The Story Behind Buddy

My first Huntin Buddy was made from an old pair of work coveralls. A couple of "old timers" at work had mentioned that they would use old shirts in their stands to get the deer used to their shape always being there.

So I thought I would go one farther and use a "whole body", partly because my stand was really exposed. I got an old pair of coveralls and stuffed them with leaves from around my stand and hauled it up with my "bow rope". It needed a "head", so I stuffed a carrot bag half full and attached it to the body. Walla, a Huntin Buddy.

It worked ok. The deer would look up at me when I was there and would not be alarmed. I think because that shape was there for a while now and it did not bother them.

Towards the end of the season it would get heavy to raise and lower into my stand because it would soak up a lot of moisture from rain and snow. It wasn't waterproof.

In 2005 I decided to make another one. The material was camouflage cotton and was cool but still not waterproof

Summer of 2006 I looked in all the hunting products catalogs and on the internet and found no one "sells" a "human-decoy". I did find one item on the internet that was a "stick man" that you would put a shirt and pants on for $108.00; wow, ridiculous.

I ordered some waterproof tent material from a company on the internet and bought a costume pattern from the local store. I made the costume and figured out how to make the "hat" into a "head". It would work but it didn't look how I thought it should. I made numerous changes to the pattern to alter its shape and came up with the style I currently make.