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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Katie Burke: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. It's your host, Katie Burke. And today on this show, I have Mike Valley. Mike Valley is a decoy carver, hunter, fish market owner, all things. Welcome to the show, Mike.
Mike Valley: Yes. Thank you very much.
Katie Burke: Alright, so I kind of like to start everything with backstory, like all the way at the beginning, all of my podcasts, especially if you're new to the show. So I do know, I know very little about you because there's not much to find out there, but I do know that your father was a carver and was your grandfather also a carver?
Mike Valley: Yes, he was. Yeah.
Katie Burke: OK, so how what was that like growing up?
Mike Valley: Well, my grandfather during the Depression, he carved three dozen decoys for himself to use. My grandmother painted them, all in oils. Beautiful, beautiful birds of which I still have a pair. And then also my grandfather helped a fellow by the name of Michael Cerati, who was a pretty famous decoy carver in our area. And then there was the Winnesheek Decoy Factory, which was owned by Art Herpel. And all three of these people lived within a block of one another, so they all carved together. And that was just a small sample of the Prairie du Chien carvers. My grandfather helped them carve thousands of decoys. My father actually started carving in the 50s. He was born in 1936, and he started carving in the 50s. And in the 60s and the 70s, he carved a lot. And then kind of maybe a slack period in the late seventies, early eighties, maybe, and then regained in the early nineties and then carved a lot until his death, which was three years ago. So, but he carved, my father carved literally tens of thousands of pieces. I mean a lot.
Katie Burke: So what was that like for you growing up with like those carvers in your life?
Mike Valley: Oh, it was, it was neat because we were commercial fishermen and I'm fourth generation on that end of the aspect. Um, it was really cool because you know, when I was, when I was seven and eight years old, I was actually doing a lot of the painting. Um, so at a very early age I was helping carving and painting. Um, my father made thousands of miniature decoys and that kind of primarily what I was painting and he sold those to liquor stores, sports stores, all over wall drugs, South Dakota, um, sold them all over the place. So, I actually got started at a very early age. And by the time I was probably 13, I was pretty much carving on. 14, I was carving on my own and doing basically whatever, you know, so yeah, got started at a very early age.
Katie Burke: So, and then I'm guessing you would have seen the number of carvers and like, particularly your father would have seen the number of carvers kind of slowly, like, like haven't you said that, you know, with your grandfather, he had, was it four and like within a block, I'm guessing like as your father got, yeah, three, three.
Mike Valley: Oh, actually there was four cause there was Roy Golke. So he was within, yeah. There was probably, I'm gonna say 15 carvers in Prairie du Chien. So Prairie du Chien's population, 6,000 people. So I would say, and to give you an idea, when my father and grandfather had their fish markets in the fourth ward, from about the, as far as my records go, I'm just gonna say from 1960 to 1975, there was about 125 full-time, part-time commercial fishermen in a 60-mile up and down, so Prairie du Chien being the center, 30 miles downriver, 30 miles upriver. There was about 125 part-time, full-time commercial fishermen, and now there's maybe 10. And the same thing with the carving. There ain't anybody.
Katie Burke: Yeah, it's just you.
Mike Valley: besides me left in Purdish. And so, I mean, that's, there's, there's nobody, I mean, it's just a dying trade.
Katie Burke: Right. And, um, yeah, did, was your situation in that it was a family unique or were there others that were like of that kind of, you know, father, son and grandson did, or did it kind of die out?
Mike Valley: No, there was a lot of that. It was more of a family event back then. Um, And it's like today, I've tried to teach my kids and there's a little interest, but not much. I mean, it's like duck hunting when we're… It was like commercial fishing. When I was a child back in the 60s and 70s, every weekend you had 10 kids friends begging, could we please ride along raising nets with you? Now you couldn't, there's no interest. I mean, it's all changed. It's all flipped. It's sad. It's really sad to see it go downhill. I used to teach Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and different things and try to teach carving a little bit, but that's kind of You know, it's kind of, it's a lot.
Katie Burke: It's one of those things now, though, that I think, I have little kids and I grew up hunting, that I think, yeah, there's not interest, but then I feel like, like with friends whose kids are older, it's kind of a thing they wish they'd had done. Like, yeah, they wish they would have taken the opportunity to learn, like when they get older, that sort of thing.
Mike Valley: Yeah, for sure.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I think they regret it when they get into their 20s a little bit that they didn't take advantage of it.
Mike Valley: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I definitely see that aspect of it, sure.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Mine are still little, so I don't know what will happen. And then it's interesting too with the hunting. I'm pretty sure my second will be very into it. He's already Begging to go, like he's just kind of like has it. And then my oldest is like, give or take, you know, she's, she's, she's not going to say no. Cause she's a people pleaser, but she's also like not thrilled to be there.
Mike Valley: Yeah. Her heart's really not. Yeah.
Katie Burke: But my little, my middle one, he's like biting at the bit to go. So I think it just depends on the kid too.
Mike Valley: Yeah. Yeah, it does. Yeah, for sure.
