Steve Lenertz was born in Mankato, Minnesota in 1948.
Steve signed his decoys by a stamp in metal “Lizard Lake Decoy” and numbered and Pat drew a little lizard on the bottom of each with a black permanent marker.
His early cedar duck decoys were all hand waxed and not painted. They were hand signed and numbered with a black permanent marker. The 70 or so are in Canada, Germany and USA just as the Fish Decoys are.
Steve started carving red cedar “bird” decoys in the early 1990’s and made about 77 decoys. These were called Cedar Decoys Plus. He also made canes with duck and goose heads as well as goose calls, which also was a goose head. All of these items were made of one piece of wood with the exception of the duck heads which were made separately and then added.
Steve and his wife Pat used to live in Kasota Minnesota until 1997 and then moved north to the Hackensack area of Minnesota and built a new home on Lizard Lake. In 2000, Pat (Steve’s wife) wanted a sunfish spearing decoy, but didn’t want to pay the $70.00 for the one I wanted, so the first two Lizard Lake Decoys came into play on April Fools Day 2000.
Steve made me a sunfish and a bass with copper fins. Copper ended up as to soft and the bass kept sinking down. Steve said he had done his part and now it was time to do her (Pat) part. Pat said April Fools when she said I had to learn to paint, but Pat did.
Since Steve’s heart attack in 2006 (he is fine now -2007), but he hasn’t had a desire to carve anymore. so more or less the decoys are now just history. Now there are about 300 decoys out there somewhere.
Information provided by Pat Lenertz