Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Duck hunting decline

I see two reasons why hunter numbers are decreasing.
From my experience most hunters nowadays do not want to put in the work required to successfully hunt ducks. They do not want to get up well before dawn and get the deeke's set up and take them in when done. Duck hunting involves a lot of work and money.

The second reason is that hunters are tired of the lies that the government and DU has been putting out about duck numbers. The migration is never close to what they predict. I'm sure the numbers are good down south but the northern Mississippi and Missouri flyway do not get the migrations like they say they will.

Add up lots of work and money and low bird numbers and anyone but die hard duck hunters will find other things to do.

I don't hunt ducks often anymore and I miss it some. I have fond memories of cold foggy mornings,sitting in a duck blind waiting for shooting light and listening to the sounds of wings and the whistling sounds the pintail ducks made as they glided over our pond. Buck (my lab) and I spent a lot of great mornings together.

Yep, acorn fed woodies are the best. Im going to try that recipe, Steel.

Also, try peeling the meat off the breast bone, skin, slice 1/2 inch fillets across the grain and roll in flour and chicken fry. Tastes similar to fried back strap.
I sometimes gut the bird, put in a plastic bag for a week in the fridge if its not cold enough to hang outside a few days. Tender.
I can grill those 2 skinned breast pieces on the grill, marinated or not. Same with dark geese.

Scroll down to easy duck strips. I love cooking wood ducks like this. and it can't be any easier.

https://www.realtree.com/waterfowl-hunting/articles/duck-dinner-in-30-minutes

Duck is great table fare when not over cooked. As stated anything past medium rare is over cooked. Whole ducks barbecued or duck breast marinated and wrapped in bacon. Good stuff.

All we ever do is breast them out, thrown it in a frying pan with butter blazing hot, cook until it stops bleeding, then eat it with some rice and berry jelly. My kids love it.

Blue wing teal are the best IMO.

Another vote for woodies. Best duck EVER!

I love it when you pick up a wood duck and it's gizzard feels like a sack full of marbles with all the acorns in it.

I do believe some of my biggest adventures revolved around chasing ducks. From sunk boats, near sunk boats, taking the wrong fork in a river and having to portage the boat about every 100 yards, damn near frozen to death and duck plucking gals in south Louisiana with the clap.

friend of mine, nicknamed "duck" claims the only way to cook duck is at 500 degrees for 15 minutes.says its the best way he has found in 50 years of duck hunting.

" damn near frozen to death and duck plucking gals in south Louisiana with the clap."

That sounds like quite an adventure, steelhead! Did you say "duck plucking gals" or, "duck [bleep] gals?"
How did these gals get the clap? How did you learn that they had the clap?

I gave duck hunting when I lost my spot on the Animas River. About 200 yards up river they built a million $ home. I gave up DU a few years after that. DU hasn't forgotten me--I get an invitation to the banquet every year.

Love to eat duck. The whole regulatory rigemarole "tap dance on your left foot, clap with your right hand, get a permission slip from your first grade teacher and a recommendation from your HOA presidents wife" thing isn't worth it. Never did figure it out.

That and getting up in the cold and dark and freezing your tukus off.....

I can easily understand the decline in duck hunter numbers. In the 70's, I was the most avid duck hunter on the North American Continent. During the season, I was out there every opportunity I had. I bought all the gear, went to all the great duck hunting states, joined DU, went to banquets, sold raffle tickets, etc. Then came the push for banning lead shot. Suddenly the price of everything started going up. A box of 10 shells cost as much as a box of 25 did previously. States got into issuing duck stamps. Price of gasoline skyrocketed. Autoloading shotguns started going for around 1K. Well, you get the picture. Then came the move to "points" instead of a bag limit, all of a sudden I needed a calculator to determine how many ducks I could kill. Duck hunting became a bureaucratic hassle that I would just as soon avoid. No wonder kids just aren't into it, it takes a genius to figure out how to duck hunt without going broke or running afoul of the law. (Pun intended)

So now I am a deer and squirrel hunter. I can do it on state wildlife management areas, and since I have a lifetime license, the cost for that is not and issue. I can pursue my chosen game with a cheap bolt action rifle (either 22 LR or 30-06). I don't have to travel out of state because my state has one of the longest seasons in the US of A. I don't have to invest in premium ammo mandated by some government agency, and, I don't have to buy a special stamp and affix it to my hunting license.

I must say, one of my Georgia duck hunting buddies moved up to South Dakota. Up there, he started hunting Canada Geese.
I don't know if they had wood ducks up there, or what the deal was, like I said I don't know Jack about shotgun hunting.
But I went up and visited Dwight back in 2000, and he had nailed a couple of Canada Geese.

His wife cut them up into chunks and deep fried them, and served them up. About 5 pounds of Geese McNuggets sitting on that platter.
Damn, was that some good food! Had some honey-mustard sauce, good Lord was that good eating.
Plus, a goose has ten times the meat of a little wood duck.

My buddy cooks all his geese like that.

I have no problem killing ducks with cheap steel. I rarely spend over 100 bucks a case on shells, unless it's 10 gauge

A stamp is 25 bucks and one of the best habitat funding investments anyone can do.


We seem to have s growing population of waterfowlers here, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

They don't know the tradutions, and spend way too much on designer facepaint.

But nothing beats a cold wind driven day watching over 3-400 diver decoys. On the big water

Unless it'swoodies dropping into a swamp on top of your blocks

I love to hunt 'em. I love to hunt them more now that I have a hunting partner who has a layout boat and a dog. No more daredevil retrieves in icy waters for me.

# 2 Fasteel isn't very expensive, yet worth every penny.

Puddle ducks are fine table fare, most folks overcook the crap out of them. YMMV.

Easiest has to be boning them out and grinding them, taco tuesday every week here.

Would be interested in some good goose recipes, they are thick here....

^^^This.^^^ Overcooked duck is tough as leather. Rare to medium rare is about perfect.

Flash fry at high heat, grill with bacon, marinated and grilled for fajitas, slow cooked for pulled duck bbq, plucked and roasted with wine and wild rice, even duck jerky or sausage sticks. Gumbo made with divers is a treat after a cold wet day in a duck blind.