Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Katie Burke: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, Katie Burke. And today on the show, I am starting a series that I am doing with the North American Decoy Collectors Association. I'm going to be interviewing a few carvers and collectors and members of that organization to help promote the show in Chicago in April. First guest of the series on the show, I'm happy to have Dave Kneebone. Dave Kneebone is the owner of Muddy Water Decoys and is also a collector himself. Welcome to the show, Dave.

Dave Kneebone: Thank you. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Katie Burke: You're a board member, correct, of North American? Yes. Okay. That's the one thing I wasn't completely sure your role there. How long have you been a board member of North American Decoy Collectors?

Dave Kneebone: 10 plus years I've been on the board, seen some guys come and go, but yeah, it's a good organization.

Katie Burke: Oh yeah, I've enjoyed it. I guess that was the first show I went to when I got this job. John Dieter, who we talked about earlier, recommended that I go, and I've gone, I think I missed one year since I've had this job.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, we consider that the granddaddy of them all. We get from West Coast to East Coast, Canadian collectors, all the way down to Louisiana, you guys' area down there. So we definitely have a wide variety of people show up.

Katie Burke: Yeah, it's a cool show and then the call collectors are there too, so you kind of get a little bit of everything. I try to explain the room-to-room to people and it's hard to explain. You just kind of have to go, but that part of it's so unique. Though it's had a little growing growth, a little thing when we moved hotels, but it still works and it's still neat and very different from any other.

Dave Kneebone: The room-to-room for a beginning collector can definitely be a bit overwhelming. people just not used to walking into somebody's hotel room and looking at stuff. But once you get used to it, it just becomes another routine thing going to the shows. But yeah, it can definitely be a little different going into people's rooms.

Katie Burke: Well, it's definitely, I think the coolest part about it is that you get to meet the people that have the collections and you get to talk more. When you're at a show and they have a table, it's, I guess it's like overstimulating in a way. There's a lot going on. But when you're in someone's individual room and you're next to their decoys, you can learn or you bring them a decoy that you found. You can learn a lot more about collecting and decoys. You get a lot more information out of it, basically.

Dave Kneebone: The room-to-room is definitely a more personal experience. When you get into that big ballroom with all the people running around and most of the board members are very occupied having to take care of things, yeah, it's not quite the same experience. But the room-to-room, if you really want to meet the decoy people, you want to see decoys handle them, that's the place to be.

Katie Burke: I agree. I've learned a lot there. And even just sitting in there with some people I visit that I've met, like you guys, and listen to y'all talk to other people. You just like through osmosis, you learn a lot. Yeah, it's nice.

Dave Kneebone: And the handling part, Katie, that's the most important. And most of the fellows will absolutely tell you to pick them up, look at them. There's a few exceptions to that because of very high end things that they may be dealing with. But no, that's the best experience for looking at decoys.

Katie Burke: Alright, so let's go back to you. I just wanted to, I don't know, I didn't, I wanted to clear that part up about your role with them. And I've worked with Rick and now with Al, Stefan as well, to kind of get the DU and the North American Decoy Collectors Association kind of communicating more. But anyway, let's go back. What I like to do with all of my guests, I like to kind of start back with your introduction to the outdoors and hunting and that sort of thing. And I know you have that in your background. So when did you start hunting? Who introduced you? How did that… What's your background story with the outdoors?

Dave Kneebone: At four years old, my grandfather and my father had me start walking with them up land hunting. I did not carry a loaded gun until I was 10 years old. I was introduced to it slowly. Seven years old, carried a BB gun. Eight years old, carried an empty shotgun with no shells in it until my father and my grandfather felt I was big enough, strong enough, and safe enough to begin my journey with harvesting things. My grandfather on my mother's side was instrumental in my fishing. I was very fortunate at five years old. My grandfather would take me to Otter Tail Lake up in Minnesota, and we'd spend two to three weeks up there. And that's all I did was fish. And I got to do that till I was 14.

Katie Burke: So I know you live in Illinois now, but did you grow up in Illinois?

Dave Kneebone: Yes. Born and raised within the same hometown my whole life. Painting contractor, made good living painting and then got into these crazy world of collecting decoys about 18, 19 years ago and just it took off pretty good.

Katie Burke: Yeah. So you hunt there as well, right? That's where you hunt.

Dave Kneebone: I'm a member at a local duck club I bought into 18 years ago. We own 780 acres. There's 40 of us that belong, about 20 pretty active and 20 guys that bought in, lost interest, whatever the case may be. But we have 180 acres of water. As a DU person, I'll be happy to know we provide plenty of goose nests and wood duck houses and try to do our part down there as well.

Katie Burke: So I have a couple of questions about this. And this is probably not what you thought we were going to talk about. But so I'm from a little town in the Mississippi Delta and I grew up there. My dad grew up there and is a dentist. He's never lived anywhere else. And, you know, we remember one club and then we remember another club and then now we have our own property. Basically just because we outgrew the club with all the grandkids and everything because you can only have so many guns and that sort of thing. Understandable. Anyway, when you are from the place that people come to hunt, my first question is that inside information of what actually has ducks versus what doesn't have ducks. Have you seen that change where duck property has become a hot thing to buy, but you know there's no ducks on it? There's never been a duck there?

Dave Kneebone: That's not really applicable to our area. Most of these duck clubs been established for so long, Katie. Our club, for instance, turns a hundred years old next year.

Katie Burke: Okay. What's the name of your club?

Dave Kneebone: It's West End Gun Club. Okay. Affectionately known as Mud Lake. Okay. Which there's a logical reason for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we have clubs down river, Lake Snatch Wine, that had literally dozens of duck clubs attached to them. And there's really no private areas that you can come and buy around here anymore. Yeah. They're consumed. Again, they're put into clubs where you'd have to have 75% of the members vote to sell that property. It'll never happen. There's a little place that you can pay $10. They provide you to boat, the decoys, everything. So that's really nice.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that is different. So in the Delta, we have so much farmland, right? And then that farmland is rented to duck hunters often. But we've seen people come in and get these leases and we're like, there's never been a duck there, ever.

