Corny Idea Draws Interest
Sitting in a duck blind gives hunters a lot of time to be inventive, especially if the birds are landing somewhere else writes The Omaha World Herald.
Camouflage-clad Mark Andersen was hunting ducks and Canada geese near Pierre, S.D. He was freezing. Shooting was slow. He stood to peer out of the blind.
“I looked over and saw a bunch of ducks pouring into a field and I said, ‘What’s going on over there?’’’ Andersen said. “Well, a farmer had spilled a big pile of corn, and the ducks were just pouring on top of it to feed.’’
Andersen was inspired. Ducks and geese eat corn. Why not lure birds with waterfowl and corn decoys? Not using artificial ears of corn, but something that resembles a small pile of spilled corn kernels.
After nearly three years of designing and testing, Andersen’s patented and trademarked invention is for sale in 13 stores in six states and online.
He calls it “Cornouflage.’’
Cornouflage is a circular piece of non-ultraviolet fabric (birds can see ultraviolet light) printed with a photograph of field corn. The diameter is about 25 inches, but it twists and folds into a circle less than half that size for stuffing into a day pack. A plastic-coated steel cable is sewn into the rim of the cloth to give it stability.
Setting Cornouflage over a few dirt clods or pieces of corn stubble elevates the center of the cloth, giving it the appearance of spilled grain.
Photo by CORNouflage.
Jaclyn on October 21st, 2009 1:05 pm
As a hunter myself that is pretty cool! I’m sure it would also work for deer as well and be less expensive then buying bags of feed all year, not to mention right now hunters are having a problem with the recent “no baiting” with deer law due to spreading of lime disease, so i think that invention would be great….there would be no spreading of disease.
Graham on October 21st, 2009 5:35 pm
Why not just use real corn?
Angela Shupe on October 22nd, 2009 1:23 am
Graham,
The original article says that it is illegal in many states to bait animals and, since his invention isn’t edible, the fake pile of corn doesn’t fall under that law.
Jaclyn Wells on October 22nd, 2009 5:18 am
Baiting of animals is illegal right now due to many diseases going around, when the animals eat the feed they naturally drop saliva onto the feed as their eating, then another animal comes and eats and therefore gets whatever disease the animal had before them.
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