Great read on duck hunting

[westkybanded]

For the Love of Trash Ducks | Realtree ®

I've never gotten the whole mallard-only thing.

 

[Jst1mr]

All y'all flooded timber mallard plunkers would surely go home with an empty bag after encountering big water canvasback hunting...

 

[Cyrano]

I'd go home with an empty bag no matter what the game was; I can't hit anything with a shotgun. Once I tried a SXS on targets thrown from one of those machines, going straight away. Shot up a whole box of ammo; one clay pigeon was unlucky enough to wander into the edge of my pattern.

 

[WHO CARES]

I'm with Jst1mr - Divers are where it's at with duck hunting!

Mallards are nice especially the big Northern ones with the curly tail feathers and the nice bright colors to the drakes - very pretty in pictures for the desk. But they come into the decoys like a helicopter. Just take your quail or grouse gun and shoot from the hip and you'll likely hit one just hovering there.....

Now divers - anyone seriously hunted them will attest that they come into the decoys like a squadron of fighter jets on an attack mission! If for any reason they don't like what they see on their approach they just do a fly-by at full speed. The wing noise even a small flock of divers can make going over you head at reasonably close range is something to remember. Mallards go quack, quack, splash.

When it's been legal to shoot Canvasbacks I used to weigh them on my Dad's commercial scale and I never weighed a Can that was under three pounds. I never weighed a wild Mallard that made it to three pounds.

So you see Mallards are much easier to hit so the "hunter" can sit in the blind and probably get a duck now and then without much shooting skill!

Now if that don't get you puddle duck hunters going......

Ward

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Mallards are cool, but as everyone else has them, I prize my dead bird mount of that big bull canvasback and the widgeon in full plumage a lot more. My next trophy I'm looking for is a nice full plumage redhead drake.
Spoonies have got to be the dumbest duck around. I can't tell how many times 3-4 fly by we shoot one and the rest circle back to see what's going on. Plus they die "ugly" they don't fold up nicely like a mallard-they kinda go "Gaaaaakkkk" and die all spazzed out.
We call them "hair lip mallards" or "smiling mallards" down here

 

[WHO CARES]

Buffleheads can be like that too, they come in and the guns fire and a couple drop and the others take a quick swing around and come right back in - would sometimes try to sit right with the recently deceased. They are such a small duck and so darn pretty all formally dressed in black and white, frequently we'd pass on them and just watch. Wasn't much there to eat anyway.

Redheads are a neat diver - the earliest diver flights we usually see here in Minnesota are redheads. Nice big birds and very tasty too!

Ward

 

[Jst1mr]

See, Caj...since us folk way up here don't shoot them nasty spoonies, they never get an education befor they show up at your blind. Redheads are awesome, usually limited to one around here, here and gone in a hurry! But how about those late flocks of northern bluebills, when you're half frozen, there's ice on the dekes, the lab, and the bottom of the boat - suddenly, 50-60 'bills fall out of a high altitude formation and do a high speed flyby- catching you flat-footed with your thermos in hand instead of the A5...

 

[WHO CARES]

Man, what a neat flashback - a wave of bills coming up the stringer and bearing in on the spread with the leaders putting their feet down...

I've chased some big flocks of northern mallards around the corn stubble, and it is fun, but they just don't compare.

Most of our spoonbills get started on their migration about the same time our season opens so I doubt many are shot here. So see, we raise them and then send them down to you in the warmer climates!

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Problem with the Blue Bills (we call them Dos Gris down here) is we don't see them until very late in the season. There is nothing prettier than a full winter plumage drake Dos Gris-well maybe a can....or a RedHead. But the only reason I even have diver shooting is we have a BIG pond. Most of the broken marsh we get the pudle ducks and them it's teal greys and a smattering of widgeon and if we're lucky Pintail. Sometimes if we're REAL lucky, a deer on the levee tries to attack us and we are forced to shoot in self defense-that happens about every other year.The Mallards are late flyers and we're usually out of the marsh and off to work by the time they start to fly (abound 8:30). Hell, I like shooting them all.
Dammit-you guys have got my blood flowing now-I DO love shooting Le Canards.

 

[westkybanded]

I'd just about rather shoot ducks than eat pork, and that's saying ALOT.

If I'm shooting ducks, and have my druthers about what kind, it's gonna be bluebills over decoys every time.

 

[Cyrano]

To hear you guys talk, it makes me wish I could hit something with a shotgun.

 

[ia1727]

AHHHHHH--forget about Woodies ? They come in like a Lear Jet and leave like a rocket.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

To hear you guys talk, it makes me wish I could hit something with a shotgun.

Let them land on the water first. shoot them while they're swimming to get that lead thing down and then progress from there. Soon you'll be a pro.

 

[John Eilertson]

I'll typically shoot anything except cormorants or mergansers, but those that we call "trash ducks" will often as not become "Duckeroni." And, yes, I'll take the occasional coot, cuz sometimes nothing's flying, besides which, I don't mind the flavor. (Getting them to fly isn't always easy.) I still kick myself, cuz a buddy and I used to hunt an area where we'd get wood ducks sometimes, and I never had one mounted. Haven't had a shot at one in years, now. All that aside, I love duck hunting and will knock down almost anything legal. Usually over dekes, but jump shooting every so often. Let me finish by saying how happy I am that the steel shot has become SO much more effective than that garbage we were forced to use when it first became the only kind allowed.