Dave Kneebone: Most of our leasing up here is done for deer hunting.

Katie Burke: Okay.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, that makes sense. We have a lot of wonderful timber in our whitetail population and the size they grow here are just, it's incredible. I have all the areas in the world that go deer hunting and it just never took for me. I've been a waterfall hunter forever and that's what I prefer.

Katie Burke: We're the same. The only thing that's brought me back to deer hunting is, and my kids aren't old enough, but my nieces and nephews are like 13, 11, and they're into it now. And that's fun to do with them because they're that age and it's new, but also the duck hunting hasn't been great and the deer hunting is great, so they like the success part of it.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, strangely with my family, the waterfall hunting wasn't really there for me as a young kid. I got into it at 17 years old, but once I got into it, boy, I just fell in love with it.

Katie Burke: So what introduced you to waterfowl hunting?

Dave Kneebone: I had a couple of friends. I joined, um, a local fire department here. I was a volunteer fireman and there were some guys on the fire department that had a little place that they were leasing. And I got asked to become part of that. And at a very, you know, like I said, I think I was 17, 18 years old at the time. And I, uh, definitely ran with it from there. I just absolutely fell in love with it. There's, there's no better experience for me, whether, whether you have a good day hunting or not, it's just, I love being out there.

Katie Burke: So what are you hunting at that age? Were you hunting mallards or what was it like when you first started?

Dave Kneebone: Most of what we have here in Illinois is puddle ducks. There's a few exceptions to the rule. Again, you get downriver by Peoria Lake, Lake Snatch Wine. They have good diver hunting down there.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I guess the water will get up for you down there.

Dave Kneebone: Sure. Yeah. Most of ours is mallards, wood ducks, green-winged teal. We do occasionally get ring bells and bull bells to come through, but for the most part, we're a puddled buck area.

Katie Burke: Nicole Krasicka Same. They taste better, so that's the good part.

Dave Kneebone: things when you grew up in my family, if you were going to shoot it, you were going to eat it. And that's, I still live by that to this day. So.

Katie Burke: Same. We're the same. Um, so my other question, and this is like a odd question and you don't have to answer it and, or we can cut it out. Um, cause it might be, it's a, it might be taboo. So in your club, are you the only local guy? Oh, no. Okay.

Dave Kneebone: Our club is designed, for the county I live in and the county directly south of us. You cannot join if you're from Chicago. You can't join if you're from Peoria. We have just a very exclusive little area. Again, there's a major, major duck club here called Princeton Gun Club. It's been in existence for over a hundred years. It's a very, very good hunting club. They are Bureau County only. So these clubs have pretty much made sure that they take care of their local people more so than worried about people coming in and the money situation. Obviously your share would be worth more money if it was open statewide. But that's not their concern. We wanted to keep this local with guys that knew each other and it's worked out very well.

Katie Burke: Oh, I'm sure. So the reason I ask that because it's like when you have that as my dad and us who are local, you get these odd politics that happen because my dad lives 10 minutes away from the property, right? So he would scout the ducks all the time and he knew exactly where they were going in. So in the morning, like we always would draw for blinds. He might not get the number one, he might get six or seven pick, but he'd pick some random blind and they'd all be like confused, like why did he pick it? And we'd be done by 830 because we knew where the ducks were going.

Dave Kneebone: Dad did his homework.

Katie Burke: Yeah, so they, and then we always get, we always pick because they'd make all these rules up about us. So we'd have these, a new rule would pop up every time we figured out something.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, we have quite a book of bylaws ourselves from things that may have been a little shifty back in the day. Nobody does that anymore. It's done on the up and up. But there was a little bit of creative P-rolling back in the day to get the book drawn.

Katie Burke: Yeah, we just laughed because it was like the local rules. Like, oh, we lived here, so we have this advantage.

Dave Kneebone: Yes, Len. Everybody in our club lives pretty close, so everybody's at the same advantage.

Katie Burke: Yeah. I mean, it was a great club and it's still out there and a lot of guys still hunt there, but we actually just outgrew it. Only three guns. There's a lot more of us than three, so we just had to go our own way, which is great. Yeah. I was wondering that because that's really interesting that it's all local because then that kind of really takes a lot of that. You're there to see the property and see what's going on versus like they're driving three to four hours away and showing up.

Dave Kneebone: percent of the work ourselves. I mean, again, if we need heavy machinery, obviously we don't own that. We'll have to hire that done. But the planting and all of the corn, the buckwheat, the millet, all of that on ourselves, most of the dike work and stuff like that, we take care of ourselves. It's just, again, it's a working man's club. Everybody pitches in and gets the stuff done.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, so let's go back. So you started… I kind of got off on a tangent. So you started hunting upland game, then you got into ducks, and then… So at what point did you get into decoy? So where does decoys fall in this?

Dave Kneebone: Decoys came a long time after waterfall hunting. Again, like most, we were with kids and helping kids go to college and the financial end of it wasn't feasible. I got into decoys, I think I was about 39, 40 years old. I've been in it 18, 19 years now. We got in slow. We started with very, very low end things, $50, $75. slowly but surely through selling and making a little bit here and there. We increased our intake with finances and we could pay for our shows through selling and eventually added to our collection. But it was a very slow process. You know, it didn't happen overnight. Again, to get into this fully like we are, it takes a commitment. And a lot of guys say I should be committed with all the decoys we have here. But I love them. I love the fact it's Americana. It was not created overseas and brought here. This was done here in our own United States. That's one of the things that appeals to me the most. Obviously, these guys made these things back then having no idea of the value they were going to bring. And amazingly, with the amount of ducks back then in the 20s and 30s and into the 40s, why did they take the time to make them look so good? I just, I'll never understand. I mean, because, you know, you read stories of these guys throwing jugs out there, painted black and killed just as many of the ducks as the guys down the road with brand new decoys. So it was, it's an interesting subject that just decoys are there. They're just everything that I could want as far as art form is concerned, this history, the stories, and obviously being a waterfall hunter connects it all.

Katie Burke: Yeah. So were you aware of the Illinois River area history and decoys before you started collecting? No. When did you get introduced to that history of where you're from?

