About

Havre de Grace Decoy Museum, Havre de Grace, MD

The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum is hosting the 44th Annual Decoy & Wildlife Art Festival. The dates for the Festival are May 2 & 3, 2026. This year's Festival will again be held at the STAR Centre, 700 Congress Avenue, Havre de Grace, MD. We welcome Chad Tragakis (Springfield, VA) as the Honorary Chairman for the 2026 Festival. The show hours are Saturday (May 2) 9:00 am- 5:00 pm and Sunday (May 3) 9:00 am- 3:00 pm. 

Located on the banks of the historic Susquehanna Flats, the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum houses one of the finest collections of working and decorative Chesapeake Bay decoys ever assembled. The museum was established in 1986 as a private, non-profit institution existing to preserve the historical and cultural legacy of waterfowling and decoy making on the Chesapeake Bay.

Decoys have been a central element of Chesapeake culture for centuries. In the beginning, they were made for one purpose — to lure waterfowl within range of the hunter's shotgun. Decoys were simple, utilitarian representations of ducks and geese rough-hewn from wood. No one considered them art. Today, decoys lure far more people than waterfowl. One is perhaps more likely to find a decoy adorning a collector's mantelpiece than floating in a hunter's rig. Contemporary carvers produce sophisticated works of art with century-old skills that have been passed down from master to apprentice for generations.

We invite you to visit the Decoy Museum to discover the art of decoy making and the waterfowling traditions that truly make Havre de Grace the “Decoy Capital of the World!”