From the Back Cover --

Let’s say you have acquired an old, hand-made, wooden decoy painted as a drake canvasback and used by your great grandfather to hunt ducks on Lake Christina in Northwest Minnesota. Though your great granddad’s name is on the bottom of the bird, you know he didn’t make it but instead bought it from a carver close to the town of Ashby. Who could that carver be? Or, let’s say, you’re at an auction in Minneapolis where you have the chance to buy a decoy made from canvas stuffed with cedar shavings and hand painted to look like a hen mallard. Is this bird a rare and valuable collector’s item? Or, let’s conjecture that you’re at a flea market in Rochester and find a cedar body mallard duck decoy with protruding canvas wings made to look like a bird in flight. Is this a unique and important creation of a Minnesota decoy maker? With any of these Minnesota decoys, how can you learn who might have carved these birds, when they were created, in what tradition they were made, and how they may fit into Minnesota’s waterfowl hunting history?

Minnesota Duck Decoys by Doug Lodermeier is a book designed to help anyone asking these and related questions. This 700 plus page book provides a comprehensive history of more than 300 Minnesota decoy makers with information on their lives, with thousands of pictures of the birds they carved, and with perspectives on their artistic accomplishments. This is a must-have document for all decoy collectors, and anyone else interested in a unique and important facet of Minnesota water fowling craftsmanship in the past, the present, and the future.
--  Jerry Thoms

About the Author --

Doug Lodermeier is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys all forms of hunting and fishing, from water fowling and big game hunting to fishing lakes, rivers and offshore. Doug is also an incurable collector of all sporting collectibles and art, specializing in Minnesota duck calls and decoys. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for both the Minnesota Decoy Collectors Association (MDCA) and the Minnesota Decoy Foundation (MDF). A partner of Minneapolis design agency L&M Design, Doug has worked for over 35 years executing sales and marketing collateral for a variety of clients, including many Fortune 500 companies. This book combines his experience as a designer along with his passion as a collector: it is the culmination of ten years of exhaustive yet dedicated research and production. Putting his energies into the research and writing, Doug also designed and self-published the book. As a result, it was conceived and executed in an original concept with virtually no restrictions. Doug’s love of the outdoors, history and duck decoys has resulted in the first truly comprehensive look at Minnesota’s great master decoy makers, both past and present. Doug lives in Edina with his wife, Chris, and their Epagneul Breton (French Brittany) Elsie. They have two grown sons Doug Jr. and Derek.

Doug Lodermeier