In my 30+ years of KILLIN' GREEN I have owned, toted, rigged, handled, inspected, seen, touched & hunted over just about every mass produced plastic duck decoy made. Now that's a lot of decoys through the years... at one time I had somewhere in the neighborhood of some thirty odd dozen or so. That's not counting the ones my Dad, Grandfather, Cousins, Uncles, Great Uncles & duck hunting buddies had either, those were just mine. Some of them were in dismal shape as wear & tear had taken the huntability out of most of them, cracked keels, busted bills, dented in bodies, paint worn off, some were retaining water & some had even developed a "rattle".

So about 10 years ago, maybe longer than that, I had a garage sale and sold most of those decoys, gave some away & threw away those that didn't find a new home. Some of these decoys were looking pretty rough, i.e.: you know you're in pretty bad shape when one of the neighborhood kids doesn't want you even if it's just for BB gun target practice, now thats when you know that you're tore up. The worse part of it was is that some of these decoys were only a season old.

So I began shopping... and I mean everywhere. I looked at duck decoys until the decoys were tired of looking at me. I went to every "Hunting Store" I could think of, subscribed to any of the mail order places that carried duck decoys & even telephoned a few too, to ensure that I was on their mailing list. I was bound & determinded that I was not going to just be buying some decoys, just to have to replace them again with more decoys, that I had just bought a season ago, no not this time.

I was looking for that quality decoy, one that would last several seasons with not much wear & tear. Then it came to me... in the corner of my garage was a pretty sad looking wore out & patched up decoy bag that had seen much better days that contaianed 18 G&H M4 Original Standard Mallards, decoys that I used as my "walk-in puddler" set-up. I'm not real sure where those decoys came from or how I ended up with them, but I do know that my Grandfather & I used them on some of the hunts on his last season, he was 79.

It hit me like a ton of bricks... like an epiphany, the only decoys that I hadn't culled... the G&H's. They were easy enough to track down from an add in a hunting magazine, so I sent them a request for a catalogue. In short order I got it in the mail & I studied every page. I was more obcessed about my next decoy purchase than that kid & his Red Ryder BB gun in that movie, "A CHRISTMAS STORY". Oh yeah, new decoys would be on the way.

I've been with G&H ever since, I have some that are probably survivors from that order to G&H in my buddies decoy storage facility that we use when we are field hunting. They've got to be 10 years old, at a minimum. Not that there's anything wrong with them, as they still kill ducks, but I replaced them with G&H's M4M Magnum Pro Series & M4O's. I added a dozen WG50's (Widgeon) & a dozen P1's (Pintail) to round out my spread, whenever it was that G&H came out with their swivel head magnum/oversized decoys... 6-7 years ago?

They're still going strong & they're still looking good. No broken keels, no worn off paint, no broken off bills, no dented in bodies, etc. And my decoys live a decoys life... they're not abused, just well used. They go hunting just about every time I do so they make anywhere form 30-50+ hunts in a season. And they do get thrown out, picked up, knocked around in the boat some, ride in the back of my truck, in & out of a bag, etc. There maybe a beauty mark here & there, just like in the Max Stalling line... "Life is mostly scars & souveniers", but there's nothing universally abnormal about any of that, especially if you're on the "A Team" with a KILLIN' GREEN obcessed mofo.