Just curious. How long ago were commercial crow decoys being made? Or should say what is the oldest commercial crow decoy? Was crow hunting as a sport something that goes back as far as say waterfowling?
Crow hunting goes back to the early 1900's in the USA. Some of the very first crow calls were made by decoy makers in there spare time. Fred Allen from Illinois made the earliest hand held crow calls as did Perdue crow calls. I have an old Fred Allen crow call from 1900.
Bert Popowski started hunting crows with Tony Hoover in the mid to late 1920's. The population was more concerned with putting food on the table such as waterfowl in those days, so there were few crow hunters. I believe that duck and goose hunting is a far older sport. They have Egyptian goose decoys that date back over 2,000 years!
The earliest crow decoys were made out of balsa wood and paper mache' back in the early 1940's. Plastic did not come on the scene until the early 1960's. Some of the old crow decoy makers were General Fiber, Victor and Carry - Lite. These were all paper mache' crow decoys.
The plastic crow decoys were also made by Carry-Lite, Garcia, Evers, Byroade and Rock Crow. The old Rock Crow and Garcia decoys were the most durable, even better than the ones they make today.
Herters made balsa wood crow decoys and some awful styrofoam crow decoys.
Well thats the report!
Bob Aronsohn
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