My daughter from NC sent me a picture of one of my decoys. 

 She said a dog fish got a hold of it.   

Fish House Removal

The spear fishing season is over,  and Minnesota fishing regulations require permanent fish houses to be off the lakes by March 4.  

It was a  good year for ice fishing! 
 2018-2019

Okay, what can go wrong 

moving the fish house off the lake?  

Every year is different on the ice,

 and this year,  the snow is  neck deep 
to a tall Norwegian!

This fish house is off of the lake,  

but  there's  still a few out there

 with 3 feet of snow to plow through.  

There wasn't  much snow on the ice
back in November 
when the season began.

Local Folk Art

LOYD RADI : Wood Carving
Loyd,  an elderly folk artist from central Minnesota, carved many kinds of critters, but what caught my eye, at the sports shows, was his long legged skunks.  About the time I decided to purchase one from him,  Loyd  didn't have any long  legged skunks on hand, so I ordered one from him.  I asked him to bring it to the next year's show. The next year's show rolled around, and I picked up my long legged skunk.     It wasn't until later that  I noticed  he  hadn't carved a new long legged skunk, but had added leg extensions to one of his short legged skunks.  I get a kick out of it every time I look at it.

Four Fish Decoy Carvings
Nothing makes my day more than coming across a true Minnesota folk art fish decoy.  These four were probably made around the l950's.  They were found within a stones throw of Vergas, Minnesota.  

DOC TROWBRIDGE Painting:
I have several of Doc's colorful paintings.   Wish I had a bunch more.  They all depict outdoor scenes from here in Minnesota.  
The back of the painting is signed,  "Blue Skies" by Don Trowbridge, age 83.  He lived in the same retirement building as my sister.  Every now and again, I stopped by to say hello and see what he was working on.  One day, I offered to sell some of his paintings for him on Ebay.  He just gave me a look, and said,  "No Jay,  I don't have time to be famous.  I just want to paint."

Rosewood Jig Sticks carved in 2019

2018 Minnesota Spearing Season

This orange and white McEvers decoy is still bringing them in after five years.

Most of my fish houses are small. 

           

    

Crappie Time!

Angling for sunfish and crappies is picking up in the Vergas Minnesota area.  Picked up this nice 13 incher the other day after test swimming a small cedar decoy.

Listing decoys on Ebay

In 2000, I  entered the computer age with a digital camera, and an Ebay address called Hollowtop.    Over the next fourteen years,  over a thousand  photos were stored in Cyberspace.  Over 700 of the decoy photos  were downloaded and put into this book in 2014.   It is a record of my work during that time.   

Decoy picture taken at the bird feeder.

Unshelled sunflower seeds for the birds.
 Cracking them open  gives them something to do.

Fish Decoys on display 

at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Penguin Carving

Winter is here.  Ice!  Ice!  Walk like a penguin.  

Took a break from fish decoys,  and carved a penguin for my wife.  

6" H  X 7" W 

Traditional Working Decoys

     Old fashioned working decoys were often made from a pine board salvaged from  an  apple box.  Lead was melted over an old wood stove in a tin can,  and their metal fins were often tweeked to swim.  

     Shown here are decoys made from a dense Ponderas pine. It was originally purchased  in high mountain Montana when I lived there, and rediscovered  recently while cleaning out the corners of my wood shed.  

     The old timers used a little  red paint to make their decoys  look like a wounded fish. Or maybe the red was the only color they had left after painting  the barn!  

Classic working decoys in three styles by McEvers:
  Forktail, The Two Fourteen Special, and the Baker.