Tyler Baskfield, creator of Duck Creek Decoy Works, put years of knowledge and effort into creating one of the most effective motion decoys on the market today. (Photo courtesy of Tyler Baskfield.)
October 03, 2025
By WILDFOWL Staff
In a group message from Bill Saunders, the call-maker and legendary goose-killer, he sent a group of his pro-staffers a picture of a pair of motion decoys with a message that read:
“I wish I could use them. They’re illegal here in Washington. They look killer! If you guys need a feeder decoy, you should really give them a look. They are worth checking out.”
Rare words from Saunders, who analyzes every detail of the gear he uses, and throws out anything with the slightest flaw. (Or whatever he thinks might be a flaw.)
The decoys were a pair of Flashback feeder decoys from Duck Creek Decoy Works. The text piqued my interest, so I looked them up on social media. I was impressed. The movement was unique and lifelike. The splashes mimicked that of a real feeding bird. It wasn’t over-exaggerated or unnatural. These decoys were truly something new and innovative.
Advertisement
But who was Duck Creek Decoy Works? A new player to the game, at least at the time, and they are quickly growing in popularity with die-hard duck hunters across the nation.
WILDFOWL had the chance to talk to the man behind the operation, Tyler Baskfield, and see just how Duck Creek Decoy Works came to be, and what inspired Tyler to create a decoy that would soon become the hot commodity among duck hunters.
Meeting the maker “Waterfowling has always been a huge part of my life,” Baskfield starts. “From the time I can remember—even some of the earliest photos of me as a kid—I’m sitting in a duck blind.”
Advertisement
Tyler grew up in Minnesota, just outside the Twin Cities, where his dad worked as a business executive. “[My dad] made sure that he took us up to his family cabin a couple times a year and introduced us to nature. This cabin was just a family ‘hunting shack’, and it became like a family compound. Not fancy at all, but we would just hang out up there.”
A family heritage was built at that cabin, where Tyler’s dad took him, and his dad before him, noting that duck season was a sacred holiday up there. “I really had no choice but to go waterfowling because it was just such a big part of our family, and it became a great way for me to connect with my dad.” Though Baskfield says that his father wasn’t necessarily an avid duck hunter, he was someone who loved being in nature and making sure he passed that love down to his boys. Adding that he and his brother were the ones that took to duck hunting with a passion.
“We hunted at that family cabin through high school and had some of the best memories with my family all the way through college—deer hunting, grouse hunting, and duck hunting. It was just a phenomenal way to be raised,” says Baskfield.
A Colorado relocation Once the time came to take the next steps in life, Baskfield found himself at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Saying that he was lucky enough to make some friends that enjoyed big game hunting.
“We’d go on archery elk hunts in college and hunted throughout Colorado for a few years. I graduated during the .com boom where everyone was making 70-grand a year trying to figure out the internet stuff. I actually moved back to Minnesota and got a great job with a company that was doing well; and I hated every minute of it. I wanted to be more involved with wildlife.”
In a turn of events, after the .com bubble burst, Tyler was let go from his job in Minnesota, which gave him the chance to pursue something that he actually wanted to do with his life, which was work as an outdoor writer. Baskfield made the journey back to Colorado where he became the Outdoor Editor for the Craig Daily Press. Part of his job involved covering the local law enforcement. This led to Tyler being hired on with Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife to handle their media relations and magazine publication.
Leading up to the Flashback During his time with the Division of Wildlife, Baskfield bought a farm north of Denver because of the memories he had made in his youth at his family’s cabin in Minnesota. “I bought that farm before I bought a nice car, or even a house, with any of my resources. I wanted to have a place that, one day, my family could all circle the wagons and have a family compound of our own. Where my kids could learn about nature by catching a toad, not looking at one on an iPad.” The farm then started to take shape as a waterfowl hunting spot for Tyler, being right on the South Platte. “I just wanted to have this place where I could raise my family and get away from the city,” says Baskfield, noting that all this was done before he was even married.
Tyler hunting at the family farm with his sons, Hank and Gray. (Photo courtesy of Tyler Baskfield.) Luckily for Tyler, his property was surrounded by almost 5,000 acres of some of the best warm-water sloughs and waterfowl habitat in the state. The wealthy landowner who owns the property around Baskfield’s self-described "40 acres and a meth-shack" doesn’t hunt, so the birds figure out where the sanctuary is quickly. “I hunted a lot on my place, by myself or with friends, and we would have mallards passing over us at a couple hundred yards going from slough to slough. It’s one thing to get skunked and not see any birds. It’s another thing to get skunked when you have a thousand ducks fly over you at 200 yards,” he says.
