"Chincoteague Decoys: Tides & Time" Interviews

the word got around at people who different waters was car and oh you know you fidget cigar with a bunch of these high nights ago I looked at in here just got darn he was setting our car and cussing and warning deck mess now guess maybe some of that could rubbed off on me I don't know he's all about two-year-old and that was in what the like the 1960s uh yeah yeah real all right maybe 1960 or something like I am and who all would go and hang out with you there you're at all of the past Vegas every one of them George George Clark December Clark who would John Tarantino kleiner Steiner well his brothers he lived next door cigar when he lived down on the pony on going all this am indeed hang iron said or spending big yawns I'm sure none of you all did the same yeah yeah I bought a bike chain like this summer rubbed off cars well my father had a little shop and I went in there and made some things with him and he didn't give it to him I went it look like how I good to her just how many he came back and I was just a lovely I wanted to do butter and then so we fell to it I moved to have you shot the mom job Charlie after left tackle first waterfowl related thing I remember I was a toddler you know five or six and dad would bring all of the stuff that he had killed into the garage and lay him out before he would clean them well I would sit there look at the birds you know I would look at the way the feathers went together the coloration and all that kind of stuff and actually my first word was duck believe it or not we had a stream or a creek that ran in back of the house and that would put corn out there just to attract the ducks and when I was a baby that was what mom would point out she would take me to the window why not duck duck was my first word so I've been doomed we made the deke always shot the magma hatch it melted lead to put the Kiehl's on and she take guys winder decoys different mainland wrap around the back of your neck I got started and who'd you learn from prettiest me you would think by doing it yeah I was always like to do something different you know sometimes it turns I do sometimes it did when I first made them don't Creed but it work oh yeah I done made them so they're not live and plastic vehicle was come hide us turn right over and both plastic ones but I just saw I did that I got suckered get hunted with bow I won oh I did call from there made once in a while and I said going I believe I can might relate to $3 doing it I started car and mostly ducks began bleeding dinosaurs bird school for which I like butter now they didn't like gonna dude up but uh that's how I started I mean I'm not like but I'm saying though when I'm setting mr. bald I knew much from all three well I don't upset Boston are you so entire pants oh you did and we started huh shaky tickers would kill more than what the limit yeah and we never wasted anything we had aunts uncles cousins father mother said my dad got me a gun when I was 13 bad mistake big bad mistake but I loved it you know and we started killing him we would feed a lot of people and to this day we still do some of that we feed a lot of people if we're fishing or hunting no especially especially they do with us you know and the game we didn't like that so we do boy it's ways like smart game board yeah and that's how I work and I we have a lot of tails but it worked yeah five or six years old they got me a PB go love with whatever six pence killing my first duck at seven Thanks it was a Brant he was out of season mm-hmm that was my first I guess that was my first downfall of law down of South Main Street at the time all the Brant huge blocks of grant will come up by the edge of the road all winter long I mean January February March to hundreds and hundreds of Brant yeah but a roving mom dad gave me this gun I was it was a daisy pump and it was too big for me to so I'd get dubbed a copy woman I'd run across the street and I'll shoot into these brand runback you come for me again I'll come running here I'm seven years old I said I killed me a duck no you did not say yeah idea I killed me a duck I'm officer Doug look out that one day yeah there was just Brant flipping upside death I saw him too huh chuckling right side head killed him graveyard dead Doug ran out got him clean before me waiting Thanks hey that was out of season I had no license cheating from the road over a highway I broke every law could think of I'm seven years old good start this is a good start and I can't throw I'm going I don't think I would know how to just grab a ticket pick the off him and clean him up and put him in the old would you she always put them in the oven like you'd like a chick in there mm-hmm in the roast and cook until he got done would you cook the whole bird or what you rest in okay cleaning I didn't cook that's a lot of work getting all the feathers off and doing it is for some people but I don't mind at nothing which is your favorite kind to eat corn-fed blind up usually if I could ask my lord ten tails was good Doug yeah but I eat old Collin's ever saying when we're growing up we put over whatever daddy brought home when I was going up with he didn't eat shorebirds then - yeah I paid two phone lines in my whole entire life I want to hunt and everything I've ever done in the first falling was shooting for short shooting shorebirds I was on the bait bike 15 I dine to the in hoe gaat Bay River Tyne bay-buh my uncle was