Cabela's Discontinues Herter's Decoys

Cabela's finally did it.  They killed off the Herter's decoy line. 

When in operation, Herter's was making the finest working decoys available.  Cheap?  No, but these were decoys that were made so that your son could hunt over them one day.  Heavy?  Yeah, especially the burlap decoys, but anything that was built to survive the rigor of decades of use needed to be sturdy. 

So why did Cabela's kill the line?  Good question.  I used to be responsible for the marketing of that catalog back in it's waterfowling heyday, in the late '90's. The picture here is a scan from one of our catalogs that we developed.  I know the margins that were made on the decoy line, and they were astronomic.  But some bean counter in some back cube in Nebraska must have run the numbers and found there was more to be made with annual sales of consumable Chinese-made plastic ducks than a one-time purchase of a lifetime decoy. 

I'm fortunate in that I have my supply that has served me over a decade, and will last the rest of my life.  I pity those other duck hunters, especially the new ones, that are subjugated to an annual trip to the store to continually augment their spread, all due to a greedy decision. 

Here's a fond goodbye to the best working decoys ever made.