Dave Kneebone: It came pretty fast for me after starting to collect, because again, the interest was just extraordinary. I couldn't get enough of it. I read every book I could read. I looked at the catalogs, the prices realized, read the descriptions in the catalogs, which hugely informative and it just took off from there. But the history as far as the duck club history, the carvers at each duck club, that came slowly. Once you watch enough of these auctions, you read enough of these descriptions, you learn that stuff and it becomes repetitive. My obviously expert if that's what it is as an expert, opinion on stuff is from the Illinois River. That's where I was born and raised. That's the decoys I love the best. I have general knowledge and other things too. It's just, again, watching these auctions, you learn about Elmer Kroll, you learn about Joe Lincoln, you learn about call makers, and you hang out with these guys like Ryan Graves and Rick and those guys, and, you know, it rubs off.

Katie Burke: It does yeah, I'd say that a lot like people like I will the Rick episode just came out Milligan and who were talking about and he was asking me like how I Learned most of it's like I read a lot but like doing these podcasts and just having conversations with you I get more out of that sure through just talking and listening it just yeah kind of I guess the best way to describe it is my husband always makes fun of me because I'm from the middle of nowhere and I don't know how I know that. I just know it.

Dave Kneebone: the day that I looked at a decoy and go, oh, that's who that made that. I don't know that, it just came gradual. But if I had studied this hard in high school, I would have been a senator or something.

Katie Burke: Okay, I have a question. I'm kind of a visual person. Are you a visual person? Yes. Okay, that's why I think it's easier for me sometimes because like this is such a visual like subject and I'm also pretty tactile. So if I put my hands on something and I've looked at it, it just kind of soaks into me. I don't know why.

Dave Kneebone: Very similar in that aspect. If I pick up a decoy and I can look at it and then read the description, it'll stick for me. If I just have somebody tell me over the phone about it, it does not stick.

Katie Burke: No, no. The same with when I'm with y'all, with your decoys, like I can put that memory of us talking and being together with that decoy. Sure. And then that helps me remember it as well. So the other question, just to go back, were you surprised about the history in the Illinois River when you first started learning about it?

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, I didn't realize that decoys went back as far as they did in Illinois. Again, you know, the East Coast being established, obviously, many years before the Midwest, we have decoy makers all the way back into the 1880s. And, you know, that's 160 years ago, or 140 years ago. And It would impress me that this was being done back then. And again, I know I've heard a lot of your other past guests mentioned Robert Elliston. Robert Elliston was one of the guys that established Illinois River decoys and a lot of guys followed suit with him. There's another guy named Ruggles. Ruggles was very early. Charles Schoenheider Jr., or Senior, was very significant back then. These are all guys that are pre-1900. And that was, you know, they were definitely cutting, cutting the groove for the rest of the carvers that came along, the Prudus and the two Dawsons and all of these. Charlie Walker was later, you know, these guys, All took little bits and pieces of what these guys had done and eventually created their own style, but those are the guys that got it rolling.

Katie Burke: I want to get into those too, a little bit more, because I have some questions about that. Sure. Because we haven't talked that much. I actually haven't even had an Illinois River collection in the museum yet, which is overdue, but that's a whole other subject. We've had a lot of almosts, but we've never quite gotten there.

Dave Kneebone: My question actually, when John Stevens from R&T, his factory burned down and then when he built his new factory, his new place, factory slash bar, beautiful place, he put display cases in. A lot of my collection sat in John's, sat in his shop area down there for over a year. I had my Illinois stuff down there. And it was, it was again, a pleasure to do that and a privilege because John is definitely instrumental in duck calls in the United States. And it, uh, it was very nice to be the first one asked to do that.

Katie Burke: Oh yeah. And he's super knowledgeable too, as well.

Dave Kneebone: Very knowledgeable man, especially you get that Arkansas stuff down there, boy, he really knows his business.

Katie Burke: Yeah. I went last year to his Calaplooza event, I guess. So that's where he introduced it. Probably he put it in for that.

Dave Kneebone: Yep. I was at Jeff's call at Palooza three or four years. Last year, we ran into some scheduling issues we couldn't make. That's a really great event.

Katie Burke: Yeah. It's so close to me, so I probably will go over a year now, but I did some podcast episodes there, and it's a really good event. Let's go back to starting collecting. Who introduced you to collecting, or how did you even know to start? Where did you learn about this?

Dave Kneebone: Well, my interest originally peaked. I went to a decoy show, the Henry decoy show. I was, I was overwhelmed. I walked into a gymnasium full of these decoys. And at that time there was over a thousand people coming to a six hour show. It was just an amazing, an amazing process. The person that introduced me to decoys, Joe Tonelli. I live in the same town as he does. My mother graduated with Joe from high school and me and Joe are part of the same duck club. We're in a duck club together. was the reason I got into decoys. He's a knowledgeable man, knows Illinois stuff as good as anyone in the world. And he basically opened a lot of doors for me that wouldn't have been opened as fast, that's for sure.

Katie Burke: That's a good one, yeah, and Donna's so knowledgeable as well.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, Donna knows her business too. There's no doubt, and they've wrote books. They're the historians of the Illinois River. They're incredible, their knowledge. Again, Joe has studied it, Donna's studied it. They definitely know this Illinois River area is good and better than anyone.

Katie Burke: What did you buy at Decoy at that first show?

Dave Kneebone: Yes, I met a man named Denny Entwistle. Denny is a carver, a collector. He had a little buffalo head, turned head buffalo head on his table. He sold it to me for $60. I still have it. It is the number one decoy we ever bought. And me and Denny have become best of friends since then. And we hunt together and shoot the breeze on a regular basis. Denny was a very big part of my decoy knowledge and helping me get through not knowing things. He was very instrumental as well in helping me through this stuff.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's great. We talk about on here a lot the benefits of mentorship in collecting and how important it is and how important it is. With you, it's a little different because you met them through hunting and other things, but some of these guys get into it on their own and we're like, go meet them, go to their house, go talk to them.