captaining and I was crazy all I want to do is kill something you know ain't no more arcing shooting when I'm looking working mm-hmm so a shot Linton shot this alone bunch of little birds I mean it must have been like sector fixed Emily clean clean part of them and put them in the pot started cooking them for the night of work so we could have them all ready with him to come in for the heat and the gang wouldn't come by and saw some of the skins and his stuff from the birds laying along the bank they bent board a boat the Sharks bug oh and find them how they were waiting to the boat won the right now waiting into both would become a board that day nobody wasn't gonna own up to it so they said he said well it was three of them he said well look what of what we're going to do if somebody don't take the volume we're gonna take the whole crews Shore so I had to take money but anyway I was pulled over for it I was scared there yeah I've got 170 right there you want me to picture there sometime and that's the one I hunt over love she would the real thing I like how the to watch the reaction with a bird with a landing I've seen deduction these traps he's trapped for full of dollars job luckily were to do the game warden in refuge matter and he had tracks from the Ducks often when he gets dark I'm gonna relieve him my son he's got two minutes so I bought him up one pretty got one for sigil and about 100 he gets all together talk about how to that's all like this guy that chain towed in notice how I got the name single he good huh and the meantime I was in that trap running them ducks tying some single jumped out of my pocket and sweat your lawn in that jag coat pocket and he got out of a pocket in the trap he find him next morning he won the whose boat trigger duck well he figured it out that wall buddy we call me the dumb ass with the old Seabee days citizen band radio then everybody had a hand on one of course here on the island died they called him the duck man and after he passed away I took well I think my interest started when I will pick up his dead birds and look at the anatomy and look at the coloration in that kind of stuff and he had a lot of old decoys from you know a lot of our Hudson's and that comes nothing I would picked him up and look at them and right about the time I was getting to the age where I could actually pick up a knife or pick up a paintbrush um we moved from up there to down here and luckily for me that's right about when it's starting to be a lot of Carver's on the island so I was able to ride my bicycle over to Tommy savages and maybe sit there woodland and I would be talking and you know eventually I'll start buying vehicles from him I bought a lot of vehicles because we used to have a gift shop at the motel and I would sell his decoys in the motel now I never carved with Tommy I would sit there and talk and she could breeze and by birds resell them and that kind of stuff and then Reggie Burks came along one day to talk to Tommy about something and I picked up on Reggie does you know I said Randy would you mind if I came over one day sat down talked he said sure come on over and while I was at Reggie's you know he was like why don't you carve so he started he cut kind of bird out for me and he carved one side of it and gave me a knife and says okay you see if you can match up what I've done and that's the way it started he carved half of it I carved a father and he taught me the basics of using a hatchet in the spokeshave and all that kind of stuff and I carved with him for a number of years you know right in his shop piece of his band saw and his chopping blocking all that kind of stuff so yeah he's responsible for teaching me a lot a lot of stuff it's fun you know the first side of decoys I made was with a friend of mine and we were hunting what we call up the bay and that sort of ran out of water one of the guides and a couple so-called sports or in the boat and saw my little bufflehead sitting there and said oh you made those little little guys would you consider selling couple of them I sold a couple of them how old were you then what's even though I wasn't my 20s at that point I started carving in 1977 but all wrong you know I hunted since I was 13 or 14 years old hmm okay the news plastic decoys and rubber decoys and Keralites and victors but the first inclination of making something would came the need of not being able to buy the certain species that we wanted to help with that coming season do you remember what species that was there were actually just little buffle heads and hooded mergansers you could not buy those they were at that point they weren't making that well we didn't know where to buy because we were just buying local vehicle is here from parks market working working before I started working then went to miniatures because I didn't find enough wood yeah and I made Ventress for a little while not too long because I realized that I did I wasn't gonna be a world champion and I couldn't the decorative because you wanted to make him fancy and I was more into using hand tools and and I need a little power tools and such to make miniatures that would sell so back to working decoys I'd started competing that way I could start selling or working decoys that shows they weren't really used I have a maybe 200 decoys I've ever been actually used and every time I would have like a rough spot I would go ask somebody for advice like the brand that I carved oh I didn't know how