The first record of hunting duck decoys goes back as far as the early as 20th century. Those records show that 11 hunting duck decoys were found in a cave while mining back in 1911. They were found along with ancient artifacts in a Nevada mountain cave that was used by indigenous Americans for probably nearly 3500 years according to archaeologist.
The hunting duck decoys were made from marsh bulrush mainly but had real duck feathers attached to them. They were dated as being made 200 A.D., and carefully buried in individual wrappings in a pit dug into the floor of the cave. They are still the oldest known duck decoys to date.
The first decoys to be made in mass quantity came from Salt Lake city, Utah and they were made mainly of rubber although earlier decoys were carved from wood, which was hard to keep a float as they would either tip over or become water logged. A newer invention for a duck decoy was having them carved from cork, which would float without a problem, and they were lighter to carry out hunting then the traditional wooded decoys. The only problem with cork decoys was that they didn’t last very long. Nowadays these cork decoys can be worth allot of money to antique dealers and decoy collectors.
Other types of hunting duck decoys were made of Styrofoam and urethane foam but both were easily damaged, not very durable and did not display very much detail.
With a need for realism and more detail the next type of decoys had to be made to last, be light, durable and detailed with an exact resemblance to waterfowl. Blow molded decoys made of high-density polyethylene now fit the bill and with the many different variations on the market you have many to choose from. Variations now include: Motorized, Wind motion, floaters, resters and magnums (Larger then normal) hunting duck decoys that last allot longer then any other decoy in history.
Tags: decoy history, duck hunting, hunting duck