Katie Burke: But the carving, I guess, so I was talking, who was I talking to about this? I can't even remember now at this point, but I haven't talked about it on here, but we were talking about the, just the like price of entry to skill level wise. Like when you're, if you're an adult and you try to pick up carving, it's so like, I can't remember who it was, but it's more difficult because they want to be good right away. Right?
Mike Valley: Yeah. Well, if they, if they run out to, you know, Woodcraft or, any major wood carving, you know, woods, you get a band. I mean, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars if you want to, or you can spend, or you can spend 500. Um, if you took the tools, I mean, and I've got some nice tools, but if you took the tools of a general old time carver, you couldn't get 50 bucks for them at a garage sale. I mean, they're, they're just total junk. I mean, so you don't have to have, you know, all these fancy tools. You can go and you can buy a nice draw knife for 10 or 15 bucks in any antique store. You can get, you know, there's about four basic knives and chisels that you use relentlessly. And you can, I got a hundred of them, but there's four or five that you only use. I mean, so, you know, you, You can buy a nice vice for 30 bucks. And that's the same thing, people always, they run out. And so it's like a first time turkey hunter or first time duck hunter. They run out and they buy a Benelli and spend $5,000 at Cabela's. You don't really need to do that. It's the objective to the person that's learning. And that is something too that I've had different people say, God, we'd really like to get into carving, but it's so expensive. No, it's not. It's really not.
Katie Burke: Yeah, but on top of that, though, I think also it's that they want to be good right away, whereas a kid, if you can get a kid to pick it up, they don't, I don't think they have that.
Mike Valley: They don't understand.
Katie Burke: Yeah. I don't think they have that stop in them. They just don't mind being bad.
Mike Valley: It doesn't… Yeah, if it even resembles what they think, it's close. I mean, then they're happy with it. And that's another thing. I have taught different people and they're like, oh, this… And they'll spend hours and hours and hours on something that's like… Actually, to be honest with you, four hours ago, it was better if you had left it alone. And you're so right, everybody wants their first thing that they do to be, you know, the best. And it's like, nah, after four or 500 of them, then we'll talk, you know.
Katie Burke: I think it was Grace and Chester that said like, just throw that first one away.
Mike Valley: Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Burke: You don't want that one. Just throw that one away.
Mike Valley: No.
Katie Burke: But yeah, I think kids, if you can get them into it, which I think is hard, I don't even have an answer for getting kids into carving. I think that they can develop a style and a uniqueness because they start younger and they have less of that comparison and knowledge of decoys in general. I think you You'll get a better carver in the end, but it's hard. I don't know the answer to getting them into it.
Mike Valley: Well, when I, you know, back when my grandfather, obviously back then it was 100% for use. There was no buying a decoy to set on the mantle or blab, you know, or collector, you know, then it revolved into the, you know, and still into the fifties and sixties, they were, they were still for use. And then it slowly began to evolve. And I'd say in the fifties, late fifties, early sixties end of gosh, that's really, I don't, I don't even want to use that. I'm going to, we're going to keep that, or I'm going to give this to my for birthday present or wedding gift, blah, blah, blah, whatever it may be. Um, And that's where it kind of evolved. So there's very, very few people actually use, there's still a few around here that actually use wooden decoys to hunt over, but there is a very huge sense of pride when you carve a decoy. set it out, shoot a duck over that. I mean, that's huge. Rather than going to Cabela's and buying a plastic decoy and throwing it out, which anybody can do. But there's a huge sense of, man, that's cool.
Katie Burke: Right, yeah, like a real duck thought your duck was a duck.
Mike Valley: Right, yeah. You actually fooled. And that's hard for people to understand because Like you said, most people and 99% of people I've ever taught, they're taking that duck home, it goes on the mantel, it never sees the water. So… Yeah.
Katie Burke: I hunted over wooden decoys for the first time this past season and I never really thought much of it. I mean, I can say I was one of those because I just never had hunted over them before and never really thought much about the decoys we used or anything like that. And it's different. It is definitely different. They're in the, they are different in the water. I mean, I don't know.
Mike Valley: I don't know if they try decoys ducks any better, but I don't think there's anything there, but there's definitely, but had you would have carved one of those decoys yourself and shot a duck over, that's where I'm getting at.
Katie Burke: It does… Well, even just the act of putting out hand-carved decoys is different. You're not just chunking them out in the water, like we're pretty rough with ours.
Mike Valley: Right, yeah.
Katie Burke: You ain't throwing them, no. You're walking around, you're placing them, you're thinking about where they go, you're being careful. It's definitely a more of a meditative, or not even meditative, but your thoughtful task. You're not just throwing them out there. Yeah, and it's different and I enjoyed it. I liked doing it. It was, I would definitely want to do it again. And then we had, the thing that I thought was so cool is the guy I hunted with, it wasn't just his decoys, but it was people he learned from, mentors, yeah, things like that. And as he would put the decoys out, he would be like, well, this one's this person's and I got it this, and he would tell a story about all the decoys that were out there, which I thought was really cool. Like they were special. Yeah, that's really… And there's very little opportunity for people to experience that. You really just have to know somebody who carves decoys almost.
