This election season, most people are thinking about donkeys and elephants, but I’ve got geese on my mind—specifically, the windfall of free honker decoys I’m about to get come November 6.
Most of the year, I find corrugated election signs a bit annoying, no matter the party. But they have one shining virtue. The plastic itself is tough as nails and sized perfectly for making decoys. No matter who wins in 2024, you should be able to score enough free plastic for one, two, or three dozen black-and-white silhouettes. Here’s how to get it done. Celery Box
This part is pretty easy, but it’s going to take some legwork. I’d start with the losers. Supporters of candidates who didn’t win will be much more willing to part with their signs. In fact, they may beg you to take them.
Another good source for election signs is the candidates themselves. This is especially true for local politicians, like sheriffs or county judges. Usually, they’re left with a surplus of signs that are just going to go in the garbage. After the election is over, give their offices a call and see what they’ve got.
You’ll want to avoid getting the cheap sheet plastic signs that I’ve seen a lot of this year. They’re basically just made of thick plastic wrap and are impossible to make into a decoy. Instead, look for corrugated plastic (it’s like plastic cardboard) and try to get signs with their own wire stakes.
Now that you have a pile of signs, you need to draw goose shapes on them. There’s an easy way to do this and a hard way. First, the easy way: Big Al’s Decoys will sell you sample silhouettes for $10 a piece. Buy a couple to use templates for a few different poses and trace them onto your signs with a Sharpie. You can also find a buddy who has a rig of goose silhouettes and use their decoys as templates for your own.
The hard way is to freehand it, and that’s what I’m doing here. The good news is, once you’ve made one pose, you can just trace around it for the other decoys. Whichever way you choose to draw your geese, you should try to have the channels in the corrugated plastic running up and down. You’ll use them later to insert a wire stake, and if they’re sideways or diagonal, the goose won’t sit right.
Cut around the black Sharpie outline with a razor knife and go slow—it’s easy to cut yourself here. You can also use a jigsaw which helps if you have a lot of decoys to cut. Just use a fine-toothed metal cutting blade. The best tool for the job is actually a band saw, but not everybody has one. If you can get your hands on one, do it, you’ll be able to cut dozens of decoys at a time.
With your decoys cut out, cut the stake that came with the yard sign in half and run it up through the corrugated channels to stake the silhouette on the lawn. Save any parts you cut off of the sign, as you can use them later for masking areas, like the white face patch and white rump.
Once you have your decoys cut out, it’s time to paint them. Stake all of the silhouettes up in the yard and spray both the decoy and the stake black. I used a flat Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch for the paint, but you can use any brand of spray paint as long as it sticks to plastic.
If you have a lot of decoys to paint, roll-on paint helps make the job go faster, just make sure the paint you buy has a flat finish and adheres to plastic. I’d paint decoys with a roller on a table that you don’t mind getting messy. Paint one side, let it dry, then paint the other. Whichever method you choose, remember to paint the top edge of the plastic, as this can flash in the sunlight.
By now, you should have several all-black silhouettes, but they don’t look like much more than yard decorations until you add a few details. For a black-and-white, all you need is a white patch on the throat and one on the rump.
4 Mm Corrugated Plastic Using some of the leftover plastic, cut out a swooping shape that resembles the white throat patch on a Canada goose. Place the template over the head and spray a bit of white paint. Then, mask off the rump and paint it white. If you want to take things to the next level, experiment with different details using brown spray paint. Depending on your artistic ability, you can even make other species like mallards, specks, and snow geese. You may have to touch up the paint occasionally, but a rig like this should last a lifetime.