Decoy Spreads That Deliver Ducks with Matt Cagle | Ep. 57

Delta Waterfowl: The Voice of the Duck Hunter Podcast! This week, host Joel Brice is joined by Matt Cagle, founder of Rig’Em Right, to dive into the art and science of setting decoy spreads. Whether you’re a seasoned waterfowler with an elaborate rig or a beginner eager to learn the ropes, this episode is packed with insights to help you refine your setup and lure ducks to cup and commit.

Matt shares his journey from a young hunter in North Carolina’s marshes to launching Rig’Em Right, a company known for its rugged and reliable gear. We also explore the story behind their highly anticipated Mainline Series decoys, including the game-changing “blackout” decoy—a minimalist design offering unmatched visibility in the field.

Recorded live at Delta’s Duck Hunters Expo, this episode is full of tips, tactics, and stories to inspire your next hunt. So grab a cup of coffee, some decoys in need of re-rigging, and join us for a conversation that promises to shorten your learning curve and deepen your passion for waterfowling.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Delta Waterfowl as the voice of the duck Hunter podcast. I'm your host, Joel Brice. Today we're talking decoy spreads. Whether you're just getting started setting spreads or you've got an elaborate rig of hand carved decoys, there's something for you to learn from. My guest today, the founder of Rig'Em Right, Matt Cagle. In this episode, we're zeroing in on the art of Decoying ducks, where Matt will reveal some tips and tactics to further entice those whistling wings to cup and commit. We'll also take a moment to learn about Matt's journey from a kid hunting the marshes of eastern North Carolina to running a company built on a reputation of rugged, reliable waterfowl gear. And keeping with the theme of our episode, we'll get his thoughts on Wright's first foray into decoys with the much anticipated mainline series. So grab a seat, a cup of coffee, or some decoys in need of rerigging and enjoy the episode. Recorded at Delta's Duck Hunters Expo last summer in Baton Rouge. Let's get started. Matt Cagle, welcome to the Delta Waterfowl Podcast. 

Hey, thanks for having me. 

Yeah, we've chatted a few times, but I think we have a whole bunch of new stuff to talk about today. All right. And then we're going to move on. Just just for those listening, we're going to talk about rigging, right. We're going to talk about a little bit about the background, the history and, and some of the changes that have been taking place. But we also have someone who in Matt, who has a lot of years of duck hunting experience, and we're going to start talking about actually putting decoys out into the field and give you guys some, give the listener some, some tips and hopefully shorten your learning curve if you're a new hunter or if you're an avid hunter. Hey, we all learn something new every single day, I think, don't you, Matt? 

I learn something every day. Yeah, not always something good, but I learned something. Yeah. 

So I don't know. Just a quick little tangent. Let's spiral out right away. What do you think is the better teacher? Failure or success? 

I don't know. I mean, you know both. Yeah, both. Both. I took the easy way out. Yeah. I mean, I would really suck if you just failed all the time. He'd probably just give up so you wouldn't really learn anything. Yeah, I think you're right. 

I think you're. 

Right. Yeah. Little victory here and there. Learn some stuff. Yeah. 

I think, you know, I have to give an example. Um, one that really sticks out to me, and I. I love to do, um, backcountry mountain hunting. That's a that's a, that's a in addition to waterfowling. That's a, that's a passion of mine. The first year that I ever went into the mountains, I, I carried too much gear. I packed my fears is one thing that people like to say. My gear was too heavy. It was inferior. I think I carried an extra 20 pounds of crap. 

Oh, that's a lot. 

Yeah, and I, I, we were, I was walking out of the mountain when the, when the hunt was over and I thought, just shoot me. I am about to die here, you know. So I learned a ton from that. So you can learn from failures. But then also let's have, let's sprinkle in some of those successes as well. 

Yeah. 

Absolutely beautiful. All right. Let's get on it. Right. Let's tell us a little bit about rigging. Right. 

Well, we, um, um, there's a lot to tell about rigging. Right? Well, let's get going. 

Yeah, we got time. 

So, I mean, you know people, people that know the company. I mean, they know us for our rigging products and our bags and gun cases and blinds and and all that stuff. And I guess, you know, maybe people don't really know where we came from. I mean, we, you know, we're still small, family owned business. Me and my wife, you know, at the shop every day. Um, she, you know, her office is right beside mine, and we're in the warehouse unloading trucks and kind of doing it all. You know, I think people kind of miss, like, when you go into a Cabela's or Bass Pro or Max or Rogers, you know, and they see, you know, a company's products, they just envision this big corporate, you know, corporate company or whatever. And we're far from that. I mean, I show up a lot of times to work, especially in the summer, and flip flops and, you know, wet baggies because I've been surfing in the morning, you know, we're live at the beach, and probably not the most ideal place for a waterfowl. Distribution center. But you know, we're beach people. I think you could love the saltwater. 