Dave Kneebone: One thing that we pride ourselves in is trying to help the beginning collector. We were there not that long ago. And we understand how overwhelming this can be. And to find somebody you can trust to help you move forward in your collection, it's very pivotal. And getting networked where, hey, I got this decoy from Virginia, having a friend in Virginia, having a friend in New Jersey, it's all very important. Like I tell every young kid, pay attention to the auctions. Just watch them. You don't have to buy anything. Just watch them. You'll learn more doing that than anything.

Katie Burke: So how did Muddy Waters become? Is that kind of a similar?

Dave Kneebone: Muddy Waters, about four or five years into our collecting, we began to get a significant amount of inventory. I always like to tell the story that my website cost me $100,000 and everybody, what do you mean? I says, well, that's what it cost me to send my oldest son to college to build this website. He's the one that created it. My oldest son created it. My wife and him worked side by side. And then being that I'm not very technology savvy, sat back and complained a lot about this needs to be easier. This needs to be easier because you're dealing with a group of older For the most part, male guys that don't know computers and don't know how to do this stuff. And the combination of the three of us, we come up with a pretty good website. We put new stuff on it every single week. And there's various categories from ducks to duck calls to miscellaneous fish decoys. We try to provide a little bit for everybody at a reasonable price. Shipping's free. We don't charge nothing for shipping. You want something, the price you see is what it is. There's no additional tag-ons. And the one unique thing we have, Katie, is we guarantee them all. You get it, there's something we didn't describe, there's something you see you don't like, no questions asked, send it back.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's amazing. And I'm sure that's hard on your end as well to keep that down.

Dave Kneebone: Well, we're never going to change it. We're going to make sure that again, that's one of the perks that if you come buy stuff through us, that we'll provide that shipping for you. And yeah, I mean, we ship 300 packages a year. Well, it obviously adds up, but that's okay. Again, we didn't get in this to get rich. We just get in this to add to our collection and pay for our shows we go to and stuff like that.

Katie Burke: Okay. So let's take a break right here and then we'll come back and get into your decoys a little bit more. So you started this like, you said 20 years ago-ish? Okay. All right. So you started with that local carver and then, so from there, did you just start going into Illinois River decoys or were you already like kind of branching out across the country? What were you?

Dave Kneebone: Mostly Illinois because that was what was readily available around here. We dabbled in the factory decoys, the masons. And masons are a wonderful thing to start with because again, there's so many species and the prices are very reasonable depending what you're buying. But yeah, I would say probably five, six years into it, Midwest decoys in general, Wisconsin birds, you know, some Minnesota things, Michigan things, Indiana doesn't have a whole lot of carvers over there, but a few from over there. And then after about 10 years, then I really started branching out. I got, you know, New Jersey stuff. I have stuff from Virginia, Canada, California. all just about pretty much covers the big states that had carvers in them. There are certain states that don't have carvers.

Katie Burke: They just didn't need- Nicole:"Mississippi is one of them."

Dave Kneebone: Mike:"Mississippi is definitely… Arkansas, surprisingly, is one of them. Great duck calls, but again, no decoys to speak of."

Katie Burke: Nicole:"The three right there, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, no decoys."

Dave Kneebone: Mike:"Right? Kentucky, Louisiana, they have it all down there." decoys, duck calls, the whole nine yards. Texas, there's really nothing come out of Texas.

Katie Burke: No, that one's a surprising one because it's off over there by itself. Really, the Central Flyaway in general is kind of oddly devoid of decoys.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, it's a strange thing because you would think a big state like Texas and boy, it's a very, very good duck hunting state. I don't think people realize that.

Katie Burke: Well, especially these days, it's been the central flyway has been probably the kill the most ducks out of any flyway the past few years.

Dave Kneebone: Our ducks have definitely moved to the west, the flyway, there's no question about that. But yeah, that's definitely the hotbed area out there right now for sure.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's interesting. I never really thought about that. I always think about where I am and how we're devoid of decoys. But the Central Flyaway, we're working on this project about Canada goose hunting, and we're having to move masons into areas where they were hunted over, but they weren't made there, right?

Dave Kneebone: Detroit, Michigan. They all came out of Detroit. But no, you're right. The Dakotas, down through Nebraska, Oklahoma, There's really nothing to speak of decoy wise until you get way out on the West Coast. And then California had a lot of great carvers, Oregon, Washington state had a few, but yeah, it's a strange gap between Illinois to California, that area. And there just, there wasn't a whole lot of decoys made there.

Katie Burke: Right. And so I guess that gets me back to a question to answer when we're talking about like Elliston, for example, like that early carver that influences others. So was Elliston, was he make, did he just make them in the Central Flyover? Did he move, did he move from somewhere else? I actually don't know the answer to that, but did he move from somewhere else where they were making decoys? Did he come from the East Coast and then come here? Like what was, I wonder why he started making decoys.

Dave Kneebone: Well, I think he's seen a lot of very wealthy people from Chicago taking the train down here to Huck Ducks and said, hey, if I come out with something that looks good, these wealthy fellas might be interested in them. And that's what he did.

Katie Burke: Do you think they were bringing East Coast decoys with them, the Chicago people?

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, a little bit. I think mostly before these Illinois guys really took off making them, what was being used was anything they could get their hands on. I mean, again, obviously the East Coast was established long before we were, but yeah, again, the necessity for a decoy like Elliston made wasn't there. There were so many ducks, it didn't take much to get them to come in to harvest back then. But no, Elliston seen something very early on and his wife painted them and they were just, they melt you. I mean, they're just amazing decoys. I'm fortunate enough to have one of three Canada geese goose decoys he made. I got that in an auction years ago through the help of John Dieter, and I ended up with that in my collection, and that's just a very, very special thing for me. But Elliston, again, Ruggles was a little farther downriver in the Lake and Chillicothe area making stuff, and then you went farther south, yeah, with Charles Schoenheider Sr., he was making stuff down there for the guys in Peoria. These guys caught on to this pretty early, but, um, yeah, I think it was more. Probably money that these guys seen than anything. Um, you know, they didn't have any idea this stuff was going to turn into what it turned into. They, they were making these to support their family and they just, it became pride after that, you know, I want to make my decoys better than that guy. And. They just made exceptional things. It's a funny thing, too, because most of these great carvers, their wives, or in Grave's case, their sister, painted them all. The artistic part of it was all coming from their wives or female-related friends. Those were the artists and the carvers, obviously, Elliston, Perdue, all these guys were exceptional carvers, but the finishing touch was put on mostly by their wives.

