In 1918, Joel Barber began a new era of waterfowl decoys. Barber spent much of his life collecting and showcasing various decoys and even wrote a popular book on the subject 1934 titled, Wild Fowl Decoys. From here on the keystone component of waterfowl hunting becomes the decoy. It is also an authentic piece of Americana. So how did decoys come to be? Their history may go further back than you would expect!
Believe it or not Native Americans first put waterfowl decoys to use over 2000 years ago, possibly the Paiute Tribe of the Southwest. Evidence of these decoys was found in 1924 at the Lovelock Cave in Nevada. Here, archeologists found a cache of 11 waterfowl decoys that resembled the canvasback duck. The decoys cleverly crafted out of Tule reed are thought to have been used on the now dry Lake Humboldt. The practice of using decoys spread throughout tribes and caught the eye of early settlers in the 17th century.
With an abundance of waterfowl available throughout the “New World”, settlers began relying on decoys to improve their chances of luring in waterfowl. These decoys vary in style but were primarily carved out of wood and painted to mock the local waterfowl. Towards the 1800s, waterfowl became a staple food source for growing populations. “Market gunners” began to make their way to the scene by hunting vast amounts of waterfowl and commercially selling them to the public. These market gunners helped popularize the use of decoys and used huge punt guns to take out up to 100 waterfowl at once. Since this was a profitable market, decoys evolved into more efficient and realistic designs to help improve hunting. By Justin Sieverding.
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