CASPER, Wyo. (AP) -- A light snow fell as the FedEx driver loaded box after box from the home's driveway onto the truck. Tina Jones arrived home, weaved her way through a maze of yet more boxes inside the house, some stacked to the ceiling. Her husband was, as usual, talking on the phone in his office.

Surrounded by decoy parts -- the heads and bodies of ducks and geese -- with more boxes piled behind him, Jim Jones explained to a customer on the phone how his product, the Sillosock decoy, works to lure in geese. With spring snow goose hunting seasons starting, the phone had been ringing off the hook for days.

"Welcome to my world. Take a number," his wife said, giving up on trying to speak to her busy husband.

Jones grew up in Casper and learned to duck hunt from his grandfather. As a youngster, waterfowl hunting and decoy making began as a hobby. By adulthood it had grown into an obsession. Now as a decoy maker and distributor, it's a big-time business. Jones makes and ships duck and goose decoys to waterfowl hunters around the world from his Casper home.

"I've always had this thing about decoys since I was a little kid," he said, turning off his ringing cell phone. "Whenever I bought some new ones, I couldn't leave 'em alone. I'd always try to improve them."

In the mid-1990s, Jones and his business partner, Jim Druliner, invented the Sillosock, a lightweight and portable decoy that's a hybrid between a traditional windsock and silhouette decoy. It's made of Tyvek, a stiff, soft plastic material that holds its shape when the wind isn't blowing. When the wind does blow, it flutters realistically and has earned a reputation in the sporting world for its effectiveness in attracting circling ducks and geese.

It took some time, but in recent years Sillosocks have become a hit among waterfowl hunters. Jones and Druliner's company -- Prairiewind Decoys, based in both Casper and Kansas -- also distributes full-bodied decoys made by other manufacturers, but the hot-selling, portable Sillosock is the cornerstone of their business.

After some "break even" years, the word is out about the Sillosock and the orders are pouring in as fast as they can fill them. Most business comes through word of mouth and the company's Internet sites at www.prairiewinddecoys.com and www.sillosocks.com. Their decoys are also available through big-time sporting distributors such as Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse.

"It's like this thing has taken over. The phone rings at 6 a.m. and doesn't stop until 9 p.m.," Jones said.

The snow goose, or light goose, season is one of the busiest times of the year for Jones. That's when huge flocks of snow geese migrate northward from Texas to the Arctic in late winter and early spring. They're wary birds that are difficult for hunters to call in to a small spread of decoys. Hunters usually have to use hundreds, even thousands, of field decoys to lure them into gun range.

Hauling so many full-sized decoys takes a huge trailer, so hunters have been using portable, lightweight windsock decoys that look like little white flags for decades. Sillosocks are a variation of those models that range from an affordable $35 to $80 a dozen. "You can put 10 dozen of these in a little bag," he said. "Four of us can set up a thousand decoys in 45 minutes."

One thing about snow goose hunters is that they never feel like they have too many decoys, Jones said, which is great for his repeat sales.

"It's kind of like girls with shoes. You can never have enough decoys. It's a sickness. Once you get into waterfowling, you get obsessed with it," Jones said. "I've always said, he who dies with the most decoys wins."

The business started small with Jones and Druliner doing most of the labor themselves.

"We made them here and sewed them in the house, and I hired out to some ladies here in town to do some sewing."

Now the deeks are stitched together by a crew in Kansas. Jones works the sales and customer service, and a lot of the distribution end of things, from his home in Casper.

Sillosocks are all the rage on Internet hunting sites and the talk of the town at trade shows.

The company has grown international. It not only makes duck, snow goose, Canada goose and specklebelly goose decoys for North American hunters. It also ships its custom-made Sillosocks to hunters around the world -- from pigeon hunters in England to pink footed goose hunters in Iceland.

"There are still a lot of people who haven't heard of us, but it's growing," he said. "It's fun. It's not like I have a job. I'm doing something I like. At the end of the day, I feel pretty good."

The next step for the company is to get some storage space. Seriously, the house with its boxes upon boxes stacked to the ceiling is as full as it can get. And the patience of his wife, Tina, is getting thin.

"I'm in the process of getting this stuff out of here to a storage facility so we can have our house back," he said. "We've outgrown it. That's for sure."

Oh yeah, Tina nodded in whole hearted agreement. With a teenager and four dogs at home, she wants her dang house back.

"I'm glad for him that he does what he loves to do for a living," she said. "But I don't know any woman that would tolerate this. I say that with all sincerity, too."

Listen up, Jim. She's dead serious. Time for a warehouse.

Information from: Casper Star-Tribune - Casper, http://www.trib.com