How the Mojo Decoy All Started
If you have a passion for the outdoors, then you know that there are millions of products on the market today that are geared to help simplify all your hunting needs. Have you ever wondered how some of these products came about? Believe it or not most were stumbled upon by pure happenstance! That’s exactly what happened to Jeff Simmons years ago as the first Mojo Decoy was unveiled.
It all started when a friend of Jeff’s came down to hunt opening day from California and asked if a buddy of his could tag along. During the hunt the guy informs Jeff that his friend is a strawberry farmer. He proceeds to tell him that during the winter they would put white fans in the fields, so the strawberries wouldn’t freeze over. One day the man noticed that ducks were flocking up and sailing on the fans. That’s when an idea sparked! He decided to take a metal blade that was roughly 14 inches long on a stand that was black and white and make it flash. It was a shot in the dark for sure.
Before the hunt was over his friend finally convinced Jeff to let him put the decoy in the field. “I covered my face the whole time as he walked towards the field. I just knew this wasn’t going to work,” Simmons noted. No sooner than his leg was back in the blind there were 30 Mallards falling into the decoys. Surprisingly, they had went from shooting very few ducks to reaching their limit in less than 15 minutes. Still not convinced that the decoy was the reason behind their luck, Jeff wanted to give it a shot the next morning.
Once again, the two of them hit their limit the next morning while using the decoy. Jeff knew that this thing could take off. The farmer wasn’t interested with taking the idea forward to sale but, encouraged Jeff to go for it. After discussing what he had in mind and making a few phone calls, it was on! Jeff contacted a buddy of his, Murry Crow, that built race cars at the time. Murry didn’t know anything about decoys, but was very interested in Jeff’s “crazy” idea. About an hour later and a bit of tweaking they were in the decoy business. “A very interesting fact about this is that he took his wife’s treadmill apart on the trial run to make this grand plan work,” says Simmons.
“We figured out that Murry could efficiently make 15 decoys a day. At one point the waiting list reached 2500 people! Keep in mind that most of these were my customers from Simmons Sporting Goods. It was a chore trying to keep the peace between customers due to the fact we simply couldn’t keep up with supply and demand. So, Murry and I opened a factory here in Bastrop, Louisiana. Over time, it became overwhelming and we just couldn’t keep up. We decided to transfer the factory to China where it became very successful. After a few years and much consideration, we had the chance to sale out and agreed on the terms. I had the Sporting Goods Store and a Ranch here in town that required my attention and Murry was ready to step down” stated Jeff.