Katie Burke: Yeah, and that's interesting because we talk about Robert Elliston's influence on other carvers, but you can't not mention Catherine Elliston's influence on everyone else. Exactly. She started the painting, and that wasn't done on the East Coast at all, like the way he… Yeah, no, Elmer was… That's the godfather of decoys.

Dave Kneebone: Yes.

Katie Burke: And it was his later stuff, too, where he got really detailed with the painting, but she started off right away.

Dave Kneebone: But Catherine, her oil and oil blending and what she could do with a paintbrush in the early 1900s is just… It's amazing. It… And I know a lot of these great carvers and painters, modern day guys, and they'll tell you the same thing. I cannot make it look like her. And that's, you know, you're talking 125 years later with all the technology we have. And she still had something that these guys can't find. And that's what makes her amazing.

Katie Burke: And I think the one thing that she probably didn't realize that, obviously she didn't realize this, but the way that Payne has aged, is aging beautifully, the way the patina it takes on and it's pretty amazing because it has, it almost gets better.

Dave Kneebone: Patina on a decoy, Katie, makes or breaks a bird. I mean, it's just wonderful patina on a bird. It's just, it's a soothing look. And that is not, can't be artificially produced. That's just something through all the years of that oil paint sitting there and going through hot, cold, hot, cold. And in a lot of cases, smoke was involved. Whether it be by fireplaces, or pipes, or cigars, or whatever, and gave it that wonderful yellowing that you see. It's just wonderful combinations that none of these carvers or painters had any idea turned out like that. No.

Katie Burke: Yeah, her stuff is great. And then, of course, then you go to Edna, and the Graves as well, and all those people painting. Yeah, and that's so unique to the Illinois River to have the women that painted those things. That's not really found anywhere else.

Dave Kneebone: No, the, yeah, for our, again, you know, they mentioned as the big four, you know, Robert Elliston and Catherine, Charlie and Edna Perdue, Millie and Burt Graves. And then the other one that did it all himself, though, was Charlie Walker. Charlie walker but again not as early as those other three he got into decoy making a lot later he started in the twenties where these guys were some of robert elliston was already gone by that i mean he had already passed on and catherine actually. went to work for Burt Graves painting Graves decoys, which the best Graves decoys in the world painted by Catherine Ellis. They're called the white sided ones and they're just incredible decoys. She had a huge influence on decoys in Illinois. There's no doubt about that. And I think other places as well.

Katie Burke: Yeah, they just don't get the credit. And it's funny that the women of these carvers are really just in this area. It's interesting that you didn't see as much of a family business. It's very much a family business in the Illinois River, where in other places, not so much.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, Charlie Perdue, I mean his son got to a certain point and he started making things. Nowhere near the value or the fine-tuning that Charlie and Edna did, but they were good in their own way. He made duck calls as well. There are Charles Schoenheider Sr., his son, Jr., made things. Again, nowhere near what seniors are worth or look like, but he did them. Elliston, I don't think, had that, or Charles, but Elliston had Strickfaden that copied them. The guy's name was Daniel Strickfaden. These guys just basically used their patterns, and I guess in a weird sort of way, that's a compliment, even though they were going to hijack what they were doing You know, there's only so many ideas that you can come up with and these balls just followed suit with the best ones.

Katie Burke: So I mean it's edit it and you have to remember cuz like we said earlier They didn't think it was gonna be this valuable. This was a business. This was not this was not art this for them It was a business and it makes sense if when once he was gone He just copied because he knew it would sell right like he was he was creating a tool not They didn't think of it as art. They thought of it as a tool that they would use so

Dave Kneebone: Well, and obviously there was some competition for them to go through the extremes they did to make them look like they did. There was obviously some pride there and like there was competition on, well, I better make mine better than him or they're not going to buy mine. You know, I'm sure that went through these guys head too, but most, there's a lot of the carvers on the Illinois river too, that just made stuff for themselves or made it for their families. And that's as far as it ever went. But yeah, but you're absolutely right. The big ones, it was a business and their kids were involved, whether it be chopping the wood or doing whatever they had to do, there was a part for everyone.

Katie Burke: Yeah. So I have a question for you about this because we talk about it a lot, I guess, in terms of the East Coast. And I just interviewed like Pete Peterson and Grayson. I just did Grayson Chesser. He's about to come out. His interview will come out soon. And just how that area, basically the East Coast from all the way from North Carolina up through Virginia, I guess New Jersey, that continuing carving tradition has been so… They've done such a good job of passing on that history and keeping it going. But on the Mississippi River and the Mississippi Flyway, it's… It's really not, it hasn't really continued as much, or maybe I'm not just as aware of it. Of course, I know of Marty Hanson. But other than that, they just haven't continued the carving history.

Dave Kneebone: And do you have any- Chad Jones Canada's more than you think in this area.

Katie Burke: Yeah, there is.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah. Again, I've got five, six, seven buddies that are local carvers here.

Katie Burke: They just aren't getting, they need to get some more attention then.

Dave Kneebone: I agree with you. Some of them are very, very good and just don't publicize themselves or whatever the case may be. Again, my friend from Morris up here, Denny Entwistle, he's been carving for 30 plus years. He doesn't get to do it as much as he'd like. He's still working full time, but again, very good carver. There's a kid over here in La Salle, Illinois, just five miles from me, John Volcani. His father, Don Vulcani, made the most wonderful doves and cardinals you've ever seen. And his son has gotten into this and he does very well. Some of his stuff is sold in Copley's auctions and done good, done very good. And there's guys down river, there's a father-son combination, the Irvings,

Katie Burke: Oh, I've heard of them. Yeah.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah. They are very, very good carvers in their own right. Tim Kaplinger took over the Wildfowler company and he's making decoys on his own under the Wildfowler brand. So yeah, there's some guys around, not the notoriety that Marty and Cameron and Frank Finney and Grayson Chester and those guys have, but they're good in their own right. And they're happy with what they're doing and who knows, maybe they will get bigger when You know, they get more free time, but they're very, very good carvers. There's no question.

