Thank you for visiting the Great Lakes Decoy Company web site and thank you for the interest in our company!!

This web site started as a bit of fiction.  As people started asking me for decoys, I would sign the bottoms with Great Lakes Decoy Co.  GLDC was just an idea that might happen some day.  With quite a bit of encouragement from friends, I eventually bought the domain name and just recently found an affordable web hosting solution.  The “company” is basically a one-man show.  Actually one man and one woman as my wife is the chief financial officer – read “owner”.  GLDC is a part time adventure for me.  I don’t make a living selling decoys and I don’t think I ever will.  Like many of you, I am a a full time breadwinner, a full time father, a part time grounds keeper, and a part time handyman.  Besides waterfowl hunting, I enjoy building duck boats and training my own golden retriever.  The key to a happy life, I have learned, is balance and moderation.  So I carve about six-dozen blocks a year, most of which are by commission.

The decoys that I carved are cork-working decoys.  These are the blocks that you put in your boat and actually hunt over.  These are the blocks that loose eyes from your brother in law water spanking  a mallard, or loose paint as your kids drag them down the boat ramp by the anchor cord.  These blocks are meant to be used, repainted and used some more. 

Carving decoys is one part duck hunter, one part woodcrafter and one part artist.  I have to say my biggest challenge was in the art department.  My greatest influence has to be Grayson Chesser.  Just looking at my hen mallards says it all.  Tom Matus and his work on both the DHBP and Duckstickers.com changed the way I look at carving.  I don’t know either of these men personally, but their unselfish sharing has made be a better carver.  As a whole, you will find the carving community very open with comments on advice and how to.  I don’t have the pedigree of the great masters, but I will answer your questions on whatever type of rig you are working on.  We all learn best by sharing.

Enjoy the season,

Tom Simpson

Chief Field Test Engineer

Great Lakes Decoy Co.

tom@greatlakesdecoy.com