Play it Again, Sam?
Text by Jon Farrar
Published in NEBRASKAland Magazine, November 2010

During World War II there was push to revoke the prohibition of live decoys as waterfowl numbers had recovered significantly from the 1930s. The justification for again legalizing live decoys, as well as the opposition to it, was typically and cleverly couched in language avoiding a desire to either increase or decrease the kill of ducks and geese.

“Two-hundred-fifty million ducks over North America each fall would be splendid, but down this way a hunter would have to spend most of the season in the blind to kill a hundred ducks over his wooden blocks,” J.C. Hickerson of Kansas City, Missouri wrote in the letters section of the September 1943 issue of Sports Afield. “Most of us get in not more than 4 or 5 hunts and feel repaid if we are fortunate enough to bring home a half dozen.

“No duck hunter should complain about the length of the season or the daily bag limit,” Hickerson continued, “but we do think something should be done about the 25% of the ducks killed by hunters being lost as cripples. Two or three live decoys among your blocks would insure ducks being shot at that were in range and the cripple loss would be reduced to practically nothing in this area—and we suppose the same would be true in other sections of the country.”

And there was pressure in Nebraska to give live decoys back to their hunters. At their May 11, 1944 meeting, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission board of commissioners passed a resolution that the head of the agency should “…instruct the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Commission’s suggestions in the following instances: That the 1944 Migratory Waterfowl Season be established along the same lines as the 1943 season, with the exception that the use of live duck decoys be permitted.” And at the June 1945 meeting the commissioners passed a resolution to be presented to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “That a limited number of live decoys per blind be permitted when the duck population reaches a point which will provide adequate hunting by such methods for the returning servicemen and other sportsmen without seriously affecting the future production figures of such migratory waterfowl.”

“Now, no duck hunter in his right mind will deny that it is a lot more fun and a lot more effective to shoot ducks over live birds than over wooden blocks,” wrote Field and Stream editor Eltinge F. Warner in the magazine’s October 1945 issue, in opposition to a bill introduced in the U.S. Congress by an Illinois Senator and an Illinois Representative to again allow the use of live decoys. “Even one wise old Susie can make a lot of difference, particularly on one of those glassy days when the blocks sit out there without a ripple. All this, however, is beside the point. The point is that these bills…represent very definitely a step back toward the past, when our fish and game were at the mercy of politicians.” Warner went on to say that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was charged by Congress to look “after the welfare of our fish and game. Generally speaking, it has done a good job. If and when its activities should be unwarranted and its decisions unwise, so that sportsmen become dissatisfied with its operation, then let there be a change in administration. But let’s not take individual problems to legislative halls where, unfortunately, too many legislators know little or nothing about the subject.”

The Congressional bill and the lobbying of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to legalize live decoys died for want of sufficient support.