Katie Burke: Kelly Cervantes Well, I have to give them some more attention. Yeah, I guess you don't see it like, because like in Louisiana, the gunning decoy has almost disappeared in carving. Obviously, they have very famous decorative carvers there, like the Brunets and stuff, but they're not doing the gunning stuff like they used to. Now, call makers, there's plenty of call makers in your area still doing great things.

Dave Kneebone: The process of probably, and again, I have never carved or made a duck call, but the process of making a duck call is probably a little easier with modern technology than making a decoy. And when you're done with a duck call, there's no painting involved. And, you know, decoys is a two-part thing. You got to be a decent carver, plus you got to know how to handle a paintbrush. And it's a little more difficult to get into all that, I would sure think.

Katie Burke: Yeah, and I think, I mean, and you would know this personally, as many decoys as you have, a duck call doesn't take up a lot of space. So there's that too. People… Well, then financially they're… They're not as expensive either.

Dave Kneebone: But they're not as expensive, that's right.

Katie Burke: Nicole Pantaleon And they're smaller. And in a lot of ways, they're useful as well. So like not everybody's willing to hunt. I mean, some people do hunt over their handmaid decoys. And that is, I think it's really, I love when I see people hunt over them.

Dave Kneebone: I have a couple in my spread. I don't solely hunt over wooden, but I definitely have a few that I throw out there just because of the tradition. I just can't get my mind wrapped around throwing all that beautiful art out there to have a goose land on it and snap the head off of it or something.

Katie Burke: Right. Yeah. No, that's true. I mean, I have that. I feel that too. But I do love seeing them out there in the water and where they're supposed to be.

Dave Kneebone: They react differently. Wooden decoys just do not bounce and move the same as a plastic decoy. There's definitely a difference.

Katie Burke: Nicole Krasinski Oh, yeah. And you can tell a good one when you see it move in the water versus one that's not as good.

Dave Kneebone: Jim Collins Yeah. The guys that are really good at it, none of them wean either way, and just the slightest wind moves them the right direction. Yeah, they're definitely very good at their craft.

Katie Burke: Yeah. Back to decoys. So you start off with, you go through the Illinois River. So what is your favorite decoy? Do you have a favorite? I know that's hard to ask.

Dave Kneebone: What's my favorite out of my collection? Yeah, out of your collection. Yeah, that would be that Elliston goose.

Katie Burke: Okay. What is your white whale?

Dave Kneebone: Boy, there's a lot of them.

Katie Burke: I guess what, if you put it this way, the white whale that would compliment what you have?

Dave Kneebone: Boy, that's a tough one, Katie. I've been lucky. I mean, I've run into a lot of things I really wanted and I ended up with them. There's a few specifics. I'd love to own a Purdue legit Canada Goose. I think it would be a phenomenal thing to have the Elliston and the Purdue side by side. There's I'm not done with upgrading my walkers. I want a better Charlie Walker example eventually. Again, it's a significant investment. There's good ones go for good money and there's good reason for it. They're incredible. But I really don't have a specific that I don't have. It's just one of those, I'll see it, I'll know it when I see it sort of thing. There's some East Coast things I don't have, I wish I did. I don't have a good Ward Brothers. I eventually will land in that market and try to get one of their early 1930s canvas backs are just absolutely incredible decoys.

Katie Burke: I was going to ask you what species you would want.

Dave Kneebone: That would probably be the Ward Brother decoy I would want. I want to get a really good Elmer Cole at some point. You know, again, that really doesn't matter to me. It's just one of those, I'll know it when I see it, that's the one I want. I do have Elmore Curled Decoys, but I would like a better one. It's upgrading things for me more than anything.

Katie Burke: I'm excited to see what this black duck's going to go for in Chicago. And so for our audience, a preening Elmer Kroll Black Duck is about to go for sale. I recommend watching. If you aren't first auction, you want to see something exciting. That's going to be exciting.

Dave Kneebone: I believe the estimate on that bird is $500,000 to $700,000, and I don't see any reason in the world why it shouldn't do that potentially more.

Katie Burke: I saw Sandbag does more.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, it's exceptional, Katie. I got to see it. I knew Mr. Haid pretty good, and he brought that bird to a few contests, obviously overwhelming the contest with that decoy. But it's just absolutely extravagant decoy. Yeah.

Katie Burke: I was in Easton this year, and John had it, obviously, because he's about to sell it. So I got to spend some time with it. It's exceptional.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah. It is just, again, for something made over a hundred years ago, why was it done that well? I just can't wrap my head around that sometimes. And there's a couple other Elmer crulls that someday will come to market. There's an unbelievable pintail that is going to be in the neighborhood of what this black duck is, and then there's a Canada goose that all three of these are just as good as it gets.

Katie Burke: Oh, I know where the Canada goose is. Yeah, I know. I know exactly where it is. And you might get to see it in the Waterfowling Heritage Center in a few… Really? Yes. That's the collections that exist. Yeah. So there's a little Easter egg for everybody. What in your collection did you come across? Do you have any like surprising things you found that you've come across like that you didn't know? Yeah. Give me some of those.

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, I got some interesting stories with that kind of stuff. A few years ago, we got contacted by a fella up in the city of Chicago, and he had some duck calls he wanted to get rid of. They were mostly modern duck calls, not anything really to speak of. Went up there, took the ride on a Sunday. Where this man lived, I could literally walk out his back door and Monsieur's Tower was in plain view. As inner city as you could get, the man had a wonderful Charles Birch Canada goose. Dry, dry paint. And for your audience that doesn't know what that means, that just means there's no varnish applied. There's nothing, Added to this decoy other than the original paint surface and it dried out just to a wonderful wonderful patina and. When me and my wife got there, it went from buying duck calls to ending up with this beautiful Canada goose. We bought some guns from all kinds of different things, but those happen on occasion. And that goose is in my collection. It's my representative from the southeast part of the country. I've had some terrific offers for it from guys that live down there and collect that sort of stuff. I want no part of getting rid of that bird. That was one of my didn't expect it to be there sort of thing. Not a few of those where you went to a collection and something was there you didn't expect to be there. But for the most part, with being able to take photographs of everything and text it to you, you know what you're going into, but there are a few exceptions to that rule.

