October workbench

D

Don Mintz

Active member
I'm in the middle of a bunch of design work right now which at this stage is miles and miles of lines a 1/2 inch at a time. The wigeon butt decoy will not be feathered initially, at least until I make a mold of it for myself. Feather groups and a little definition is all that is necessary for a flocked decoy. I don't hunt over anything that's not flocked. I think the pigeons are #10 and #11 of my pigeon designs. The mourning doves are the second and third time I've designed doves.

I'm working on a canvasback urn today too, mostly just watching paint dry. I paint my decoys entirely with gloss oil based enamel as a base coat, currently the bottom is drying, this picture is from yesterday.

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Don Mintz said:
I'm in the middle of a bunch of design work right now which at this stage is miles and miles of lines a 1/2 inch at a time. The wigeon butt decoy will not be feathered initially, at least until I make a mold of it for myself. Feather groups and a little definition is all that is necessary for a flocked decoy. I don't hunt over anything that's not flocked. I think the pigeons are #10 and #11 of my pigeon designs. The mourning doves are the second and third time I've designed doves.

I'm working on a canvasback urn today too, mostly just watching paint dry. I paint my decoys entirely with gloss oil based enamel as a base coat, currently the bottom is drying, this picture is from yesterday.

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Man i wish I had decoys like this when I was big in the pigeon scene. Don, any idea if pigeon hunting is still a popular hobby? Soar no more did a fantastic job making it popular 8-10 years ago. It got me hooked in a big way and i did it actively for about 5-6 years of my life. I killed more pigeons than I ever care to admit and I wore out a benelli in the process. I just dont hear about it as much as I used to. Im also no longer active on any social media, so that could be a big reason why.
 
William Reinicke said:
Man i wish I had decoys like this when I was big in the pigeon scene. Don, any idea if pigeon hunting is still a popular hobby? Soar no more did a fantastic job making it popular 8-10 years ago. It got me hooked in a big way and i did it actively for about 5-6 years of my life. I killed more pigeons than I ever care to admit and I wore out a benelli in the process. I just dont hear about it as much as I used to. Im also no longer active on any social media, so that could be a big reason why.
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I'm a particular fan of those dove... a couple of those, flocked, on a fence line or powerline would damn sure work better than the crap I see marketed!
 
I've heard nothing about pigeon hunting, but I've sure been commissioned to do several of them, both wood pigeons and rock pigeons. I kind of like the dove that Final Approach did with my pigeon body, but it's huge, the same size as the pigeons in the photo. I'm kind of a fan of just a bit over life sized, I've made my share of giant decoys, but really never noticed much difference in decoying, but of course every region has it's differences.

I know people talk a lot about making a mourning dove stand that looks like a branch or post. Which begs the question, would it be legal to put a dove on an artificial sunflower.
 
Don Mintz said:
I've heard nothing about pigeon hunting, but I've sure been commissioned to do several of them, both wood pigeons and rock pigeons. I kind of like the dove that Final Approach did with my pigeon body, but it's huge, the same size as the pigeons in the photo. I'm kind of a fan of just a bit over life sized, I've made my share of giant decoys, but really never noticed much difference in decoying, but of course every region has it's differences.

I know people talk a lot about making a mourning dove stand that looks like a branch or post. Which begs the question, would it be legal to put a dove on an artificial sunflower.
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I've got a few Eurasian Collared Dove decoys that I do find useful in those times we find them frequenting a dove field in S Texas. They're lazy birds (kick mourning and whitewings out if their nests so they don't have to build their own), so happy to join others on the ground that appear to have found easy food.

A buddy rigged an easy way to get dove decoys on high lines - when they work, they really work. But, other times, they garner no interest. All this talk of flocking makes me wonder about light/glare on the plastic. Same is true of the dove mojos - sometimes dove want to decoy right on top of them, other times they flare away badly. I may flock a dove mojo (and it's wings) this year as an experiment, and as a way to dip my toes into flocking.

I once had a portable "dead tree" someone was giving away, but it was just too much hassle toting it around so I passed it along. I don't see any reason a fake sunflower wouldn't be ok.
 
Don Mintz said:
I've heard nothing about pigeon hunting, but I've sure been commissioned to do several of them, both wood pigeons and rock pigeons. I kind of like the dove that Final Approach did with my pigeon body, but it's huge, the same size as the pigeons in the photo. I'm kind of a fan of just a bit over life sized, I've made my share of giant decoys, but really never noticed much difference in decoying, but of course every region has it's differences.
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Ya since soar no more went away, havent seen such a surge of pigeon hunting anymore. It sure is fun to do when you have a hot dairy.
Don Mintz said:
I know people talk a lot about making a mourning dove stand that looks like a branch or post. Which begs the question, would it be legal to put a dove on an artificial sunflower.
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With all the motion decoys out, the fact GHG has artificial corn cobs for sale, printed sheets of corn kernels, and other things in the decoy world.... I dont see why it would be an issue. Might be onto something. Morning dove on a sunflower stake..... Sell 3 dozen and you could make your own sunflower patch anywhere you want and decoy doves.
 
The two best dove hunts i've been on have been in sunflower fields. We have lots of collard doves, but I've only hunted once since I moved here 7 years ago and have never shot one. I'm always so busy this time of year it's hard to get out. We did go fishing today and caught quite a few smallies and saw lots of ducks, season opens tomorrow, but we are no where near ready. Lots of mallards and lots of teal. We are more or less diver guys, that won't start until the 20th of November on an average year.

I'm hoping to get some airbrush done on the canvasback urn tomorrow, I also have 5 pintail drakes to finish flocking.
 
My October has been interrupted by a new house. We're putting on siding now before winter is in full swing. It snowed last night. Gotta button it up quick. 739.jpg736.jpgI can do wiring and plumbing inside as winter temps kick in. When it gets too cold I'll be carving. Just got an order for some harlequins.
 
Well that's quite a project. The earliest snow we had when we lived there was September 1, only a few inches. My wife and I posed with our cross country skis out behind the house with the Chena in the background on Sept 1, we though ti was so 'cool' to have snow so early, but we got over that by May when that snow was finally gone. I think of Idaho as Alaska without the bugs and cold. Unless you've lived it, you can't fathom how cold 40 and 50 below really is. On January 1, our first year of marriage, as soon as the preacher finished his sermon (which was me), a bunch of us church folks hit the Tanana river on snow machines and had a cookout on the ice. It had been 40 below or colder for all of December and a chinook came in and raised the temperature to 30 above, several guys were out in short sleeves, it was down right balmy.

It was 84 degrees here two days ago when we were fishing small mouth bass.

get that place sealed up and stay warm.
 
I finally got that canvasback urn finished. Black sure isn't black enough unless it's flocked, but this is detailed to sit on the shelf most of the year. It is balanced to be hunt able a couple of times a year. I used about 2/3 of the ashes, the rest I'd expect will be spread on a favorite hunting spot. The decoy weighs 2 lbs, 4 ounces. Shadows were bad for photos, but I wanted to float it this evening. I'll probably get some better pictures tomorrow.

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this pair of King Eiders is part of a collector series of all north American ducks. I only lack, common eider, spectacled eider, black scoter and white wing scoter. These are both fully flocked.
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