to paint besides on it so I'm on the signal cut cigar you know was the man he was when I first started carving he was the the best on the island so he was he was the man to go see when you had trouble and I went up to singing I said I ain't sick I'm having trouble doing this I painted it about five times tell me what they do he's oh you just mix this mixes he painted it what happened I've got a brand that I carved and sig painted that's because I love doing it you can't you can buy plastic bufflehead but there they don't have the movement that your natural birds do they don't float as well as the wood plus it gives you a sense that you've accomplished something when something you got out floating in the water can actually fool mother nature to come in and sit with something that you've made you've accomplished something going out and buying a piece of plastic is not the same thing but uh I learned that I wanted to I want to carve ducks I'm going to eat them I want to kill shoot them Carmen and I got 15 years old I was watching Doug and he said you can do it took his chopping block and hatchet start chopping their carve and then I've got one of them in the house today the first thing I made 15 years old oh nice yeah okay Bread on making them do the Navy days my full year in the Navy now roughly ten thousand pieces later it's been a it's been a good life going up on South Main Street all the clams and fish you wanted no these motels no McDonald's days what kind of brilliant probably hooded merganser hmm the hair hadn't gone yeah I love making a fascinated volume I've got a place where I shoot a lot of them they like to put them out on the pond and watch them land and see how that reaction and did theirs they could put her head in a hundred different positions god it's unbelievable what it can deal with that little bit of crest hands and the drinks so I've got 14 of them over there I'm trying to make I'm trying to make one of every hit style doing that right-hand slaughter with a filing cabinet really really fun to shoot and hunt and to pretty good work and they sell great all day long no and it's just it just progressed we shake it a has a tradition of helping and one of the ways that you pass on decoy carving is by helping others learn and one of the big things I think about Chincoteague is it any shop you go to they'll teach you how to carve you know if you sit there long enough and talk to them and they'll teach you how to carve anybody all you're doing is passing time with them and they'll teach you how to carve um you know I know a lot of people who you know they've carved a few just just further you know just to see if they could do it they'll carve a few they'll go to somebody's shop and he'll show them this that and Heather don't carve a few and then they won't do it anymore but you know it's just that way of passing things on and I think Chincoteague is big in that aspect of helping others pass on that tradition of waterfowling and duck carving and that's that's how I got into it yeah back on the kids nowadays they want to be Carver's I mean I knew of an artistic yeah I wanted to be a cigar Daisy I used to go over to SIG's all the time and my buddy would take me over he'd have bushel baskets of heads and bushel baskets of bodies and I look at him and I thought yeah you can put him in a water and up flying by I think it's the real thing comes out to a you kill him and I wanted a hunt like hunting you know I knew that I could make a decoy and I made this bird and it was the best thing I thought I had ever made of course it was only only made about six of them 15 and I tended to can't sing I said I said what do you think of it he says well you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear we gave it back to me about 15 years old I said do what he said well you're trying to make a nice bird a nice detailed bird I see yes sir you should put you use for wood that's the cottonwood you can't do that he said you gotta have better wood so DeSales ear was the cod wood now I'm trying to make it so first habit you can't do it you gotta have a better wood now you know sig was using cotton wood it's all he was using he knew some things about it if I did about being green about being dry about hollowing it out sealing it there was a lot of things that I didn't see wouldn't wash I'll tell you anything you want to know well you had to ask the question if you didn't know how to ask the question then you know the old saying is I taught him everything he knows hmm but I didn't teach him everything I know yeah so he's the one telling you what you asked him yeah and then he kind of laughing you come back and you'd say why'd you do that John awesome woof I thought you said he said no no I didn't say that and you said can I do this I said sure you can do it you haven't did it it was wrong son of a gotta tell me again so he he but he he could have been the best Carver and he won best in world from working decoy but he could have been better than anybody a lot of people will doubt he'll say they'll be different with me they gotta remember sig was doing it for a living loose and in my way of thinking carving was not really considered a big thing when it when it really got going I mean shengcún take itself was always a waterfowling destination and I mean we we went from using live decoys and then they were outlawed and then people started making they're making decoys for use because of the live ones Ravel and we just