Katie Burke: So how often do you get called to these kind of like, I will say like, okay, there's a difference. So there's the, the guy who calls you, who's, was like a, a little bit of a collector or their parent was a collector, but then there's these people that call you that just randomly have a couple things like that. They don't even know really how they have them. How often do you get those kind of calls?

Dave Kneebone: It goes in streaks. Winter time, fall time, we're a lot more active because people are at home, they're in front of their computers more. In the summer, they're at ball games and they're watching the kids or doing whatever and it doesn't happen as much but I would say on average a couple times a month we'll get contact contacted by someone that whether by inheritance or you know Uncle Charlie left these to me and I don't want them and that that's just how we end. A lot of the youth decoys are not very impressive to them. So they'll, they just have no interest in it. They'd rather have the money. And, you know, we, we go to these, we go meet these people and negotiate. And our goal is we try to give 70% of the value. Um, if I can make 30%, which is basically what an auction company is making, I, I'm very comfortable with that. So, uh, with that, obviously studying pricing, knowing what the market's doing is very important. It takes a lot of time of, again, watching these auctions and paying attention to what stuff sells for on eBay and stuff like that, connecting the dots, so to speak.

Katie Burke: Yeah, and they've made it a lot easier, honestly. You can get on these auction database sites. It's not like the auction site itself, but these database sites, and they'll pull all those auctions off all those other sites, and it makes it way easier.

Dave Kneebone: Our Muddy Water Decoy site is used for that a lot because we have a sold page, and a lot of people refer to things we've sold in the past to obviously find value on what they own. sometimes very hard to explain to someone why one Purdue is worth 500 and one is worth 5,000. They just see the weight on the bottom that says Purdue and automatically assume they have a gold mine. Well, condition and repairs and all of that stuff is

Katie Burke: Can you speak to that a little bit? Just because I feel like with this audience, like, that's kind of a question they have a lot. Like, that's hard to understand. And that's one of those things that, like, when it comes to handling decoys and stuff like that, of course, you kind of can understand it better. But it's also one of those things I have a hard time explaining to people as well. Like, I kind of just want to say, like, well, form and paint, you know, like, can you do a better job than maybe that could of explaining?

Dave Kneebone: Yeah, let me see if I can help. Form is very important. Obviously, an older decoy that looks more lifelike has more of an appeal, usually. That's not always the case. There's some decoys that were made up in Heron Lake. They don't look like ducks, but boy, are they as folky as it gets. And they're attractive. Finding decoys in original paint is difficult. These things are a hundred years old. They got touched up. They got bulk. They got mishandled. They got shot. Knocked eyes out of them. They have BB scrapes across them. That stuff doesn't bother me. A BB marks in a decoy just authenticates it, if anything. Sometimes something that looks perfect should draw a red flag for you. There's a reason it looks perfect. The rarity of a decoy is very important in value. You know, Purdue made thousands of mallards and pintails, but he didn't make very many bluebills and canvasbacks. So those decoys can be of more value because of rarity of species. I tell beginning collectors the same thing. Buy what you like at the beginning. Don't think you need to own $1,000 decoy to enjoy it. That is the furthest thing from the truth. I know most collectors are going to tell you, buy the best thing you can afford. I'm not going to tell you that. If you like $100 victors, then buy them. If you like a $150 Glass Eye Mason decoy, then buy it. You can always upgrade. You can always upgrade. And your taste will turn different eventually. But don't think you need to buy a $1,000 decoy to be in the decoy arena. That's not true. There's plenty of auctions out there that have these beginning stage type decoys. You know, John and Stevie and these other big companies, they deal in the best. They deal in the best of the best. And there's obviously a need for that, but there's still plenty of good decoys out there that you can buy at a lot more reasonable price. Get a guarantee. If you're a beginning collector, deal with people that will guarantee their decoys. And ask questions. You pick it up, Katie, that build been repaired? Ask them point blank. and make them answer the question.

Katie Burke: If they don't answer, then you should walk away.

Dave Kneebone: No, that's a runaway. That's absolutely right. There's plenty of good dealers out there, but again, any place there's money, people are going to try to make it the easy way. The sites on Facebook, you got to be really careful. There's a ton of… Oh, they're everywhere on Facebook.

Katie Burke: I mean, I'm a big runner and they have… For trail races, we exchange bibs if you can't make the race and they'll fake exchange bibs with you.

Dave Kneebone: eBay is… Unfortunately, and I'm not trying to belittle eBay or to cause problems, but there's just a lot of bad decoys that are sold.

Katie Burke: Well, there's no inventory control, right? So we talk about this, you probably, since you listen to Rick's, because we talk about it extensively in Ryan Graves' interview, because he always talks about the glory days of eBay in the very beginning. It was awesome. And then, of course, now it's just not what it was, because it was an earlier thing.

Dave Kneebone: No, beginning was a pretty good source. to find things. But as this has developed, eBay is not, it just, they don't protect the buyers and sellers like they should. And they don't weed out the bad eggs and try to remove them. They just, I guess, as long as their money's coming in, they're happy. But that's

Katie Burke: Unfortunately, I've never asked this, but you would be a good person to ask this before, because I'm thinking of my coworker who's kind of starting into collecting and, you know, oftentimes he'll send me in a state sale site, and it'll have like a shelf with decoys. And for the most part, it's, I mean, I would say nine times out of 10, it's like a few masons. And I can be pretty clear about what that is. But with estate sales, because they don't usually know what they have, right? Yeah, you're not dealing with people who know much about decoys. So they're either, I find for the most part, they're either overpriced because they think, oh, decoys are worth money, so let's price them at this or there. And I mean, it's, and I feel like all of the pricing is lack of knowledge. So it's overpriced because of a lack of knowledge and then underpriced because of a lack of knowledge.

