Pickleheads

[Capt Rich Geminski]

Have seen a lot of pickleheads on the forum. Great work. How do you attach the heads? Are the on wire to move or stakes. Sounds like something of a after season project.

 

[CGeminski]

MLBob Furia just made a post showing his pickleweeds. I believe he makes them too.

http://duckboats.net/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=208791;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

 

[Chuck J]

A quick search of old posts yielded this:

http://www.duckboats.net/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=134847#134847

 

[Capt Rich Geminski]

Thanks Chuck, Put it in favorities for later. Answered my question totally. Don't think mine will be like Bob's, might look like a duck...

 

[MLBob Furia]

Capt. Rich,

As shown in the thread Chuck recessuitated , just stick 'em on dowel rods. I found a camo bag that I carry them in. It sits in the boat all-season and that way they're available whenever the situation calls for it. Also has become a way to have a duck-spread in with the goose decoys for field hunting, without having another bulky sack to haul across a stubble field - along with coffin-blinds, goose decoys, sillys, etc. I do camo up the dowel rods, and if you want to get real "situation-adaptive," you could even have some sets of dowels that vary in length.

View attachment pickleweedpac 002 (600 x 399).jpg

View attachment Firstsplit10 017 (600 x 386).jpg

Pretty easy to maintain. I'll wipe mine down every so often to wash off the mud & grime.

View attachment LateINq.jpg

Here's the great Hagebaumer painting that first got me thinking about making them, back when:

View attachment Pickleweed decoys (590 x 540).jpg
Back then I remembered having seen this painting, but couldn't find it anywhere. One quick note to Sutton, and within ten minutes I had a reply with a
j-peg attached in addition to the title of the book it was in as well as the page number ;-)

They can also be made as flat silhouettes, as the 3-d's get pretty labor-intensive:

View attachment Gregspickleweeds (600 x 313).jpg

 

[Al Hansen]

Hey Bob,
Do you have any picklesands?
Al

Took this shot yesterday.

 

[Huntindave McCann]

Hey Bob,
Do you have any picklesands?
Al

Don't give him any ideas!

 

[MLBob Furia]

Hey Bob,
Do you have any picklesands?
Al

Took this shot yesterday.

Al,

Those full-bodies should do the trick. Now that's a project I've toyed with in my head for years. Who knows? It's a long winter once the season ends!

 

[Pat Gregory]

Rich - I use a 1/2 inch dole rod for both attaching the head to the cork body and for the stake to go into the ground...
View attachment nea15.JPG

 

[Capt Rich Geminski]

Pat, is cork better for the body? Had some suger pine and bass wood from father in law.

 

[Chuck J]

Pat, is cork better for the body? Had some suger pine and bass wood from father in law.

Rich

I'm no expert, but my take on it is weather it is Bob using small fronds or Pat using cork is they are both using materials they have lying around that are too small to make a duck body from...so your sugar pine and basswood should be fine.

Chuck

 

[Tim Speight]

Hi Rich I'll chime in here. Chuck is right on the mark. Pat and I were asked to do a carving demo at a local Fall festival, and were thnking about what a quick carving demo might look like. I had some odds & ends of cork lying which when combined with a little inspiration from Bob wound up being a dozen or so pickleweed dekes.
Any scraps you have lying around will work...if you'll notice Pat used different shapes/sized scraps to make different species...Mallards, Pinnies, Widgeon, etc.

Fun project and a long standing tradition. In addition to the Dave Hagebaumer painting Bob mentions, the August 1932 edition of Fortune magazine features an article about Joel Barber and decoy collecting, 7 drawings by Barber are used to illustrate the article, one of those is of a drawing of a Mallard Drake's head stick-up decoy from Saskatchewan, Canada.