had some some local craftsmen that very talented at it you know we because we were an island we had a lot of boat builders though building lends itself to decoy carving you're you're using the same type of woods the same construction methods what have you and it just naturally progressed from you know okay you can build a boat you can also make a decoy and then we had a couple of the decoy Carver's they got very good at it and a couple of the decoy Carver's actually would make Birds for their own use and then we had a couple of people that made Birds for everybody else to use and the Chincoteague style of bird was a little bit more crude than in other places we weren't as refined but they were functional we were we used wood that was available you know we weren't pigeon holed into one certain type of wood you know we if a ship spur washed up or a light pole they would take that and use that for carving if they could make it to the mainland and get cotton wood which is a local groom wood on the mainland they would use with um you know they would use anything that washed up or what whatever was available but it the in the carving community there were a lot of birds that were coming out of Shing it takes a lot more people were coming to shame to take in order to get carvings begin ducks and I think the the name of Chincoteague just got to be in the carving community because so many birds were coming out of shape well I think it is a mystique you know cuz we are you know hunting community what Waterman of fishermen community and that's what we were piggybacking on I think it's the same as I'm gonna say about the oysters you know there there's moisture coming from all over the country of being brought here to be open and canned here because of this Chincoteague brand or the Chincoteague name and I think that's what's really happened with the Eco is as well because you know we've had three really important cars over that earlier part of market hunting years you know and our Hudson and digester mom's Hancock and of course living legend here Shannon s cigar Daisy of course so we actually have four in Corbin Reed there's many you know if you look at the old maps of all the Carver's around here and it was they they went through a renaissance as well they were market hunters and then the Ducks started disappearing they started carving for the tourist industry and they would have a little picnic table setting out in front of their house with their little carvings out and tourists would stop in and buy them so it's it's the yeah I think Chincoteague is an important part because people come first time they they meet me you know they look at my best Oh shake it take I've been to show you ticket of course I have you know it's so remarkable how many people in there show you tick it really is I've even met people in Germany you know yes there there are I mean the the shaggy take style is more of a working bird kind of kind of rough around the edges but functional you know there are certain certain characteristics of Chincoteague style birds like all the products have their tails up higher than normal lower there's a few chicken thick Stoppers no these guys you can you can pick the Eastern Shore Virginia because people bring the only horses on it that you can't identify who made them but immediately you can tell it that made Eastern Shore one of the few things from there for old decoys you could say from shigga Teague is there made of cotton when they call cotton wood here and it's actually boy Apollonia it's what that tree is its we Kansas is full of cotton wood but it's not the same cotton wood that we consider cotton wood and said tree that was brought here at colonial times and I should deceive her it was the modern art was the antique style of peanuts the old plastic peanuts we put into her packaging material that's how they shipped their belongings China and such and the seed pods it was what they packed them in and Williamsburg full of these so-called cottonwood trees their royal Polonia what country they're from I think they're European if you see if a decoy that's made of cotton with an old one it's it's Eastern Shore for sure and you usually can zoom in the shanty there's some reason she can take people for if they like to use that wood or some other way they made them they made on my probably in 3/4 of an inch in width and maybe 4 4 or 5 inches in length and the only entity would flatten it a little bit so you could get the nail through mm-hmm he would put it even nailed above the front part put him in the water if he leaned that way he was shipped to back until he even died okay and then he penned the other huh yeah and then they used flat television waters a flat water maybe half inch it's got a little strange conquer it real tough they've bend it over and drive it under underneath in order to the strength well a lot of time I had me well that makes sense I would on the front up of some of them I did I made a tip sticking off like that when he hit the bottom the top nine quarter ah and I've put the shanks probably three my offensive long and make a lot of if you could get caught from the whole copper and you was flange II I'd buy then you said then your mobile world ready would really do it fall down and catch the edge in the water pointed uh game do I do most of the chopping with a hatchet been a good get the Bartok undying shake that for a good no no you get forward and pools takeover hey it's mark sorry he's not