THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240166
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Romie Waterfield, who grew up immersed in the waterfowl hunting tradition of Back Bay, hasn't shot a duck or a goose in 30 years.
Today, the man who was a hunt club guide back when the bag limit was 25 ducks per day, carves decoys of ducks and geese instead.
Waterfield had his change of heart when he worked as a biological technician at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge between 1954 and 1974. There, his work was devoted to protecting waterfowl - providing sources of food and banding them to track their migrations.
``I started banding them and holding them at the refuge,'' Waterfield said. ``They are beautiful to look at.
``Now I'd rather see them alive than kill them.''
Waterfield retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but those beautiful close-up images of the ducks and geese stayed with him. Since then, he has been transforming images into decoys that are popular among collectors in coastal Virginia and North Carolina.
Although Waterfield may be out of step with his forebears' hunting tradition, he is carrying on another of the family's traditions as a carver.
``I guess it's born into the family as far as I know,'' he said.
His father and grandfather both were carvers, Waterfield recalled, but they didn't sell their work. The men carved decoys for their own use.
``In summer, when they weren't doing much, they'd get out under the oak tree and carve,'' Waterfield said. ``You couldn't buy decoys then that I knew of and if you could, they couldn't afford them.''
Certainly decoys weren't for sale at Wash Woods. Waterfield was born 76 years ago in the isolated little coastal village that is located where False Cape State Park is now. Except for a stint in the Army, he lived at Wash Woods and then up on the refuge for 60 years before he moved to the North Carolina side of Knotts Island where he has his carver's shack a few steps from his home.
Every day, he sits in his chair next to a warm stove, his foot resting on a an old tree stump and whittles away. He makes miniature, medium and full-size duck and geese decoys, replicas of working decoys that hunters still use on Back Bay and Currituck Sound. However, Waterfield's birds are so popular that they are sold as decorative items only.
The other day Waterfield had just completed several canvas-covered Canada goose decoys. The big lightweight decoys are made with wooden bottoms and carved neck and head. However, the body is made of a wire frame covered in lightweight canvas, which is then painted to blend with the neck and head.
Canvas decoys are not as well-known as wooden ones, although they were very popular on Back Bay and Currituck Sound. They were not only lightweight, but they also required less wood to make. Good juniper wood for carving was hard to come by in coastal communities, Waterfield explained.
But the lighter weight was most important. In the old days, hunters would haul up to 300 decoys out on the water to help lure ducks and geese within gun range. Today with the advent of plastic decoys, the craft of making a canvas decoy is a dying art.
``Canvas is really going out'' Waterfield said.
In his new book, ``Canvas Decoys of North America,'' Archie Johnson calls Waterfield, the ``godfather'' of the canvas decoy makers of Currituck Sound and Back Bay. The craft of making canvas decoys may be dying, but Waterfield has helped to keep it alive by teaching others how to do it, Johnson said.
``He's made more decoys (both canvas and wood) than anyone on Knotts Island,'' Johnson said, ``and he would teach anyone how to make a decoy that came down and asked him.''
Johnson will be selling his book on canvas decoys at the Mid-Atlantic Wildfowl & Wildlife Festival next weekend at Pavilion, and other decoy makers will be selling their versions of canvas decoys. But you won't find Waterfield at the festival.
Although he has probably carved thousands more birds than he ever shot, he has never participated in the festival. It's not because he doesn't like it, but because he doesn't need to. He has orders for his ducks and geese long before the birds are carved.
``Everything I make is already sold,'' Waterfield said.
Not bad for a man who didn't carve a duck until he retired.
P.S. The Mid-Atlantic Wildfowl and Wildlife Festival, sponsored by the Back Bay Wildfowl Guild will take place from 3 to 9 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at Pavilion. Admission is $5; seniors citizens are $4 and children under 12, free. Children's decoy painting is a 10 a.m. and the auction at 5 p.m. Saturday.
MARK RHODES called to say he saw his first osprey of 1995 Monday. The bird had a fish in its talons and was flying in the area of Northampton Boulevard and Lake Smith. March 1 is the traditional day that osprey return to this area.
In the meantime, it would appear that Brian O'Neil has most definitely seen the last hummingbird of 1994. He saw the little bird, which should have gone south last fall, during the cold spell two weeks ago. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: ``I guess it's born into the family as far as I know,'' Romie
Waterfield says of his talents as a carver.
Photos by
MARY REID BARROW
by CNB