Mike Valley: Right. Yeah, exactly. It's not every day that that happens.
Katie Burke: So I'm guessing you… So when did you start hunting? I'm guessing early.
Mike Valley: Early. Oh, yeah. Seven or eight years old. I mean, opening day of duck hunting was, I mean, that was huge. That was, in our family, it was really big. Do you still hunt? I did last year. I did last year. I hadn't for several years. but I did last year and I will definitely this year. Our hunting in our area, it's, I mean, I don't mean to be, you know, it's hard to put it into words, but our hunting in our area, there are so many reserves. that we have tens of thousands of ducks, and how a duck knows where that line is, but they do. Believe me, they know. And there's tens of thousands of ducks, we have plenty of ducks, but we don't, our hunting is terrible for most part, unless we get some horrible weather. Then it blows them out of the reserves and you can get a day or two of decent hunting. The reserves fill up and I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we have way too many reserves. Ducks, ducks everywhere and not one to shoot. I mean, I'm not a catch and release person. If I'm going fishing, I'm going fishing for a reason, to catch a fish because I want to eat it. And the same thing with ducks, I'm not a bird watcher. I want to shoot a duck. That's why I brought the license and all the equipment and that's, you know, and it's, I mean, it's still, it's still decent, but it's nothing like it was when I was a kid. Cause when I was a kid, we didn't have reserves and it was, you know, that you had days that were just unbelievable. And I believe in reserves. I just don't think you need one every five miles.
Katie Burke: Yeah, are y'all so do y'all do the farm birds up there? They release the farm birds like the they don't yeah because when I was in Maryland when I was in Maryland, they had those and I I never even thought I knew that that was a thing but I haven't really thought about it but because I didn't even look at the mallards we killed to see if they were wild or not. Yeah, you can tell, I mean, because they don't have the dewclaw on them, so you can look and see, but I didn't want to know, so I didn't look.
Mike Valley: But it's like this spring, you know, our river only froze for two weeks, the first couple of weeks of February, and then it was wide open again. But the ducks this spring never, it's unbelievable. Millions, it's just insane. And there's still a lot of them here. Oh yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Diver ducks, and it's just absolutely crazy.
Katie Burke: Yeah, because y'all didn't have the weather.
Mike Valley: Well, people say, and a lot of people, I say, well, there's nothing. In the fall, they'll say, well, they don't use this flyway no more. There's nothing here to eat. Well, believe me, there's nothing here to eat right now because nothing has grown yet. Why are they here now? I mean, so you gotta argue that fact. And I always say, I just give anything for one day in the fall like it is in the spring. I mean, to have that amount of birds around.
Katie Burke: And it's the same, we have the same problem like down here. I mean, I'm in Memphis, Mississippi. Like if y'all don't get the weather up there and it doesn't freeze up, then they're not coming here. Like they don't, they're not going to come. They don't have a reason to leave. They're not going to leave.
Mike Valley: Well, and I, we've been getting into kind of heated discussions with the head, the head up here who's in charge of all of this. the upper Mississippi. And I said, let me do the talking to a couple of the people. And I said, because I'm going to go around this circle on the other side of it, so that they understand and they get it. So I said, okay, so all of you pretty much, every single person here pretty much believes in global warming, right? Absolutely, absolutely. So you know that we're moving forward. Now, I said, 50 years ago, at the end of duck hunting, everything was froze up. It was a guarantee the last week of duck hunting, if you could even get out, it was, because everything was froze solid. Now, the last days of duck hunting, it's 60 degrees. But, you know, and on Christmas, and I said, so in 50 years from now, Christmas will be 85 degrees, and in April, it'll be 40 below. It's moving forward. Things are moving forward. So I said, Why not open, cuz we have an early keel season that's the end of August, it's 95 degrees. We got goose season, it opens the 1st of September. It's literally 1st of September, it's 90 degrees, I guarantee. Let's move that forward. Let's start that 1st of October and move and extend our season, which closes December 3rd, December 4th. Let's move that to December 20th to give us some, nope, absolutely not.
Katie Burke: Do you have a break in your season?
Mike Valley: We do. We have a split season. Yeah, but that's in October. Right. And I mean, it's still I mean, our Octobers are 70, 80 degrees. 50 years ago when I was a kid, I mean, you had some cold weather in October, but not anymore as a rule. I mean, look at this winter, our river only froze for two weeks. It was extremely warm. And this year, the week after season closed, it was insane, the amount of birds around, it was crazy.
Katie Burke: I don't have an answer for this. I know I work for Duxland and I'm the wrong one for that. I can't help you.
Mike Valley: It's like the pelicans. We have thousands and thousands of pelicans. It's just insane.
Katie Burke: So we were talking, I was talking to John Fandry. Do you know him? He's a collector.
Mike Valley: Yeah. Oh yes, very well.
Katie Burke: So I was talking to him because we're doing this book that's about goose hunting and it's all about the whole country, but we were talking about, because he hunted over near A Horicon Marsh area. And yeah, and we were talking about, because he was the first person I had talked to that had kind of been alive through that whole transition with Horicon Marsh and how there were no geese, then there were tons of geese there. And so, I mean, has that… Have you seen that shift in the ducks?
