Lookin' Ahead To The Future

[cmuch]

Alright.....so once all this "hunting decoy" is done...once we've gotten past the basics....i would love to see it taken a step further....
I think you should expand....not just decoys for hunters.....decoys for BIRDWATCHERS!!!!!

The image in my mind is this..."Bluebird Decoys"..heck..maybe even a spinning wing bluebird decoy!!!

Not just bluebirds, but you could make Grossbeaks, Cardinals, Robbins, maybe even a Bluejay or two????
The list could go on forever....But my hopes is that by 2039(year)...these types of decoys hit the market!!! Until then, its back to the carving table for me, gotta start on my Black capped Chickadees!!!!!!

Later!!!
cmuch

[Chris Jones]

You know its funny you bring this up back 20 some years ago on my grand parents farm,before I even knew what a silo was I used to make sparrow decoys outta cardboard shoe boxes my grandma kept. Armed with a red ryder BB gun,I was hell on the english sparrow population that year. If I'd only know then what I do now I had HUGE money makers and I didn't even know it. Hell who knows, I might be a huge celebity like Avery Tom, all the videos... flying all over the world...hunting with all the celeb's

Guess that just goes to show you what kinda a monster this thing called hunting can create!!

[Tom Matthews]

Chris,

I know you didn't just call me a "huge celebrity". You won't see me on any videos or TV shows or in any magazines - way too ugly for that. The only "flying all over th world" I do is the 6 trips to China I take each year. The only hunting I do now is with Allen and few of the other guys from Avery and my son Butch. I went duck hunting twice last year. Be glad you didn't carve those sparrow decoys!

Now for a way more important topic. I have thought for several years that decoys for bird watchers is a great idea. They get after it just like we do, but they just don't shoot 'em. Fact is they get up close and personal with all kinds of birds including waterfowl just for the purpose of seeing them and recording that they saw them. We appreciate the beauty of ducks and geese just as much as they do, but we see them in a different way. That's not bad, good or indifferent, but it is a fact.

Many bird watchers are anti-hinters for sure, but many of them are hard core killers too. My father loves to shoot a duck as much as the next guy, but when and my mother go to their cabin way up on a mountain in somewhere in East Tennessee (I've never been...come to think of it I've never been invited) they get totally into watching birds, any birds, all birds. I think it's really cool.

An old friend of mine named Avery Wood told me 10 years ago that I should pay attention to the bird watchers and cater to them and their needs at some point. He told me that bird watchers outnumbered duck hunters 10 to 1, and he was right. He killed more ducks that anyone I have ever known, but he was an Audobon Society member until the day he died. To me, that showed his "maturity" as an outdoorsman because he was a freaking cold, hard mallard killing machine, but he would always stop to point out an Indigo Bunting.

Anyway, I have been thinking some about it lately, and I think your ideas have huge potential. Thanks for reminding me of this as well as some other pleasant memories from my past!

Tom