractive to me as if you shoot them by accident, they wont sink like plastic birds.
 
Rich ,they sit high and draw birds in from aways off this was my only atempt at foamers from foam and bouys you can see them on the end of the string on the left one has a mussle in its yap,a cool idea i stole from some gent here...
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i81/BackwoodsBuddy/sherms147.jpg

there is some long tails made of foam there as well lobster bouys if i remember correct...

ill look for better pics
found them dont laugh to hard they were first attempts and by golly they work

http://i70.photobucket.com/...0stuff/eiders003.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/...0stuff/decoys008.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/...0stuff/decoys007.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/...dayduckin2006003.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/...dayduckin2006009.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/.../buffiefoamer003.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/...seaduckseason002.jpg
and the last one is a funny story
http://i70.photobucket.com/...tuff/08bouydekes.jpg

I didnt have any goose dippers and i found these two fine bouys so i painted them as goose dippers ,i tried them out and it was almost a good thing but they laid down to much then bounced up. So i had them in the yard and the wind was blowing them around the weights in circles well daisy couldnt help herself and chewed big chunks out of them i laughed my butt off watching her tear them apart... she didnt like the way they looked either i geuss,its funny she never did it before nor again,just hated them 2....

shermie...
 
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Shermie, I see you have some with bottoms and some without. Which do you prefer? Looks like the cost factor will be about what a recycled plastic decoy will run. They look good in the water.
Thirty years ago we shot sea ducks with clorox bottles painted black. Spent alot of time scuffing bottles to hold paint, but it was fun.
 
Might want to see if you can find some billets of dock foam, given the storms y'all have had, it should be easy to find. It is much easier to cut & shape vs buoy foam.
That is basically what I used for my foamers, its easy to cut & shape, then burlap it. I didnt use bottom boards but will next time I make a batch of them. I used 1x4 scraps for heads. Used scrap composite trim boards for keeps.
Takes about 10 minutes to cut out & shape the bodies, about 10 minutes to burlap each one (a couple of days to dry, then attach heads and keels.

[inline Blank1.jpg]

View attachment Heads2.jpg

[inline FoamersOnWaterDec23_2010_R.jpg]

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View attachment FoamersOnWaterDec23_2010_R.jpg
 
An old guy I knew in Duxbury used to hunt Brant, Geese, Blacks and Eiders with black painted lobster buoys- worked amazingly well.
 
left over tile mastic. Not sure which brand, it was from Home Depot.
 
Rich, buddy of mine used to hunt broadbill over big stringers of black and white crab pot buoys, knocked em dead. Rich
 
We used to use them on scoters and old squaw all of the time. When we were kids we would ride the beach looking for wash up floats, paint them black and call it good. We also used black clorox jubs. Both worked very well.
 
I purchased 80 coot decoys made out of buoys. After the purchase, I noticed there were no weights on any of the decoys. The guy who made them, said he needed no weight for them to float upright.

I didn't believe they could ride out a 2-3 wave so I tested them. UNBELIEVABLE...they self right, ride a good size wave, and weigh nothing! Probably the finest designed decoy IMO ever made.
 
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