Mike Valley: Oh yeah, when I was a kid, I mean, if you shot a goose, it went in the front page of the paper. It was unbelievable. I mean, you just, there was no geese.
Katie Burke: Yeah, and you had to tag each goose that you got, right? It was a goose a day.
Mike Valley: Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think the population is in Horicon. I think they've regulated it. way more in the last, because they were getting out of hand. It was getting to almost an epidemic over there. So I think they have went in and smashed, take a lot of the eggs from the nest in the spring because it was just getting out of hand. There was just so many of them that it was insane.
Katie Burke: I was reading this part of the book, because it's here, it was in Illinois, it was in two sections, a couple of places where they had these reserves that they did for the geese. And I found it really interesting how… It's kind of an interesting thing to think about how they will adapt, right? Especially, apparently Canada geese particularly. They weren't going to that area, and they reserved that area, and then they just all went to that area. And they just completely changed their pattern for that. And then, of course, then they put the cornfields around it to hunt them, and then they would go and feed, and that's how they were able to hunt them. But it's just interesting that they would completely change.
Mike Valley: change. It's like right now, if you drove, you know, not right now, but let's go back two weeks ago, you drove up into the pools of Ferryville, um, in Linksville and up in the pools area. And you look and you see literally hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of geese, swans, pelicans, ducks, and you look and there is not one single weed. What are the, what are they eating? Why are they here? How are they surviving? How is hundreds of thousands of birds surviving? And they're there for, they were there for three weeks, a month. It just makes you, it really makes you wonder, what are they actually eating?
Katie Burke: But they're eating junk. Yeah. They'll be fine. The geese have proven that they can handle whatever is thrown at them.
Mike Valley: I mean, a goose, they just adapt to, I mean, they'll come into an area and it's just like, oh my gosh, they just, they flourish. It is. A goose can adapt to, I mean, it's insane how a goose can just come in and just, yep.
Katie Burke: It is wild to think that they can do that. And then there was a time where we almost lost them. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. All right, welcome everybody. I'm here with Mike Valley. So let's go back into your carving because I want to talk to you a little bit more about your decoys and what's special about them. And so can you kind of describe to me, as obviously you were influenced by your area carvers, your grandfather, your father. How have you changed what you do from what you were around when you were a kid versus what you are carving now? How has that changed over time?
Mike Valley: Yeah, good question because like I said, when my grandfather was carving back in the 30s, in the 40s, they were carving hunting decoys only. I don't ever remember or heard of my grandfather carving an owl or a crow or a songbird. It was ducks only and hunting only. Then, like I said, my father started carving quite a bit in the 50s, a lot in the 60s, and then he started off with decoys only. And then, well, maybe I'll make a bird, maybe I'll make a crow, maybe I'll make a swan, maybe I'll do something different. Well, and to give you an idea, in the last three months, in the winter, I carve a lot. So I did probably 30 or 40 songbirds, a lot of hummingbirds. I made a dozen Owls, different owls. I did a chicken for the first time in my life. In the last two days, I've carved a crow each day. Just different stuff. Not that it sells any better, but it's something different to stretch out your imagination, so to speak. It gets old carving. the carping ducks day in, day out, and only ducks. I do swans, I do geese, I mix it up a lot. And I still enjoy doing the ducks, and I do a lot of fish.
Katie Burke: I was just asking you fish, because that's… We haven't talked about fish decoys at all on this show, because obviously it's ducks, but it's such a huge part of the decoy world.
Mike Valley: Yeah, fish decoys, and actually John Fandry, I've sold him a bigger… Yeah, he's a huge collector. He's a huge collector, and I've sold him a huge amount of lacrosse fish decoys, which was known… Lacrosse was known for its fish decoys. but actual fish carvings, you know, plaques, different things. I do a lot of them. I just enjoy it. Well, obviously with being a commercial fisherman, you know, I used to do taxidermy when I was, you know, from about 15 to 19, four or five years, I did a lot of taxidermy. So, um, it's just, you know, I just get, it just gets old doing the same old thing day after day after day, you know? So that's why I kind of, and I, and I do enjoy doing something, know, obviously that I've never did before. So like hummingbirds, I had never really carved hummingbirds before. And so people really like them and they sell, but just something different.
Katie Burke: Yeah. And you work pretty fast. You're not a take three months on one decoy kind of guy, are you?
Mike Valley: No, I'm, I'm working. Yeah, I can make, I can make, three or four decoys in a day, pretty easy, completely done. Um, yeah, I'm fast, but I've made, I've made literally thousands and thousands and thousands. So there's no gas game. There's no, I know exactly where I'm going with it. You know, um, I pretty much don't use patterns anymore. Everything's free-handed, drawn quickly. Because in my mind, it's there, then it goes to my hands, and then it goes to the saw, and then it, you know, and it comes, it just, it falls out because I've done so, it's like cleaning a fish. I've cleaned millions of pounds of fish. I've had people come into my store before and say, why don't you use an electric play knife? I said, I'll tell you what, there's one on the counter there. I said, why don't you just grab that and we'll have a little contest here. Well, you know how that goes.