One day after a morning of duck hunting, Baskfield went home and took a nap, then shot up with what he calls an “epiphany” on how to design a motion decoy. “It just came to me,” Baskfield says, “and I started working with some styrofoam and weights and swivels.”
Creating the design After coming up with a few prototypes and some help with a few different engineering companies, which Baskfield says took a few years to complete, he says he began hunting over some 3D printed models and was having success using them in the field.
While that was happening, Baskfield says his job at the division of wildlife was becoming more political than he would have hoped. “I didn’t like that I was having to pick teams, and I didn’t like how if certain governors are in office, you sit in a broom closet for four years reading a newspaper, while with others you go and work your butt off, doing what felt like campaigning for them. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything for wildlife.”
So Baskfield decided it was time to jump ship and see where this decoy could take him. Adding that he was creating them in the basement and garage of his house. Selling them boutique style, 75 at a time and the response was fantastic. Those that bought the decoys loved them. From there it was trying to figure out how to scale the company and get these decoys into as many hunters’ hands as possible.
“I’m a purist when it comes to hunting equipment. I really have trouble with second-rate hunting gear. I think that stems back to the time I spent with my family hunting in Minnesota, and the few times we were able to get together in college and hunt together—the last thing I want to do is fight with a piece of equipment,” Tyler says. He notes that he wanted to make a decoy that not only worked well and looked good to the ducks but wouldn’t let you down and would be something you could depend on.
Diving into Duck Creek After creating the Flashback, Tyler said that he spent so much time working with CPWD’s media relations, telling people how to handle their media programs, or how to handle crisis management situations, that he had a feel for working with the public—but to truly know if he was good, he needed to leave his job and invest fully into Duck Creek and The Flashback. He left a valuable pension, and turned away from who he was becoming with the fish and game department (who, he notes, was someone that he wasn’t very happy with). “I would’ve regretted not taking that chance. I think it’s just one of those fate things. It became very obvious that this was the path I should go down,” adds Baskfield.
Building the brand After deciding it was time to move all his chips on to Duck Creek, Tyler’s dad, who played such a significant role in his life and his love for nature and hunting, passed away. “He had a real entrepreneurial spirit and was super encouraging of me. And he said, ‘You know Ty, you’ve got to grab your balls and make this thing happen. You’re sitting on a great product. It allows you to do what you want to do with your life, and it allows you to be around the things that you want to be around. You need to do what you need to do.’ So when he passed away is when I made that a job.” Baskfield says, adding afterwards that one of his goals is to make his dad proud, also noting that his dad was his biggest cheerleader, and his biggest motivation to make Duck Creek Decoy Works as successful as it is.
Once Baskfield had dove all in on Duck Creek, he made it a priority to make sure that customer service was a big priority; making sure that everyone who buys a Flashback is happy with the product. Tyler says that he wants anything with his name on it to enhance people’s hunts and give them a better experience.
Tyler says that the payday for him is hearing from his customers about how the Flashback has made their hunts more successful, or how it’s completely changed hunter’s ability to have more success. Baskfield still has the company phone linked to his own phone, that way when you call Duck Creek to talk about their decoys, there is a good chance you’ll get to talk to the man who built the decoys.
A look at the Flashback The Flashback from Duck Creek Decoy Works has become one of the hottest motion decoys on the market, and hunters across the nation are filling limits because of them. (Photo courtesy of Duck Creek Decoy Works.) If you’ve seen the Flashback in action, you know it’s very different than any other motion decoy on the market. It’s designed to move and have the appearance of an actual feeding duck. Not just a butt-up rippling decoy. “It’s not just motion for motions-sake. Because of the way it’s designed and built, it looks like an actual feeding duck. It creates ripples, has a natural amount of flash, but nothing over the top that ducks will flare away from,” adds Baskfield.
Tyler also adds that it’s something that he believes ducks won’t ever become educated to, simply because of how many feeding birds the ducks see every day, and how natural the decoy looks. “You can adapt to just about any hunting scenario with how many you use, or where you’re hunting. It has two modes, a surface-feeding mode and a dabbling mode. Everyone knows that dabbling mode, but that surface-feeding mode is killer too.”
Baskfield truly thought of everything when making this decoy. Giving hunters hundreds of options to use this decoy in all scenarios they could find themselves in. It’s an effective decoy, that can enhance hunter’s success across the flyways.
Needless to say, Tyler has a passion for hunting ducks, and that’s reflected in the product he has created with the Flashback. The Flashback comes in options of a mallard drake, mallard hen, pintail drake, black duck, and a mallard drake and hen combo pack. Each Flashback comes with a well thought out carrying bag.
If you want to learn more about the Flashback, click here.
