"THEY ARE DONE"

[Higgins]

(my first Dekes)I started them in January and ended them in December   but at least they will be ready for this season.

They look good to me and work good to me but unfortunately my opinion doesn't mean much unless me and the pike think alike.

[darkhousefisher]

looking good there Higgins.  They'll either try to eat em or mate with em, lol.

[pullingills]

nice job im makeing one now do you put poly on the outside of yours to keep them from cracking?? cuz i do and it works great

[Higgins]

nice job im makeing one now do you put poly on the outside of yours to keep them from cracking?? cuz i do and it works great

Yup, I put about 3 layers of poly on the raw wood and some silicone over the lead injection sites and then I used Oil base paint so there should be NO WAY that water gets in.

[kiltman]

Those look real good, Higgins.
Let us know how you did with 'em.

PS
you might see my dark house in your neighborhood. lol

[Higgins]

Those look real good, Higgins.
Let us know how you did with 'em.

PS
you might see my dark house in your neighborhood. lol

will do but if you are really from West Michigan than you know that things aren't looking good right now.

I used to hit Muskegon lake every year but it's getting to popular over there so I'm going to hit a smaller more private lake this year  8)

[Bill Collector Bob]

Those are nice!

[stephensonswille]

Nice! I wanna try and make one that reseambles a small whitefish to use in (cedar river) the bay of green bay (lake michigan)

[Higgins]

Well I got one with my new decoys I made...........take a guess at which one brought him in close enough 

[BuschWhacker]

Very Nice!    Pretty cool when they come in for one of your own creations isn't it?  Just throwing out S.W.A.G, but was she a cannibal?  I'll say the pike pattern??
Again, nice work!

[Higgins]

Very Nice!    Pretty cool when they come in for one of your own creations isn't it?  Just throwing out S.W.A.G, but was she a cannibal?  I'll say the pike pattern??
Again, nice work!

Yes it was especially cool to have him cruz in and check out my decoy that I made from a old cedar tree that got struck by lightning behind my house (thanks for the tips ya gave me BuschWhacker). I'm bringing her in to get mounted today and I hope the taxidermist can mount her even though she has some pretty big lampray marks on her side  

O yeah it was the one decoy that every one told me didn't look like a real fish so the pike wouldn't come in close enough, but from the minute I got done chiseling that one out I liked it..........THE GREY AND RED ONE    

[Higgins]

are you going to have him leave the spear holes?   I always thought that would be unique.  They are the proof to the story afterall.

Do you mean retire the decoy  if so than yeah I thought about it but at the same time I would love to be able to pass it down to a kid/my kid when I'm old and grey and say I speared a ton of fish off this decoy and my first was a 41"er off a 13" decoy, "now see what you can do with it". I'm just going to keep using it and hope that it holds up to the test of time and of those gators 

I'm thinking of maybe making a bunch more and selling them in a local bait shop or on Craigslist but I'm still not sure.........what do you think is a good price to sell them for 

[Higgins]

I mean the taxidermist work on the mount.  Never retire a successful decoy.  The holes were the spear went through the fish. 

I am also dabbling in making decoys.  Price is a hard one, due to the amount of time they take to complete one.  We would like to get $100 but realize the vast majority of spear fisherman are only going to spend half that or less.  my $.02 anyway.

There is a story behind the holes left by the spear.........I was sitting there quietly as I seen the black shovel head slowly glide in from "right under my chair" to get a closer look at my deke and then I slowly grabbed my spear and lowered it into the water about a foot and I knew that it was leagal but I didn't know how big and I wasn't going to sit there and wait for her to show me any more than the 15 inches that I needed so I sent the spear to pay dirt about 4 inches behind the gills and then I grabbed the rope and pulled up my prize only to find that the tines only went in about 2 or 3 inches and a sick feeling came over me as I slowly slid my hand under the gill plate to secure her and grabbed on as though my life depended on it because I thought she was going to flip out but she didn't move one bit and even after I put her out side on the ice she still didn't move (about a 1/2 hour later she came to life and wouldn't quit thrashing for the rest of the day) So with that said there wasn't really any damage from the tines but there are 3 lampray marks on her with 2 on the left side and one on the right and the Tax guy said he would do the best he could to cover them up 

As for the Decoys I'm thinking of putting them up for $25......that should be a good price 
They don't cost me much to make and my time doesn't mean much either as I am unemployed right now 

[TWdecoys]

This is my first time posting a picture on here. This is a sampling of Decoys I have made for upcoming decoy shows. The 3 in front are 2 inchers the others are from 4 3/4 to 10 inches, All carved from walnut. Any ?s I would be glad to help anybody out. Terrie
picture test

[BuschWhacker]

This is my first time posting a picture on here. This is a sampling of Decoys I have made for upcoming decoy shows. The 3 in front are 2 inchers the others are from 4 3/4 to 10 inches, All carved from walnut. Any ?s I would be glad to help anybody out. Terrie
picture test(Image removed from quote.)

Nice Dekes TW!

[Higgins]

The 2 in the top right corner look great  Do you spear as well or are you just a avid decoy carver 

Have you ever used Cedar and if so is Walnut any better than cedar 

[TWdecoys]

Cedar and Walnut both have there qualities. Cedar has natural oils that repel water and is fairly easy to carve. Walnut is nearly indestructable but hard to carve. I don't care for white pine and other soft woods as they tend to crack  & swell to much. Some of the competition carvers I know use white pine. It is easy to carve and finish out. Yes I do spear, Just not as much as I would like to.

[Higgins]

Hard wood always beats soft wood