Katie Burke: But… Yeah, it's all about the knife. Well, it's all about how… Yeah. Yeah. Now, my family owned a catfish restaurant in Louisiana, so I… Oh, yeah?
Mike Valley: Yes. Oh, okay.
Katie Burke: That's cool. Yeah. So I do know that they had… And it's known for thin sliced catfish, so… Yup. And to slice it thin is not… It's an art.
Mike Valley: Yeah, it is. Absolutely.
Katie Burke: So how did the taxidermy, did the taxidermy practice change your carving at all? Just curious, you're the first person to talk about it.
Mike Valley: Oh, it definitely helped influence the carving end of it, for sure. Yeah. You know, because obviously doing taxidermy, you want to bring something back to closest life as as you could. And then that, when I quit doing that, and then the carving actually, cause you'd carve something, you go, I don't even look close. And then you retreat, you know, try to do a different tweak it a little better, you know? So it definitely, definitely has an influence because taxidermy is, is a lot. I mean, you could screw up on any taxidermy and it's going to look probably way better than any carving. Um, but it definitely has an influential, aspect to the carving. There's no doubt about it.
Katie Burke: Yeah. I would also think you would get to know the bird in a way that you probably hadn't before.
Mike Valley: Yeah. And also when you're handling, I mean, decoys and you know, I've handled so many old decoys and so much and been involved in it and the aspect. you really, you really do get a whole wide field variety for everything as a whole versus, versus just carving, just, you know, cause literally every day I'm seeing docs, I'm looking at docs. I look at, see how they're setting, you know, you just, you just, you're, it's in, it's in every day it's in your face. So you, I mean, that does help. Somebody who's living in the middle of nowhere, never sees a duck, or never goes duck hunting, or never sees an old decoy, or never learned… It's not as easy. Yeah.
Katie Burke: So you had the benefit, because I've talked to carvers and a few, and not all of them have your family history. So you've had this benefit of having people close to you to talk to. Yeah. What would you recommend, I guess, for those who don't have that or have that sounding board just right at home? Like you were able to, because the benefit of that has got to be, I mean, unbelievable that your dad and your grandfather were there to like see what you were doing.
Mike Valley: And for the influence. Yeah. Yeah. And mentor you. You know, and like I said, back and I said, it's in your brain and then it goes to your hands and then it goes to, so I, what I tell a lot of people, you know, that are interested and they're getting started carving. And I said, you know, get, get magazines, get pictures, good pictures with, let's just say ducks and, and look at it and study it and look at one duck in particular, take a canvas back first. Cause that's the easiest duck to me. There is any black and white, You know, don't start with a, everybody just wants to start with a wood duck. No, start with a can or a bluebell. And get it in your mind, look at the picture, get it in your mind, get it, you know, look at decoys and study it. Then one thing we have in today's society, and I do not like electronics at all, but one thing we do have that is huge. is a cell phone. So you take a side view of a mounted duck or a old decoy of your choice, which there's tens of thousands of, and then you can put it on your computer, transfer it on your computer. Say you wanna make it 15 and an eighth long, 15 and a quarter, 14 and three, whatever you wanna make it, set it up, there it is, bang. print, and you've got the most perfect pattern. I mean, it's just crazy. And then I take that off the printer, cut it out. I take 3M 77 spray, spray the back of it, and get your cardboard stock down to Walmart or wherever you're gonna get it. sheets of cardboard stock and take 77, glue that on there, bang, cut it all with the scissors. You've got the most perfect pattern that you could ever want. You know, you had stuff, the body stuff, then it's perfect. It's just perfect. Versus when I was growing up, we didn't, everything was drawn freehand. Everything was, you know, you look at a picture and you'd try to draw it as close to you can as the picture. Now there's that, that's really taken out. I mean, and you can virtually do it with a fish, you can do it with a songbird, you can do it with anything because it does take out the guessing game.
Katie Burke: Right. That's interesting. I've never heard it that way. And that's a good way to teach somebody for sure. Someone told me, a teacher told us to do a portrait by taking the photograph and gridding it. So like you draw a grid on top of a picture, like a And then you take that grid and you draw it onto your canvas or whatever you're going to draw onto. And that way you can, because in portraits, it gets really hard. And I think there's a really famous artist that did this that had like face blindness. I can't think of his name, but he could do it this way. Because instead of looking at the face as an entire piece, you can look at the proportion of the earlobe in that grid, right? You're breaking it down into smaller pieces. So you're kind of doing that with a picture of a duck.
Mike Valley: Yeah, because your pattern is… I mean, because everybody starting out has to have a pattern. There's very few people who can… And another thing is, too, that it's very hard is I've… You can teach anybody to carve. You can literally teach them to carve. It may be really good, it may be really bad, but it's still a carving. But you can teach people to carve, you can teach people to re-tweak that, make that, pull that off, and you can get it pretty good. Painting is a total different story. Most people, I've had artists that have worked for me and did paint for me and different things. They can draw a picture or paint a picture of a duck that is blow your mind. I mean, it's DU quality, but they cannot paint a decoy. I just can't paint it. It looks horrible. They can't put it in the 3D.