for me is just uh what are you used for the bills okay got some pieces out and I'll just cut their night on the main soul endeavor a chain or some peon drill homes or swing cuts think I'm intern won't broke off so quick uh he was just super something else he was selling his miniatures you little nurtures gift him in-house the summer time he had tally overtopped of wool stove we've had them on there and they were three dollars apiece hmm and I was by them I was a decoy broker mm-hm I'll the wives buy them bond his little ministers three dollars apiece and I bought him a bottom and I went there one day I said this was actually get a leg cut off it had his leg amputated I think diabetes no yes so you're sitting on the couch and I said mister malls and what get some more ministers he's were there be officer pick out what you want he said what I had to go up he says are five dollars bail hmm see good five dollars I said I'll take one but I can't afford no more huh and that was a last minute drop off from him for five dollars he was telling me he was selling me life-size decoy to hunt with for 300 feet slap at the time I was fifteen I wanted a dozen differs and it doesn't shelducks to go with mr. miles she said how much are they I sent her three logs peace 36 dogs and doesn't she said well if you want that's all you're gonna get you ain't get nothing else out of money so she got him for me and I got a picture while doing it a little bit of me open them up another Christmas tree oh and she got me it doesn't difference it doesn't shelducks and I thought just like right now if you go to an auction and somebody consigns a miles Hancock it might have it might be a mace little decoy body it might be a dove just her body Moz would tell us he said you both can't afford these high priced ducks he said so he would put his head on anybody's burnt body and back then we've done with all wooden birds yeah you broke the heads off all the time do him in the corner mm-hmm next summer you make a bunch of hits and maybe hit him so miles wasn't selling people fake Birds right in his mind he made the body he made the head he painted him mm-hmm are you fitting to head on but the body could be Sears & Roebuck it could be a prat or a Mason or anybody in the world could be upper bay body and and this picture I've got when I thought were all original miles Hancock's half M or machine-made bodies Nathan until he put his head on it and it could've been a blue bill I blacked up anything if you want to differs here we'll be blabbing some of that big and someone that big anymore shops keeping the shoulder head it could have been a canvas back but now it's the shoulder that's gonna be bringing it like Sheldon that's right and shake it takes peek these are stores they're not decoys gunning stools does it have a mistress tools just don't have to be those are just when you mention hey can you go pick up my stools they know what you're talking [Music] boy stur catcher's old Walt old Qualis not long-tailed ducks to be politically correct they're called sows settlers and that came from the noise that they make we used to be able to go out that night and listen to a mama baby just carried echo all over the babies just carried throughout the bay if you had a real quiet thing okay so a bobble head zipper and a red-breasted Merganser up is there a hooded merganser black duck what about for glaring cranky yeah there's a pin tail of Springdale here you know old bait oh we call Bob all cranks ball crown if it's the real name is uh like what's the buffalo head yeah don't even booty mug and Renee called a heritage congressional sheriff showed up I never understood that one why are those called shell ducks they just are yes what we always call them shield ups it's abortive and going up some Buster Doug saw some the gander they were talking about you know the gold and all it was a bullhead Virginia rail Marsh an old squall of his size editor's south settlers I said or something like that where I come from we got recalled most well now I think they call him want a adducts yeah and curlies it was Carly Dan but now they're one Bros oh and uh like breast blubber we always called them holler head oh my whole entire life coconut holler AIDS they lent most of time they went but a sign that is saying look when he hollered when he makes a sign they said he signed like he was hot on there saying how her head that's why I guess he's got his name there the greenhorn was told skypes okay the white egrets was small organs I like saying organs out of were denying go room and black crying her and they were a walked and what's a bug sucker he's a little just a little Schubert yeah did you call Wiggins anything all kind ball green ball CryEngine I heard over Chris peel they call the ball pay ten ten days we'll bill would win but Springdale its breakdown yep did you call blue herons anything cranky cranky cranky cranky Vietnam recalled him robbing stealing mm-hmm about Easter catchers that just shriek rose down Richard gray back called gray back okay let's say we called it chicken ducks chicken ducks I like that and in the cold we call it a surf scooter we call them coops oh well that's confusing don't impose the real coop the cold chicken do you

Channel: Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University

Views: 396

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: BOzZldZ2KVA

Length: 37min 43sec (2263 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020