When DIY enthusiast Brent Mulholland bought his first 3D printer in December 2022, he had “all sorts of ideas about what I would do with it,” he recalls. “I quickly realized a lot of them weren’t very practical.”
Mulholland wanted to find something to do that could justify his purchase. Shortly before the 2023 sturgeon spearing season, he was out at a small establishment on the east side of Lake Winnebago with his brothers and noticed sturgeon decoys for sale.
“I started thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if I could 3D print one,’” Mulholland says. He looked through 3D print file repositories and didn’t find much, so he started teaching himself the basics of 3D modeling and design.
“I spent mornings before work, tinkering and learning, and I finally came up with a design that I liked. It was aesthetically pleasing, and I printed it,” Mulholland says. Just one problem: It wouldn’t sink. “I had to go back to the drawing board.”
Rather than printing it in a way that allowed him to add material to weight it, the answer was a special design that let the decoy fill with water when submerged.
Mulholland’s wife, Vivian, who is past president of the Fond du Lac Artist Association, suggested he set up a tent at the Fondy Food Truck Festival and Art Fair to sell the new decoys.
“Nobody — not anybody — showed any interest,” he says. That is, except for one person who had stopped at the tent before the event, picked up a decoy and laughed at how light it was.
“People are so used to the traditional decoys weighing, you know, five or six pounds because they’re full of lead,” he says. “So that discouraged me. I’m like, ‘You know what? I believe in the idea, but I don’t think people are going to buy it,’ and I kind of just shelved it.”
But early in 2025, a co‑worker noticed a small decoy Mulholland had hanging from his rearview mirror. When he found out Mulholland made it himself, he asked about full‑size ones.
Mulholland reactivated his BM Decoy LLC Facebook page and put a few on Marketplace, and the decoys sold within a few hours.
“I released the glow‑in‑the‑dark one four days later, and I had to buy a second printer,” Mulholland says.
Now, Mulholland, who by day is a team lead for wastewater at MEC (Mayville Engineering Company), estimates he’s made somewhere between 400 or 500 of the “world’s first and finest 3D printed sturgeon spearing decoys.”
Mulholland still sells through Facebook, as well as his website, and keeps a stock of decoys in a number of bars around Lake Winnebago, as well as River Haus Bait, Tackle & Gifts.
The decoys work because sturgeon are curious and seem attracted by different shapes and colors — in fact, one of the popular decoys used by anglers is simply a coffee mug, Mulholland says. They’re also used to help orient underwater cameras and to judge the size of fish.
In April 2025, a customer suggested Mulholland 3D print glow‑in‑the‑dark mugs. It had crossed his mind but because people can buy a white mug at a thrift store for 50 cents, he thought “I can’t really ask $25 or $30 for a plastic mug that you can’t drink out of.”
But he went for it. “People went nuts for them,” he says. When other people copied the idea, Mulholland decided to differentiate his with a screw‑in lid with a screen at the bottom to include chum to attract sturgeon.
His flagship decoy is a white sturgeon with a red head and tricolor spots, resembling a package of Wonderbread, which a customer requested and others loved.
Wisconsin bowhunter Brian Inda reached out and ordered three 17‑inch models for himself, his brother and a friend. “And then the first text message I got opening morning of spearing in 2026 was [from Inda saying] ‘My brother got one, it came right to your decoy, and it’s almost 150 pounds’.”
One customer ordered eight sturgeon decoys for her family to paint together around Christmastime and use as décor, Mulholland says.
Mulholland says he has the most fun connecting with customers.
“It’s probably my favorite part, because people get excited about [the decoys], and then I get to talk sturgeon with all these different people and hear all sorts of cool stories.”
On the web: Find BM Decoy LLC on Facebook, Instagram and at bmdecoy.com.
