The art of duck hunting: He makes his own decoys to attract waterfowl

Tom Modin was putting his artwork on display.

In the predawn darkness, he tossed his hand-carved wooden duck decoys into the still water of a pond near Smithville Lake. Then he tucked into the vegetation with three other hunters and waited for the ultimate critics — the ducks — to judge his work.

“We put out decoys of all the types of ducks I have seen here — redheads, green-winged teal, ringnecks and mallards,” Modin said as he used vegetation to camouflage his layout blind. “It looks more natural than putting out a couple dozen mallard decoys.

“They’re more likely to come into a spread if they see a decoy that looks like them.”

Moments later, a small flock of redheads proved Modin’s point. As Modin blew loudly into his duck calls, the birds banked sharply and circled the decoys. Then they cupped their wings and headed straight for a string of redhead decoys Modin had arranged in the marsh.

As the ducks started to land, the hunters — Modin and his friends, Bill Atkinson, Chris Wolfenbarger and Lee Clark — reclined in their layout blinds and waited for the right moment. So did Modin’s black lab, Rex, as he whimpered with excitement in his camouflaged dog hut.

When the ducks started to drift down, Modin shouted, “Take ’em!’ and several shotgun blasts rang out. Two redheads fell, and Rex bounded out to do his job.

“They came right in to those redhead decoys,” Modin said with excitement. “That was so pretty.

“It’s just so much fun to shoot ducks over decoys that you have made.”

That fun lasted throughout the morning. The hunters shot two other redheads and one goldeneye, in addition to nine Canada geese that were lured by standard decoys. All of this, Modin said, during an “old-fashioned hunt.”

“We hunted the way people did years ago,” said Modin, 41, of Kearney. “We hunted over hand-carved, hand-painted decoys.

“We didn’t use (battery-powered) motion-wing decoys or anything like that. I’ve hunted with nothing but these carved decoys for the last three years, and I’ve taken a lot of ducks with them.”

Modin got his start in 2005 when he bought an L.L. Bean decoy and set out to imitate it through his carving. He went on to buy a carving kit that provided step-by-step instructions. His first decoy was a goldeneye — a carving that he still hunts over.

Today, he has refined his technique. He carves his decoys out of basswood and uses oil paint to make them stand out. He carves the duck imitations in different poses to add realism to his decoy spread.

It takes Modin six to 10 hours to carve and paint each decoy. He sells his artwork for $150 to $225 per duck. Some are sold to collectors, who merely want to display Modin’s work in their house. But just as often, Modin adds his carvings to his own string of working decoys.

He hunts with nothing but decoys he and other carvers have made by hand.

“I don’t have an art background,” said Modin, who works as a nurse. “I don’t have formal training.

“It’s still just a hobby for me, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 2:48 PM with the headline "The art of duck hunting: He makes his own decoys to attract waterfowl."