Events

Decoys revolutionized the industry by improving the success of the hunt. ”The art of the decoy entailed that the fabrications should appear lifelike from afar—the more realistic the decoys, the more successful the hunt.” (Quarstein). The evidence explains that hunting with decoys, which were made more realistic using better eyes and painting techniques, would make the hunt more successful, specifically with migrating birds like waterfowl. The article also stated that with the improvements to weapons and population increases in the 19th century, that more and more people were hunting waterfowl, and more and more people wanted decoys.

In America the rich made more fancy decoys that worked more so they just kept evolving after that and becoming more common. “But the hunt clubbers didn’t like the standard rough decoys used by the market hunters—so they had their own more artistic ones made”(Jennifer Billock). The people who made a living off of hunting ducks used woven together decoys or carved ones because they were cheap or they made them themselves. The woven or carved decoys still worked but oftentimes ducks wouldn't fall for the decoys so hunters would have to use calls with them to try to get the ducks to come into their set up. When the rich were hunting they thought the decoys were just ugly so they hired people to make them very nice artistic decoys or in some cases had them imported. When they hunted with those decoys they realized that because they were in more detail and looked more realistic that the ducks got fooled into landing with what they thought was another flock. When the rich realized that they instantly thought we could make money off of this, they started to produce more and try to convince people that the decoys worked more than the old ones. Once hunters realized they made more then streamlined it into factories. Because they were selling so many, the decoy price went down and the nice decoys became the most commonly used ones in the USA.

The federal government outlawed migratory birds for decoy use so John J. Gazalki made the modern duck decoy because of the new law and he made and produced them out of paper meche. “In 1934, the Federal Government outlawed the use of live migratory birds for decoying purposes. In light of the new legislation, John J. Gazalski realized the need to supply hunters a waterfowl decoy that complied with new conservation standards.This inspired him to invent a lightweight, stackable shell decoy constructed from a substance similar to paper mâché" (“MADE IN THE AMERICAN HEARTLAND WITH AMERICAN TENACITY & PRIDE”). Prior to duck decoys, Americans used migratory live birds to attract ducks or other waterfowl. This was outlawed in 1934 by the federal government so hunters and manufacturers had to adjust to the new law. John J. Gazalisky realized they needed to supply hunters with a new attraction method. He then introduced a more modern version of the duck decoy. This version was made out of a material similar to paper mache. He then produced these new decoys to hunters across America and modernized duck hunting. This is significant because John J. Gazalisky was the person and manufacturer that started the production of the hunting decoy.

This is a picture of a Native American child making a tule duck decoy to use in sport and hunting.

Tule Duck Decoy, Native Stock Pictures

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