Dave Kneebone: That's very, very true. Estate sales that actually do an auction format most of the time will do okay with what's there. Some of them are not very well publicized. You can find auctions sometimes that just things slip by, you know, there's multiple avenues to obviously pursue decoys, but I recommend And not because I'm in this business, again, finding a dealer that will guarantee his stuff. Once you become my customer, I will help you with other decoys. You don't have to buy exclusively from me. I will help you. I don't want you to get burned. I don't want you to quit collecting. I want you to stay collecting. So, if helping you at the beginning stages of your collecting career keeps you moving forward, that's what I want.

Katie Burke: No, and it's good too. We talked about that with other companies and things like that, and there's so much room for the collecting. I get asked this a lot for my job as a curator and someone who's managing a collection, like, do we want to collect… And I mean, this may change, because obviously I'm not the only one making decisions for this museum, but I'm kind of of the opinion for… Because I'm not at a big museum institution, I'm at Ducks Unlimited, and then I'm just a small part to the side. That I don't, unless it is Ducks Unlimited, like our history, I will collect that. If it is strictly directly to Ducks Unlimited's history, I do want those things because I want to keep things that are our history. But when it comes to water fouling history and decoys and guns, I don't really want to hold a large collection. I have found in almost nine years now that with borrowing, I'd rather show people's collections and highlight that and highlight those people. And then they'll either give it to someone or sell it back into the collecting community. And then that collecting and that buy and resell continues, right?

Dave Kneebone: I agree with that wholeheartedly. takes in decoys, whether it be by donation or a wealthy museum that buys decoys to present, and they're sitting in lockers in the basement, that's a shame. And it happens way too often. What you guys are doing is showing every aspect of the nation, North America for that matters, what they've done with these things, and that's fantastic.

Katie Burke: And I can admit that we have the privilege of getting to do that because Ducks Unlimited is a North American company. We're all of North America, so I don't have to stick to a region, so I have that benefit. Not everyone gets that. But I think, and I think that's one thing we talk about on here all the time, is it's so unique, the collecting community and decoys and calls, and to support that community as well. Like, it's not just about, and you can speak to this better, but it's not just about getting stuff, this community. It has a much bigger point to it.

Dave Kneebone: The collection part of it's wonderful, but you're only going to be the caretaker for a short time. And these things are all going to get sold in the end. Nobody gets to keep them forever. Yeah, and introducing to these younger people what this is about, it can be a challenge. Again, we're really prideful of trying to get you involved in this, Katie, but it can be difficult. It can be very difficult. And again, you've hit on this before in podcasts with the financial end of things. And yeah, it's not a cheap hobby at all. There's no doubt.

Katie Burke: No, and we talk about this at Ducks Unlimited, and I try to say this to guys at North American Decoy Collectors, too, because I say it here, but there is a gap here. For Ducks Unlimited, we'll have young members that are into it, and then the members tend to, not all, but some, tend to, their involvement as a volunteer tend to drop off. and then come back. And you just have to have faith that when they're not doing Boy Scouts and Little League, and they're busy with their kids, that they will come back, and they will.

Dave Kneebone: And again, you guys having an organization that's buying land and trying to provide… It's going to be instrumental in the future, a duck hunting period. And all the rest of it, you know, again, it's hard to get youth involved in things sometimes. DU and stuff like that, I think they adapt to it a lot better. You guys provide things that they like, you know, flashy pictures that you can put on the wall and different things like that and obviously hoodies and all of that wonderful stuff. So that's what the youth is into and they'll come back to it.

Katie Burke: Yeah and I think that's one of the things I'm focusing on that I think that has been underrated that we're not doing enough of for like that people actually do are interested in are y'all stories and these stories of these carvers that we need to tell and I think that will help a lot is bringing those people in.

Dave Kneebone: Oh, I do too. Knowledge, the more you know, the better again. And it can be the smallest thing that someone hears that triggers, hey, I remember that. And next thing you know, you got 4,000 decoys in your house.

Katie Burke: You never know. All right. Well, so, because we've been on here for a while, I've taken a lot of your time. So is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to talk about before we go?

Dave Kneebone: I just, again, would like to reiterate the youth part of it. If a young person wants to get into this and they need help, we're here to help you. We open our house to most people and invite them in to look around. We don't have any issues with that. Obviously, you've got to get a hold of us a little early, let us know what's going on so I can wipe a layer of dust or two off. Well, we'll do that. You know, again, we Vista continue for a long, long time. And I want these young people to know you don't have to have a million dollars to go buy a decoy. There's $50 decoys. There's $20 decoys. Just if you're interested in it, look up some people that you think in your area can provide for you and help you. And they will. They certainly will.

Katie Burke: With that, I would say, because I haven't said this before, but if you are a member of the North American Decoy Collectors Association, you get this wonderful catalog directory of people. And I use it constantly to call people.

Dave Kneebone: Six, 700 names in there. And it'll have a little thing saying basically what they specialize in. And these people are accessible. Not every single one, but for the most part, the majority are there to help you, and they will.

Katie Burke: Yes. I don't think I've ever not been answered.

Dave Kneebone: Right. If you leave a message, they'll get back with you. As a collector, as a dealer, and as a member of the board for the North American, the youth is very important. we just need to move forward. And again, you are absolutely right. With ducks unlimited to the decoys, there seems to be a disconnect there somehow. And I certainly don't know how to fix that.

Katie Burke: We're trying really hard.

Dave Kneebone: I mean, you guys presenting this kind of stuff to these folks is very, very helpful.

Katie Burke: Right. And we don't want the disconnect either. It's not helpful for us either. I mean, we're all about growing our membership as well. So why not make it where people are members of both? Like it doesn't seem like there should be a disconnect. It's very related. Well, thank you so much for spending time with me.

Dave Kneebone: Katie, thank you. I appreciate you inviting me to do this. And again, you are definitely a shot in the arm for decoys and duck call collecting, and we all appreciate what you're doing.

Katie Burke: Oh, thank you so much. Well, thanks Dave for coming on the show. Thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac, and thanks to you, our listeners, for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.