Learning to rig duck decoys from your grandpa is perfect way to spend a Sunday

FOWLER, Ill. — The pride and sense of accomplishment Butch Crowder saw in the sparkle in the eyes of his 10-year-old grandson Michael and the smile stretching across the youngster’s face is all the 61-year-old wanted to see.

It was nearly enough to bring a grizzled hunter to tears.

“Dusty,” Crowder said. “I told him I thought it was getting dusty in here.”

Michael was too young to understand the reference.

“He looked at me and said, ‘I’ll go in the house and get the Swiffer if you want, Grandpa. I know where Grandma keeps it,’” Crowder said with a hearty laugh. “I just told him we’d be OK and to start working on the next decoy.”

The Illinois duck hunting season in the Central Zone doesn’t begin until October 30, but any day wasted right now takes away from the readiness to hunt.

So Sunday, with his wife attending a baby shower and his favorite football team — the Kansas City Chiefs — scheduled to be part of Monday Night Football, Crowder decided it’d be the perfect time to saddle up to the workbench in his garage and teach his grandson the right technique for tying weights to duck decoys.

“I have a system,” Crowder said. “I tie them the way my grandpa, my dad and my uncles taught me and my brothers. My daughters never took to hunting or wanted anything to do with spending time in a duck blind, so this is my chance to pass some knowledge on to my grandsons.”

While two of his three grandsons are too young to be much help in the decoy preparation, Crowder knows Michael can do the job and needs to learn now rather than later.

So the grandpa got up early Sunday morning, put on a pot of coffee and headed to the garage to get everything prepared. A set of weights made of a concrete mixture and molded in mini Solo cups were the perfect size, and Crowder had two dozen of those left from last year.

He pulled out two spools of heavy-duty string, a couple of pocket knives and two bags of decoys — one filled with mallards, the other full of wood ducks.

Venturing back to the house and into the kitchen, Crowder filled his Yeti with coffee and creamer and decided to make a quick trip to a local convenience store to buy donuts. If everything else went awry, he knew he could make the 10-year-old happy with donuts.

“Every kid comes to their grandparents’ house expecting a treat, right?” Crowder said.

Shortly before noon, Crowder’s daughter and grandson arrived. After a few minutes of chatting, the ladies left for the baby shower, and Crowder and his grandson headed for the garage.

Michael knew he didn’t have to ask if he could grab a soda from the old refrigerator in the corner of the garage, but he made sure he had his grandpa’s approval anyway.

Then it was time to work.

Some might suggest rigging a decoy is as simple as tying a knot — honestly, it is — but everyone ties them differently and uses varying amounts of weight. Crowder told Michael hunters use a wide array of knots, but he wanted to show him the one they were going to use.

Immediately, the 10-year-old asked what it was called.

“I didn’t have a name for it,” Crowder said. “So I told him it was a ‘grandpa knot’ because my grandfather had shown me how to tie it. He bought it and told me, ‘That’s cool.’ I took that as a win.”

Crowder showed Michael how to cut the string to the correct length, tie one end to a clip where they’d attach the weight and then tie the other end to the decoy. They did one together before Michael insisted on tying one himself.

His first try didn’t go so well. He didn’t tie the knot tight enough, so when he held the decoy up and decided to swing it around by the string, it went flying and ricocheted off a nearby shelf.

“He looked at me with sad eyes and just said, ‘Oops,’” Crowder said.

Michael picked up the decoy and tried again. Distracted by a noise outside, the 10-year-old didn’t pay attention to how he was tying the string to the decoy. Although he got the knot right, he tied it to the tail end of the decoy.

That didn’t work.

So he gave it another shot. He looped the string around itself three times, pulled it through and tugged it tight. He double-checked he had tied it to the front end of the decoy, and after turning his back to his grandpa, Michael dangled the decoy upside-down to see if it would fall off.

He turned back with that electric smile and sparking eyes and held it up for inspection.

That’s when it got dusty in there.

“So proud he did it right,” Crowder said. “So proud.”

They spent the next hour tying rigs and examining decoys until it became tedious and boring. That’s when the duo headed to the kitchen for some of those donuts.

“It was a productive day,” Crowder said. “We got some decoys tied, too.”

The moment wasn’t lost on him. The time spent together, the knowledge passed on and the joy of his grandson’s smile mattered more than anything else.

“It’s why a grandpa’s job is the best job,” Crowder said. “I’ll take days like that the rest of my life.”