Events & Contests
Park Rapids Show
TBA
ClearWater Decoy Show
December 21, 2024
Bob Johnson Memorial Decoy Show
March 1, 2025
Falls Ballroom, Little Falls
26th ANNUAL- THE GATHERING
APRIL 11-13, 2025
SAT. 9 AM to 4 PM, SUN 10 AM to 3 PM
PERHAM, MN
Click here to download contest information.
The Gathering, a sporting collectible, art, duck and fish decoy show held every April in Perham, Minnesota.
The show was started by Rod Osvold and the late John Jensen. After attending a Bruce Dixon (MN carver) show in the early days and seeing the increasing interest in decoys, Rod decided to do a really big show in the new Community Center just being built in Perham www.perham.com.
The first show was a huge success, filling 2 gymnasiums with vendors and 3,000 people in paid attendance.
Now entering it’s 25th year, there is nothing like “The Gathering”.
Today The Gathering has grown to quite a show, in fact it is the World’s largest fish decoy show held in the USA. It features over 110 vendors that set up to sell, and the John Jensen National Fish Decoy Contests, The NFDA National Fish Decoy Contests, The Casey Edwards National Gunning Bird Contests, a the World Cup of Fish Decoys, The World Cup of Duck Decoys, plus we play host to the Texas World Championships of Fish Decoys, and the P.A. Keystone World Championships.
This is worth coming to see!
The Gathering is held every April in Perham, www.perham.com.
This is the show to learn about fish decoys and more importantly, to meet the carvers in person. Not all carvers set up at the show, some only attend to enter the competition. The contest fills an entire gym area at the Perham Area Community Center. Most years we see about 400 entries.
The NFDA believes that recognition is a big part of our industry. The contests are so large that by the time the judges finish and the gals in the back room compile all the results and fill out over 200 awards, it is evening and the show closes. So everyone heads over to The Cactus, our local supper club and banquet center, for the annual NFDA Awards Banquet. We always have a good meal, hand out about 50 door prizes, and then start the awards part of the show. For each carving class we recognize the top 5 carvers and bring them up front to receive their award, so when we have 60 classes that’s a lot of awards and recognition. We also feature Best of Show carver awards at the end of the evening. The Gathering show is a big fund raiser for the NFDA. We usually have 6 tables of silent auction items for each day, plus gun raffles and many times special decoy or fish decoy clock raffles. Usually we feature these of our Facebook page.
