Widgeonator

I've been looking online to see if there's any informational sites that show how to possibly make a duck decoy with a live duck. Me and a friend of mine have a few gadwall, widgeon, teal, and spoonies that we are hoping to completely clean out and potentially make decoys with. Not sure how to go about it tho. whether it's carving a cork decoy out and sewing the real ducks over it, taking old paint-faded plastic decoys and just using sewing the ducks over those, or investing in a urethane molding kit and using that. no idea how to go about this and was really hoping for some help on how to hopefully make this work. also any info about treating the inside of the ducks that may be necessary. any and every bit of info and help is greatly appreciated!

M.Magis

The best tip I can give you is don’t bother. You’re not going to make a waterproof decoy out of real skins. I'm assuming these would be water decoys.

rgswildlife

The only way I could see this working is to have the ducks mounted by the cheapest price around and then put them out in the fields as decoys. They will not work on any water, and if you do try that you will damage them. Good Luck.

Widgeonator

actually i think we may have it down pat. we started on it last night. completely skinned out the duck and scraped it as best as we could. soaked them in acetone for a little and let them air dry for a while. we have some old cheap teal plastic decoys and we're basically going to cut the head off the decoy, glue the duck's body over the teal decoy, and mount the head resting on top. after just draping the skin over the teal decoy, it looks like this idea can have a lot of potential. also, even if they work amazingly but only last for a season, all you'd have to do is scrape the previous duck off the plastic decoy, then repeat with another duck. plus these plastic decoys were real cheap. we're currently using some real nice looking widgeons, gadwall, a teal, and an awesome lookin spoony for this plan. i'll post pictures of the outcome when we're done within a couple days

M.Magis

Not only will they likely not last for an entire season, I doubt they make it though one hunt. I sure hope you don’t intend to keep these things in your house. Good luck.

Widgeonator

so then what's the big problem with trying this idea? we're completely cleaning and scraping out the ducks from head to tail as if it were being prepared for stuffing, so just as if we made a stuffed and mounted duck, why would it stink and rot using it over a plastic decoy?

we're using plastic teal decoys for floatation since they're already decoys that are made for the job, we're just giving them the most realistic body you could get out of a decoy.

we're going to use the best adhesive for the job that we can find, but the duck will be draped over the plastic decoys, and will stop at the bottom edges of the decoy as to not soak in the water when in use.

i don't see any reason why these would rot, why they wouldn't float, or why they wouldnt last for a season. think of a mounted duck. how doesn't that rot? all we're doing is basically mounting a duck with a plastic decoy for a body. why doesn't anybody think this will work?

M.Magis

A couple reasons… First, I see no mention of preservation. Second, unless you’re very experience in the proper fleshing of waterfowl, you’re not getting all of the fat and tissue off of the skin and out of the wings by scraping. Third, if you were to throw a well mounted duck into the water, it will rot in time. Preserved skin is not waterproof, and it just can’t tolerate being wet like that, then being tossed around in a decoy bag. I just don’t seeing it working well, and I’d hate for you to spend a lot of time on something that's bound to fail.

rgswildlife

You will be wasting time and energy on a no win situation. Don't forget that you asked the question, and now you seem like that you know all the answers, Enjoy yourself.

Widgeonator

actually i was just simply stating why i think it would work and asking for responses on why it may not. the one thing i wasn't asking for was a d**k response. "enjoy yourself". thanks man. don't reply to this thread anymore please. you're being more of a waste of time than this idea would be

OhioBowhunter

this accually sounds like a good idea yeah i know im a kid blah blah blah but common sense tells you if you do something right it will work. mabey you could find some flat floating object that you could put the dekes ontop of to keep them from getting wet. also ive heard of people doing this with geese but for fields. they were taxidermists but they mounted some geese and screwed the feet to a sheet of plywood and had some feeding, standing resting and any other position you could think of. they looked very good. good luck with your project. i am currently working on a turkey decoy but am sadly running out of time