The lifelike feathers on Robby Matherne’s female mallard almost fool a person into thinking he used real feathers for his intricate decoy carving. He didn’t. "No, it’s all made out of wood," he ...

MIDDLE RIVER, Minn. — Joel Huener says he’s always been “kind of a rabid do-it-yourselfer,” a trait that also rubbed off on his hunting and fishing. “I tie flies, I make rods and I load my own ammo,” ...

EDINA, Minn. -- Doug Lodermeier was bursting with stories about Minnesota duck-decoy carvers. We were in Lodermeier's basement office in early December, thumbing through a computer copy of his new ...

There's something almost ethereal about the humble duck, says Eliot, Maine, resident Jim Higgins — its beauty, its wanderlust, its calls, its many hues. From the time he was a young man, he has been ...

R. Madison Mitchell once said he just wanted to be a good funeral director and carve wood when things got slow. But it was the ducks and geese he fashioned in his spare time — some of which fetched ...

In an age of high-tech hunting gear with the latest bells and whistles, some hunters choose to get back to the basics. That’s certainly true for long-time waterfowl hunter and decoy carver Randy ...

Gary Lipham has carved just enough wooden duck decoys to understand how much skill and creativity the craft demands. “I wanted to have an appreciation for carving, so I carved a little bit,” said ...

TUCKERTON — The eyes of a thousand lifeless ducks stared eerily into space, their expressions blank, their bills sealed forever so that no sound can ever escape. But these ducks have never seen life — ...

It’s pretty calm and quiet around Russ Dedekind’s West Lawn home, even though he and his brother share it with hundreds of wooden ducks in various stages of becoming decoys. They must be pretty good ...

TUCKERTON – there are numerous rewards from taking classes at the Tuckerton Seaport. One of them is learning to do something you’ve never done before, another is camaraderie between those taking the ...

The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center is in the business of showcasing creatures in settings that imitate their natural environments. The harbor seals have a pool, where they dive and sunbathe ...