Mike Burnett of Salty Water Decoys in Bena is enjoying himself these days. He’s doing what he enjoys—carving wildfowl—and he’s doing it when and if it suits his fancy. Now he wants to share his expertise with others by offering free decoy-making demonstrations beginning in March.
After retiring in 2013 from a bustling career as the owner of a successful Hampton-based sign company, Burnett, who went into the trade out of high school because it satisfied his artistic bent, took up another art form—creating duck decoys.
“I just wanted to work with my hands and smell paint,” he said.
While he had toyed with the idea of sketching derelict structures, a trip to a waterfowl show in White Stone left him in awe and set him on a different path. He bought some wood at the show, got some pointers from the artists, and went home and started carving, trying to make something he could be proud of. A year later, he finally had a decoy “that actually looked like a duck.”
Burnett contacted the White Sto...