Katie Burke: What do you think the difference is between a canvas and a decoy? Where do you think the disconnect is?
Mike Valley: I don't know what the difference is. Most people that are flat work artists cannot, just can't paint 3D. I can. I can do both. Um, but but it's you it's and another thing is everybody always wants to start painting an acrylic. They want to paint I paint all oil acrylics the worst Yeah, it's and it doesn't hold up with the decoy.
Katie Burke: No, I well and I hate it.
Mike Valley: It's awful It's so quick.
Katie Burke: You can't build at all or take away or it's not forgiving. No
Mike Valley: And I've had different people come in and they'll say, God, I've been paying on this damn thing for 20 hours and I just can't get it. And I was like, oh my God. And I say, well, here, watch. And basically I use, my number one brushes that I'm using, my set of brushes are women's makeup brushes. That's my number one. You know, I buy them at Walgreens or any women's makeup, you know, and, and they, I can, I can paint an entire duck. It'll blow your mind with one woman's makeup brush.
Katie Burke: That doesn't surprise me, because if you paint, and I don't think anyone would be surprised that paints, but if you paint, you go to the same brush constantly.
Mike Valley: Constantly, absolutely. You have a favorite. You got three or four brushes you use, it's just like your carving tool.
Katie Burke: You got a big one and you got a little one.
Mike Valley: Yep, but it's very, very overlooked is women's makeup brushes.
Katie Burke: I never would have thought of that. Do they clean?
Mike Valley: Oh, beautiful. Just beautiful.
Katie Burke: They clean. I would have thought they would, they would hold the paint, the oil too bad.
Mike Valley: Oh no. No, they clean beautiful. I mean, no problem cleaning. That's interesting. But I mean, it's, you know, getting like, like a canvas back, um, uh, I can paint a nice canvas back. Very nice paint complete in way less than an hour. Way less. We're, And when you, like the guy, he came in and he says, I got 22 hours in this. I said, let me show you here. And when I showed him and he did a beautiful job on the, on the return of it, uh, he painted it in two and a half hours, which is still long, but it's still a lot better than 22, you know, a little bit of guidance. A little bit of guidance is just huge. And another thing that I try to teach people too is like cleaning brushes, especially when you are painting in oils, but cleaning your brushes, get them as clean as you possibly can. But I use automatic transmission fluid. I have a little jar of it, a little can of it, several of them sitting around on the counters. And when you get your brush pretty, pretty clean, uh, dip it in the automatic transmission, tip it upside down and take the heel and run your fingers up through it. So it's down in massaging down in the heel and that you could leave that brush, even if there's paint in it and you didn't get it clean, you can leave it for a hundred years and it will, it will be, it'll never dry out ever.
Katie Burke: You know, you can also put them in their refrigerator.
Mike Valley: Yeah. Yeah, it does work. But automatic transmission fluid works. And they do make a regular brush thing, but it's automatic transmission fluid cheap and it's at any store, but it works amazing.
Katie Burke: Well, so you're painting like wet on wet the whole time, basically, so.
Mike Valley: Wet on wet, yeah. I start at the tail and end at the bill, so.
Katie Burke: Do you scratch, so I haven't looked, but for your feathers, are you scratching in? How do you do that since it's all wet?
Mike Valley: Yeah, a lot of them I'm scratching in, scratch painting, yeah, and combing.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I would assume since you're doing it so quick and wet on wet, you would do that. That's the only thing about oil is like, of course, it's not going to dry. So if you're wanting to do more like painted feathering, then you're going to have to come back.
Mike Valley: Yeah, it doesn't dry. It doesn't dry as You know, you can add Japan dryer to it or different thing, you know, you can add to it to help it along. But no, that is one thing. You gotta, you gotta be patient with the drying process, you know.
Katie Burke: Do you thin it out a lot? Because I was talking, who was I talking to, like Pete Peterson, I think, and he was saying how much he thins his oils out.
Mike Valley: Yeah, I do thin it quite a bit. And a lot of times I'm mixing it with, with just a one shot or a Ronin fine paint. Cause I'm a fine painter too. So I always have that on hand. So a lot of times I'm doing, you know, 50 50. So as base coat, so that, and then that does help usually as a rule, I mean two days, two days, you know, we'll dry pretty much anything.
Katie Burke: All right, so you made a comment earlier and I want you to explain it a little more. So you said to start with a can or a blue bill. Why? Why exactly?
Mike Valley: For painting purposes. Okay. Because you take a Mallard or a Legend or a Pentel or whatever. If you've never carved or never painted much or a little, start with a can or a blue bit. It's black and white, basically. I mean, start with something simple and then work as far as the painting. The carving ain't much. There's not a lot of difference in the carving.
Katie Burke: You could use the same body for a can and you have to use different heads, but you could use the same body.
