Carvings

Hand carved fish decoys are often carved out of a tight-grained wood like basswood. The decoy might look like a perch, a sucker, a cisco, a crappie or even a frog. After carving the body of the fish a rectangular hole in the belly section of the decoy and fills it with melted lead. Then an artist may use acrylic paint to color the decoy to look like a real fish. The next step is to make fins for the fish, often made out of the sheet metal used for stove pipes. Many decoys have metal fins to make them move like a real fish moves. An eye-screw is attached to the top of the decoy and a cord is attached to the metal loop and the other end to a“jigging stick” which an artist will also often hand carve. The tail will act like a boat’s rudder and steer the wooden minnow to swim in a circle when it is put into the water and jigged. Decoys are different from lures. Decoys have no hooks to catch fish but are used to attract and spear muskie, walleye or northern pike. A lot of time and patience is needed to make a useful fish decoy. Many important steps must be done correctly to make sure a fish decoy will “swim.” After the decoy is made, it takes even more patience to spear a fish.