Walter Watson Jr Carved Swimming Frog Ice Fishing Lure Decoy Folk Art NR #10 yqz For Sale
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Walter Watson Jr Carved Swimming Frog Ice Fishing Lure Decoy Folk Art NR #10 yqz:
$53.00
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See Other Listings Walter Watson Jr Carved Swimming Frog Ice Fishing Lure Decoy Folk Art NR #10SIGNED by the GA Carver ~ One of an ESTATE Collection!
We recently picked up a great collection of vintage fish decoys and lures from a Pennsylvania multi-estate sale, some we put into groups, others we listed separately! So be sure to check out the entire assemblage, and let us know if we got anything wrong. For we do not claim to be experts, but we try our best to get it right!
In this sale we have an original ice fishing decoy collection by the Georgia carver Walter Watson Jr., signed along the base, carved of wood and hand painted in the likeness of a swimming frog. What we love most about Watson's decoys is how he uses scraps of salvaged copper from an old moonshine still to create the painted fins found along both sides, top and bottom. Now that is just too cool! Carved of a lighter wood, fitted with glass eyes and weighted along the base, it measures approx. 5-3/4" long. There are a few light scuffs and scratches to the paint, but we found no apparent losses or restorations. So be sure to scroll through our
Click on any photo to see it in its original size in a separate tab.
many photos to capture all the details! What a great fish decoy to add to your collection, just one of a new collection by Walter Watson Jr. and just one of a larger estate fishing lure and decoy collection we will be listing over the next few days! GOOD LUCK!
As found on the jacksonville website (GREAT Site!)
Wood decoys a sliver of history
Indian craft revived in pieces of scrap
BRUNSWICK -- Walter Watson Jr. doesn't like to be bored.
So the retired draftsman keeps himself busy with a box cutter, scraps of salvaged copper from an old moonshine still and chunks of gnarled tree roots.
"If I don't have stuff to work on, I'd just go ape," said Watson, putting blade to white cedar wood to shape one of his favorite projects: an ice fishing decoy resembling a bass. "I'm fortunate that I'm able to do this kind of work."
Watson, 74, of Brunswick, has been carving ice fishing decoys for about eight years. Some of his creations have been purchased by collectors as far away as Alaska; others are sold in gift shops on St. Simons Island.
The decoys are reproductions similar to those created by American Indians to lure large fish such as walleye or northern pike close enough to catch.
The lures -- fashioned to resemble smaller fish such as bass, bluegills or even frogs -- then became common among modern-day anglers in the Midwest and Northeastern states.
"There's no telling how many I've made. I used to just give them away and swap them for things, like for a hunting knife," said Watson, a self-taught woodcarver who always keeps the first of any fish or bird species that he carves.
Walter Watson Jr. carves a wooden toy in the backyard of his Brunswick home. Watson said he taught himself woodwork as a child growing up on a farm.
-- Ryan J. Sparrow/Staff
Admitting with a chuckle that he's a bit of a scavenger, Watson crafts the decoys from a variety of materials the most unique of which he gathered in the woods of his hunting club south of Brunswick.
"Some fellas used to hide their moonshine stills out there in the old days. The revenuers got after them and caught one when he ran into a tree and knocked himself out. He told them where the still was and they blew it up," Watson said.
Watson, using a metal detector, found the remains of that one and a second still rusting away amid the brush.
"I got the copper off it. I use it for the fins on my fish, and also for the roof of one of my [model] churches," Watson said.
Wood comes from the roots of fallen trees, a broken submerged log snagged while he fished in a local river and from friends who keep an eye out for unusual pieces.
"I made a hat rack from a piece of wood salvaged from a Civil War barn near Atlanta that had been torn down," Watson said.
Watson taught himself to make something from next-to-nothing as a child growing up on a New Jersey farm when he'd fashioned a wagon with little more than a bushel basket and broom handle.
"I've always made things ever since I was little. Growing up on a farm, you learned to use your imagination and make do with what you had. I'd design and make my own model airplanes, make dolls for my sister and wagons out of bushel baskets."
Walter Watson Jr. uses a small drill with wood carving bits to detail the eye socket of a wooden soldier.
-- Ryan J. Sparrow/Staff
An avid hunter, he learned patience in a deer stand and duck blind. Then one day curiosity about a lone shack in the middle of a frozen lake in Maine, Watson discovered what would become both a challenge and avocation.
"It was during World War II. I went out to that ice fishing shack and that was the first time I ever saw one of those decoys but it was always in the back of my mind. Then my sister bought one in the Midwest for $70 and gave it to me. That's what really got me started. They were too expensive to buy so I thought I'd try to make one myself," Watson said.
His first fish soon led to stringers more.
Watson's home is one big workshop. Fishing and hunting decoys compete for space. Freshly painted fish decoys hang by their fins or tails from clothes pins in his kitchen. He sands and roughs out the decoys from blocks of cedar and other wood out on the backyard patio. His living room easy chair serves as home base for detail work -- etching and shaping each decoy with an old-fashioned box cutter before he paints them -- painstakingly recreating schools of fresh- and saltwater fish.
"It takes about two days of carving, sanding and painting. Sometimes, I don't go sleep. I just work through the night," said Watson.
Watson's fishing decoys as well as wooden shorebirds, whirligigs and models of historic churches and homes are sold at two shops featuring handmade crafts on St. Simons Island.
Katie Bale, a sales associate at Rarebbits And Pieces in Redfern Village shopping center, said Watson's carvings, which sell from about $35 to $125, appeal to a variety of people.
"We sell a lot of the fishing decoys at Christmas and around Father's Day," Bale said. Despite a steady demand for his decoys, Watson has no plans to seek new outlets for his work. Nor does he have any plans to stop carving.
"I've been making things all of my life. I like having different things to work on. I don't like being bored," Watson said.
The Calculator is not always right - if the shipping looks too high email us and we will give you an accurate quote prior to the sale ending.
Estimated shipping weight, (packaged) is 1 lbs 6 oz
in a 10 x 8 x 6 box
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