Mike Valley: Yeah. Different head, but you're pretty close on the body. Absolutely. And then hollow, if you want to make it hollow, start with a solid bird and then work your way into hollowing. Most of the stuff that I'm doing is hollow, but that's a difference. Start, build, climb the ladder, so to speak, I've told people.
Katie Burke: Yeah, no, it makes sense. Your pattern thing, you need to send that out for kids. You need to make a lesson plan, Mike. Yeah. Show kids how it's a start.
Mike Valley: It really does. If you take a picture of a mounted can head, and you measure the bill from… It's perfect. There is no guesswork. If it's 4 and whatever it is, you just measure that and then you blow it up, set it on your computer to 4 and 7 eighths, whatever you want. Because most of the time people are either getting the bill too short, too long, the head's too big, the head's too small for the body, it doesn't look right. That takes out all the guesswork. It's done.
Katie Burke: I know I could see where some people would like turn their nose up to that but because they're you know snobby about it. Pete Peterson said something that I love and and I really do agree with it really resonated he said you know people get all up in arms about if they're copying or if they're, you know, taking shortcuts or all this. But in the end, your flavor, your flair, your signature is going to come out. There's no stopping that. Like that's going to happen. You will have your signature will always come out. So if you give somebody a more approachable way to start, it just makes the point of entry a little easier. And what's, I don't see the harm in that.
Mike Valley: Yeah, absolutely. And, and a lot more desirable to move on to the next step and say, Oh my God, this is great. You know, instead, instead they get down the, you know, I'm not doing this anymore.
Katie Burke: Right. Give them a win.
Mike Valley: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Katie Burke: It's kind of like why you take kids deer hunting before you take them duck hunting. It's easier. Right.
Mike Valley: Yeah.
Katie Burke: You don't start people hunting for the first time chasing Eastern turkeys. Like you just don't start that way.
Mike Valley: No, no, you're absolutely right.
Katie Burke: If you want to just make them feel bad about themselves and never go again, that's what you would do. Yeah. I just don't, I, I get the point of, you know, like learning the old techniques and eventually going that way eventually. But I definitely think the point of entry needs to be, you know, the how to draw book of decoy carving.
Mike Valley: Yeah, absolutely. The only reason I don't use a pattern is because, number one, I don't want every single duck. Because a lot of the old, like my grandpa's carvings, I mean, they're all exact. I mean, pretty, I mean, you, you grab one, you know, you can, you can set 50 decoys out of all different makers and I can pick them bang, bang, bang. And, and that being said with just about it, I mean, Ward brothers, Madison Mitchell, you go right down the line. I mean, you know, cause they use the pattern by God, they stuck to it. You didn't venture from that pattern. Well, I'm not, and yeah, my bill might be too long on this, or my beak's too long on that, or the tail's too short on the, whatever. But I'm just saying as a starter carver, and you're starting up, it's much easier to use the pattern that way, because obviously everyone has a cell phone, obviously everyone has access to a computer, and it's just much easier to start there.
Katie Burke: No, I agree. I think that's really smart and I think it needs to be said more often. I think if we really want more carvers like to kind of continue, you need to make these things a little easier and more approachable.
Mike Valley: Yeah, absolutely.
Katie Burke: Cause I mean, I interviewed Josh Brewer for this little series we're doing and you're not going to get a Josh Brewer unless you give it to him as a kid and make it approachable. Right? Like you'd need, eventually he will become a Josh Brewer. He might or might not, but there's only one way to get a Carver like that.
Mike Valley: Yep. Absolutely.
Katie Burke: Yeah, and I think about that too, just like, I mean, I don't really paint anymore, but like anything in life, like even I run a lot and as a kid, like it's such a, the person that impacts you in that way, like that makes you feel like you're good at something, like it changes your approach to something for the rest of your life.
Mike Valley: Like, well, that's exactly where I was going back with, with, you know, with the, starting them off on the right track with the pattern, with the paint, with everything down the line. And then they get done, they go, fine. It's like I had this 22-year-old kid, friend of a friend, he came and I took him duck hunting, when was that, two years ago. And we hunted over my decoy and he was just absolutely for all. And he's from down in Tennessee, somewhere down by Nashville and blah, blah. And he said, I would just give anything to make a decoy. And I took him in the shop and then in literally three, three and a half hours, he had a beautiful can made. And he was like, I just can't believe I made this. I just cannot believe, and well, because you had the correct, and he's never did anything with it, but he still talks about it and he's going, I think he will do something with it down the road. But it turned out very good for, and he basically, I mean, I helped him, but he basically made it himself. And it was something that he could be proud of and he's going to have for the rest of his life that he's, and he will, I think he definitely will do something down the road, versus if it would have come out just absolutely terrible.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I don't know. It's something about that influence of somebody, especially when they're not your parents, of course, which your poor parents. Exactly. Yeah. Poor parents. But yeah, when that outside adult tells you you're good at something and it can really change your perspective towards something, it can really kind of set you up to pursue a hobby or an art or anything like that.
Mike Valley: is for certain, absolutely.
