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Born in 1930, Harry V. Shourds II has been carving decoys full-time since 1962. He’s a third generation carver from the Barnegat Bay area. His grandfather was one of the greatest decoy makers in the United States and his father was an active carver, as well. Harry says, “I don't copy off a real duck, and none of the old-timers did.” He describes this way of working as putting “a little dream into it.” In 1989, Harry was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Harry never copies. He says, "I make my own ducks. And I think each one (in my family) did. You can tell my grandfather's duck from my father's duck, and you can tell my duck."
Many carvers today make decoys for decoration, adding minutely carved feathers and detailed painting. These decoys work better on a bookshelf than they do in the water. Harry Shourds, on the other hand, makes working decoys – part of a nearly 200 year old tradition along the Jersey coast.
Harry explains that “for a decoy to be a working decoy, it has to look like a duck, float like a duck, and act like a duck in the water; the way it bounces and swims around. It has to be weighted right so that it sits the right depth in the water, so when a duck comes over, he sees that more than he sees the shape of the duck. It sees it at a distance and looks down and says, ‘That’s a nice flock of ducks down there. Think I’ll go down and see what they’re doing.’”
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