You could make a case for that being an ideal place, right? If you get to live there, that's ideal. 

Yeah. From a distribution standpoint, it's not the best, but it's a pretty good place to live. 

Yeah. That's awesome. That is really awesome. So was this was how did you get into something like this? I think everybody has a story. But you know, you grew up in North Carolina. Is that right? Yep. And hunted waterfowl your whole life. 

Waterfowl starting probably when I was well, it became a real hunter for waterfowl when I was about 16, when I finally got some wheels. And before that, you know, I was going with my, with, you know, buddies whose dad, you know, hunted and stuff like that. My dad was not a hunter. Um, he's a worker. I mean, he turned wrenches and and worked at a, you know, factory and came home and did more work. And I mean, he just didn't have a lot of hobbies. I mean, car to me around, you know, baseball, football, basketball and stuff like that. But he wasn't a hunter. And I guess part of my story, which you've heard, is that really led to creating products because, you know, he didn't understand that my gear really sucked. Yeah. And he was like, well, you don't need to pay money, you know, for this, that and the other, you know, go to the shed and make something, you know. So I mean, my decoy anchors were spark plugs and door knobs and drawer pulls or whatever piece of metal I could find, which, you know, obviously led to just a big tangled mess every morning. Um, and got my wheels spinning on how to do things better. So I guess, you know, people assume that, you know, you grew up hunting, you know, with your dad or whatever. And I was like, yeah, my dad was the biggest inspiration because he didn't hunt. So yeah. Yeah. His idea of waterproof boots was to put your feet in, you know, put your socks on, then put your foot in a bread bag and then put your boots on top of that. You know which. Your feet just sweat and they freeze to death and you know, but I guess, you know, they didn't get wet from the outside, just from the inside out. They got wet. But yeah, I mean, we like, you know, I went to NC state to for college, played baseball, majored in civil engineering, got out and um, got a job in construction. So I was, you know, doing big highway jobs, big, huge site development. Um, and then did that for about six years, then went to work and got a sales job selling construction products. And it was during that time that I was like, you know what? I'm kind of know how to sell. I kind of have some pretty good work ethic, you know, from the construction, you know, I was a six day a week guy. I was up at 4:00 in the morning leaving the house at 430, driving an hour and a half to be on the job by six and then getting home, you know, at dark. And, um, I used to tell people I didn't know if the grass needed mowing till Sunday, you know, because it was dark when I left and dark Darwin. I got back right, but then took out. I took that work ethic into sales and and was pretty successful at sales. And that's kind of when I was like, you know what? I got these little, little product ideas, you know, I'm gonna see if I can't get some traction. And we launched the decoy anchors and the jerk rig that I, you know, made myself and, um, and that was it. I mean, just kind of snowballed. Just started selling those and then adding bags and, you know, we caught some breaks and. 

Yeah. Well, I suppose, you know, I think a lot of people that I talk to that that are in the outdoor industry, manufacturing products or whatever it may be. Uh, yeah, there's the, the innovation due to marketing. You know, you got to change your product up a little bit. But but it seems like most products originated from gosh, I wish I had something like this or what I'm using isn't quite working. Absolutely. Right. And so you have the the rigs describe one of the rigs for the listener. 

So you know, there's multiple ways to do them. I mean, I guess, you know, we had the sliding weight, which works just like a Texas rig. One of them, the the line slides, the other one the weight slides. And I mean, that was kind of the original, uh, product and really the jerk rig. Everybody knows the decoy anchors, but like the jerk rig, we launched that as at the same time we did the rigs. And of course that's taken off. There's a lot of people making them and stuff now, but I mean, that was actually a funny one because my wife and I have an inside joke that if she thinks something's dumb, it usually does pretty good. Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, the first one, I mean, I have parts from the, you know, marine supply store and then some bungee cord and then some string. And I had a piece of cardboard that I was whittling to get just the right size to wind up 150ft of line on it. And I had it at the beach one day. And so we're at the beach with our kids, and, you know, she's laying out and I'm out there with decoys out in the water, you know, tourists going by. And she was thoroughly embarrassed. She was like, God, you look like the biggest idiot. And I got decoys and I'm pulling on the thing and then measuring and stuff, and, you know, she's like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. You know, you got four decoys on this line and you're just pulling it back and forth. But it turned out to be a good product. So. 