Katie Burke: I agree with that a lot because I think about just myself with painting, if it wasn't for Miss Carol, I probably would have kept drawing. She's the one who told me I was good at it.
Mike Valley: Well, and another thing too that I didn't mention is, and I'm sure everybody else does too, but the wood is huge. Starting with the crack, the wood is so huge. In our area, 99% of people that you teach, they all want to start with basswood. And basswood has its places for certain things, but I don't use it in decoy carving. But wood is huge, to get a decent piece of wood to start with. Because even then today, I hate wasting things and I hate wasting wood. I'll grab a piece of wood, and I know dang well in my head that it's like, don't just burn it, just throw it in the garbage. And then you start on it and it's like, yep, you throw it in the wood pile. But versus if you'd have been starting out and you didn't know when you grabbed that piece of wood, you'd be like, yeah.
Katie Burke: So how would you know?
Mike Valley: Well, you know when you start to carve it, you know, because you might look at it and it looks good. Then you would start to carve it and it chips and it flakes and it just isn't right. It just ain't right.
Katie Burke: Yeah, it's just not working. It's not malleable.
Mike Valley: No, exactly. And you can have 50 pieces of wood and they're all different. They have different characteristics and they all come from the same dang tree. It's hard to believe, but there is a huge amount of difference in wood. It's crazy.
Katie Burke: Yeah, you're the first person to talk about that. Okay. So that's good to know. I didn't know that like, I mean, I knew there was a difference in wood.
Mike Valley: And I cut all my own, I cut all my own wood. I mean, I mean, I go cut the trees and do it myself, but so I know the characteristics of wood. I mean, it's just, it's huge, but. You know, everybody, a lot of people that I, most people that I try to teach, they've got something in their mind. I don't know where they got it, but it's basswood. And basswood does not draw a knife. It's a good chip carver. It's good for carving because it holds detail amazing. Or if you're doing a fancy decoy, you know, a high end, you know, realistic looking carving, but whatever.
Katie Burke: So what are you, what wood are you mostly using?
Mike Valley: I'm using white pine. Is it pine? Yeah, white pine or white cedar or arborvitae. In our area, we have arborvitae, which is a form of white cedar. And that's good. The only thing is the damn cedars and the arborvitae are very toxic and a lot of people are allergic. They sneeze and it's not good to breathe. That's why I'm 90% using white pine.
Katie Burke: I never even heard of that tree before. That last one you said.
Mike Valley: We don't have that one here.
Katie Burke: I don't think so. I've never heard of it. Okay. Well, I know you have, I have to let you go. You had an hour. So is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to talk about before we go?
Mike Valley: Well, there's, I mean, there's a ton of things, but I mean, no, that's, I mean, I think we've basically covered the, you know, there's a ton of things we could talk about, but it's, I just, I guess if I had one thing to say to anyone who is starting to carve, don't get discouraged, don't give up on your first or your second or your 10th, you know, move forward with it. And, and because you will definitely, and make sure you keep your first decoy, cause then, or your first carving, because down the road, you'll look in comparison, you know, I see decoys that I made, actually, I just got a wood duck that I made when I was 12 years old, and I'm like, oh my God. I had just absolutely, but hey, it's nice to see the, otherwise you'll never know your progress, but don't get discouraged. That's what I try to explain to everybody. I mean, yeah, that's a huge, huge point. And, you know, anyway, I think we covered the basics as of the painting end of it. Like I said, the carving is a lot easier to do than the painting of it. But with, you know, and I am more than willing, anybody needs any information or would like Hey, I'm stuck on this. I can do this. You are more, put my name, my phone number and they can, cause I do have people call me all the time. Hey, what can I do with this? What, what should I do with this? Or, you know, and I don't have a problem with helping anyone.
Katie Burke: So. Yeah, that's one thing I have found to be very, you know, it's, it's great. I found that with a lot of carvers and that's really changed and people are very welcoming. And then I guess since we are doing this for North American Decoy Collectors Show, the value of going to those shows and seeing those decoys and being able to talk to people like you and collectors and things that is so valuable.
Mike Valley: Yeah, you'll learn a tremendous amount by spending one day at a decoy show, an unbelievable learning experience. Most people will let you take pictures, take photographs and utilize them.
Katie Burke: Yeah, that's a good point because you will immediately be drawn to certain decoys. If you are interested in decoys, it is obvious that certain ones will catch your eye.
Mike Valley: Oh, absolutely.
Katie Burke: And it's maybe not be what other people think. What draws you in isn't going to be the same as someone else.
Mike Valley: No, but you're absolutely right there. You can have 50 decoys and one will jump out at you. Yeah.
Katie Burke: So take a picture of that decoy and try to figure out why it jumps out at you. Yep. Great. Thank you so much, Mike. Thanks for coming on the show.
Mike Valley: We thank you very much, and it's been a pleasure. And if anybody's ever in the Prairie du Chien area, our store is open basically Thursday through Sunday. So we have a ton of decoys and stuff to look at. And if anybody's got any questions and they're in the area, stop in.
Katie Burke: Thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac, and thanks to you, our listener, for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.