2014 New Decoys Thread...

[Neighbor_guy]

Trying to build my 1st decoy. Need suggestions on making fins and installing them. Screwed on cut into wood pinned glued? Material to use any advice appreciated.

Mwal

I use aluminum sheet stock for my fin material. There are some who use aluminum or tin gutter or flashing materials as well.

And my swim fins are epoxied, tail fins are epoxied and pinned.

[Neighbor_guy]

Its been fairly quiet in the decoy shop the last few weeks. Several prototypes that went in the scrap bin for kindling. A few others that are just sitting waiting for fins or lead. With the lovely weather we are going to be having it should get a little more going on in there.

So here are a couple that have worked out...

Those ones are full size decoys w/o the tail. They still swim nice circles and the flash and vibration is a little different.

[Mike89]

very nice

[Neighbor_guy]

I finally found the motivation to get a handful of decoys off of the work bench and into paint this weekend. They are what I refer to as "grumpy" decoys (like I said, thanks Dealer for the name). They are single swim fin decoys. A couple of them ended up a little faster than I would have liked, but they all swim nice. There were 6 of them in this batch, here are a few examples...

This decoy took a few different try's to get to swim good. Several versions were tossed into the burn bucket. The wood tail on the red one has a tick to much turn in it so it spins really tight, but it balanced well.

thanks for looking.

[Mike89]

I really like the color of the last one!

[jasonmichalski]

Just finished a new batch of decoys!!

[Neighbor_guy]

Nicely done Jason.

[Neighbor_guy]

An attempt at something with a patriotic feel

it feels a little rodeo clownish, but I tried.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July weekend everybody.

[Mike89]

sweet!!!!!!!!!!

[mrklean]

Sweet decoy

[jasonmichalski]

that's pretty cool!!

[Neighbor_guy]

Wow, been over a month since this thread was updated...

So I will share one...

Say hello to"Fred" .... Fred is a "B.A.S." I will let you figure out what the acronym stands for. He registers 18 1/4" in length and tips the scales at 1lb 11oz

He's a cow, but it takes a lot if effort to sink that much lumber.

The best part is it swims!!! Nice slow circles and a very nice down and around on slack line.

I am not sure why I decided to make one this big. If you go by the rule of 1/3 the fish that would be trying to make dinner out of Fred would be pushing 50"+ but who knows... I might just get pictures of 40-50"er

[Mike89]

can not wait to see the fish come in on Fred!!!!

[mrklean]

Ha awesome, is that gonna be your Mille Lacs go to?

[jvm1]

Big A$$ sucker!

That is enormous, reminds me of the ones we catch at Sand Lake every summer. They are always 2 pounders. This July after catching 4 of them in a row I daydreamed a lot of the northern that would come into the hole with one of those in a harness...

[Neighbor_guy]

Here are a couple that I finished up the other day. Not really trying to copy anything, just playing with shape and using some if my favorite shades. One of them has no tail using a brass blade instead. I am hoping the blades add a little something different.

The other is a fairly simple all wood decoy. Not sure why I chose not to put a mouth or lips on it, but it seemed to fit to leave it off.

[mrklean]

Love the pink one

[MJ1657]

Interesting.

[Neighbor_guy]

The pictures don't show it well, but the turn in them is in the body a opposed to the tail. It causes them to still swim in a circle, but it's a different motion than if all the turn is in the tail. It's a little different getting them to balance good in the tank as well due to the lead being outside the center line of the decoy. It took some trial and fail to get it right. But without seeing how the fish react to them I don't want to make a whole bunch. I consider them to be in the research and development stage this winter....