So that tends to be a good thing, right? Like I said, if she doesn't think it's going to be great, it's actually it's a thing. Well that's awesome. So decoy anchors dog blinds, blind bags, gun cases, layout blinds. 

Yep. Right. Yeah. 

And here at the Delta Waterfowl Duck Hunters Expo in Baton Rouge, you're you're introducing a new product. Yep. What, you got decoys? Decoys? Yeah. Makes a lot of sense, actually. 

Long time coming. Yeah. That's. I'm. We're excited. I mean, we've, you know, sales are going really strong and we're very excited about it, so. 

Well, tell us about him. You know, this is you know, we're going to push out this podcast. People are going to learn what what what do you want them to know about your your, uh, mainline series? Yeah. 

So, I mean, I mean, the key to a decoy is for it to look, like, look like a duck. And, you know, ours look really good. They're very, you know, great carvings, great paint schemes. They're very realistic looking, which is great. Uh, they're very lightweight. We're using a, you know, light Eva blend of plastic. So they're super lightweight, um, forward weighted keel, a lot of great movement on the water. Um, self-righting, of course, is one of my main. I can't stand to use Texas rigs or rig anchors that you can just stand there and fling out, but then you got to go tip the duck upright. So self-righting is huge for me. Uh, we also made them, like, a little more slender in the body. Just because everybody's using Texas rig rigs now. And so, you know, a wider decoy just creates a big bundle you have to deal with, you know? So it just makes them way more easier to carry and deploy and take in and drag around. So, um, they're not super narrow, but a little narrower than some decoys. But that's it. You know, they're very durable and they kind of flexible plastic. And we we're starting this year launching mallards, pintail black ducks, green winged teal. And then a new concept that's really an old concept. But we're kind of the first to like commercialize it is we're calling them blackouts. And it's just a solid black decoy, real flat black paint. And there's a pretty, pretty good, um, pretty effective little trick to your decoys. 

Before we started recording, I said, I kind of gave you a heads up that I wanted to talk about the blackouts, and but I said, don't tell me what? Don't tell me about the blackout, because I want to hear it for the first time on the podcast recording. And so tell me, what is the logic? What's the what's the strategy behind a black like? It's literally I looked online. Literally a black decoy. 

Just a solid black decoy. So kind of back to my wife. She was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Nobody's ever done that. Why? Why? You know, mallards are green head and all this beautiful color and teal and everything, you know, why would you just do that? And one day, of course, explain it to her. She's not a I mean, she's hunts sometime, but she's not an avid hunter, you know. So we were going for a walk in the neighborhood and there was some decoy or, sorry, there were some mallard ducks sitting on the water. And I said, honey, look. And she's like, yeah, mallards. I said, well, you know, they're mallards, but what color do they look? She goes, they're all black. I said, exactly, and from a distance. And the, you know, the right sun angle, they just look black. And then, you know, so we because there's I'm launching this, you know, we're flying drones and I'm like everywhere you fly a drone, it's like, oh, there's this giant swarm of mallards or whatever. And they're all they all look black, right? So they just, you know, I mean, another part of it is, I mean, a hen, a hen mallard or whatever is I mean, she's made to disappear. I mean, she's supposed to blend in. That's the protective mechanism there for her. And so she don't really stick out. Very much so, but a solid black decoy, I mean, it's just they just stick out. It's just great visibility. I mean, the the the easiest animal to spot in the woods of anything is a black bear because it's just black, you know? I mean, you just see them from a mile away. 

Because nothing is all black. 

Nothing is all black. So you can see it from a mile away. And so the decoys, it just creates so much more visibility from a distance. Got it. Um, kind of contrast. Um, and I mean, we, I've used them for years, kind of really back from having terrible decoys back in the day where the paint just completely fell off of them and they just kind of look black. Anyway, I'm no artist, so I couldn't repaint them, just paint them black. I was like, you know, these things work great. And then we've, you know, we've been using them for a long time. And it was just like time to time to roll them out and let, let people see them. And it's really been interesting, the feedback, because so many people are coming up to us and going, oh my gosh, dude, I use all black decoys. You know, I've been doing this for years. You know, I thank you for doing something unique. And of course, there's always the haters that are, you know, well, why wouldn't you just paint, you know, two dozen old decoys? I'm like, you could, you can. I just don't have two dozen. And a lot of people don't have two dozen old decoys sitting around. But, you know, you totally could. And we're not trying to say that there's different than anything you couldn't make. But, you know, there save some bucks. You know, they're not as expensive as a painted decoy. And, you know, the paint chips off and it's still black underneath, you know. But yeah, they're real effective. I mean, we've got a lot of good video we'll be launching throughout the fall. Guys hunting over them.