Florida does have its decoys, and it has its decoy carvers and collectors as well, but for whatever reason, the culture of showing them off has not yet developed here. Collectors and carvers in Florida tend to collect for personal reasons, and for personal enjoyment.
Most of the decoys that you will find collected in Florida, both antique and contemporary, come from other parts of the country, but that is changing because of guys like you Jeff, and guys like Ron Smith.
Post - Civil War, Florida was still mostly an uninhabited state, especially by the white man, and especially south of the big bend on the west coast, south of the Indian River Lagoon on the east coast, and south at the Kissimmee River in the central peninsula. Settlers that were here were very practical people who mostly set up homesteads along the coastline farming, growing oranges, pineapple, bananas, guava, or other fruits and vegetables for themselves and for others that they traded and bartered with. Most of the towns were along the coastlines.
In the interior of Florida, there were the more hardy souls who made their life by rounding up wild cattle left by the Spaniards, and hunting and gathering. They used whips to hunt small game and saved their ammo, lead, and powder for protection from the predators, Indians, and outlaws. The crack of the whip was the primary way to hunt small game, round up wild cattle, and it’s how the Florida cowboy earned the nickname “Florida Cracker”. They would fatten their cattle on the wild salt grass in the prairies in and around the Kissimmee valley, then drive them to Tampa where they would be sold and shipped to Cuba, or sold to the government during wartime. Supplies such as gun powder and shot were not always easy to come by, so hunting ducks or birds by the locals was probably only done when it was the easy source of food. Turkeys were hunted however, because it didn’t require all that much ammo to kill a nice meal, and turkeys could be trapped as well.
Development in the interior of Florida centered on the canal digging and flood control and included mostly homestead farming and ranching. It was a difficult life.
So far from what I’ve read, carving decoys, especially as folk art, was not practiced to any significant degree in Florida by Florida settlers.
Market hunting of birds in Florida amounted mostly to the practice of plume hunting, which could quickly line the pockets of a hunter who exhibited little or no conscience. Anyone who decoyed ducks for market hunting, or for pleasure and food, probably used coconuts as decoys.
Most of the waterfowl hunting and hunting of “baybirds”, or shorebirds as they are called today, was along the coast. Traveling to Lake O in the 1800s would have been like going to the Amazon.
Wealthy northerners would come to Florida in the winter months to hunt and fish, and most often spent their time along the coast in the lagoons, sailing in flat bottom boats called Sharpies, or they would transverse from Jacksonville in a wheel boat as far as Salt Lake and cross to Sand Point (Titusville) where they could find a boat and sail the lagoon from there. They would bring their shotguns and fly rods, hunt and fish along the coast, and up the freshwater streams all winter and spring. They would use lead shot as ballast, bring powder and other supplies for camping, and would live off the birds and fish they harvested. They would barter for vegetables and fruit. Freshwater from springs was easy to find along the coast, even some springs which welled up in the saltwater lagoons, and often times this would be where they found the ducks they hunted. I’m sure some of these gentlemen brought decoys with them, and left them at the lodges they built along the coastline and near the springs. I have seen a very few examples of these decoys, but they are rare, and mostly in private collections with little recorded about their history.
All this being said; I think someday you will see the decoy shows coming to Florida, maybe Orlando would be a good place, or the Merritt Island Refuge which is rich with waterfowl hunting history. It’s just a matter of time. It will take a group of committed carvers and collectors to organize and pull off a show like the ones so common to our north. The seed has been planted.
Hitch
