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Show Louisiana Man Hews Out Decoys With Knife, Ax LOCKPORT, LA. Clovis Vizier, the gray-mustached little "Cajun" from the John Guidry community, has his summer's work waiting for him and his supplies gathered in. Vizier caters to the sportsmen who haunt this swampy section of South Louisiana during the duck season. He furnishes them their decoys, de-coys, fashioned by his small hand axe and his old-fashioned whittling knife. "At the end of one hunting season, I usually have enough decoys ordered or-dered to keep me busy until the following fol-lowing year," the bald little man said. Vizier's friends and neighbors fishermen mostly know the type wood he needs for his decoys. Wherever they are, in the swamps or shrimping on the Gulf coast, they pick up pieces of wood they think he can use. Preliminary work on the decoys is done with the hatchet. Then comes hours of tedious whittling smoothing smooth-ing out the marks left by the axe and cutting out the sweeping lines for the wings. The body of the decoy de-coy is carved first. Then, at night, before the fire, he carves the bird's head, figuring out the smallest detail. de-tail. When a decoy is sanded down Vizier uses a steel file instead the head and body are nailed together to-gether and then painted. |