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

I also do it that way with no pre-browning.

I'm with you. I could spend the rest of my life hunting ducks in the fall/winter and spring in the turkey and never feel cheated.

Though I do like to flame a deer or two or eats. Deer are groceries to me.

Duck plucking. You know, gals the pluck ducks. There was a group of women that you could drop your ducks off and they'd clean/pluck them for $1.50 a bird. Duck plucking girls.

There ain't a group of women more fun than Cajun women.

Yep!

That's a big part of it. YUGE. Also, if you hunt anything else and actually work for a living, you can't do everything. The thing I cut is duck hunting.

Public hunting areas in Colorado can be pretty bad – overcrowded.
Usually long drives in the wee hours to reach them.
Lotta guys will set up a spread right on top of someone else.
Loose dogs in the dark completely out of control – owners screaming at them.
Late arriving hunters that will not wait for the ducks that are trying to land to walk up on the already set spreads.
The occasional low shots across the water that pepper the guys on the other side. Always results in a shouting match.

I was willing to put up with all of that for years because my dog loved it so much. She lived to fetch. She is gone now and much of my motivation gone with her.
In recent years the few times I’ve ventured out and come home with one or two ducks my wife and I have both commented on how good they tasted and how me missed having more of them to cook.
Nowdays my neighbor is a cornfield so it is pretty easy to pick off an occasional goose without going anywhere. I have a lot less incentive to drive half the night to participate in the circus.

Treat duck like beef and you'll love it. Stroganoff, stew, stir fry, etc. I love it ground up and used for chilli, lasagna, burritos, you name it.

And duck hunting doesn't have to be expensive. If you do your homework with scouting, you can find the birds and avoid the other hunters. Used decoys are everywhere, waders are probably the second biggest expense after the gun.

Love it, love it, love it. And so do the daughters.

Duck hunting has gotten outrageously expensive and that has lead to the decline in access. Those living in the south know that there are good public spots, but they are so run over with yahoos, it'll drive you out of the chase. To get a good private spot, plan on spending way more than it costs to be an out of state combo tag in MT. And honestly, that would be cheap on a mediocre field.

I am lucky to be a member in a longtime club where I'm in a group of guys who hate 'em as bad as I do. I personally try to hunt 20 days of the season, that's getting harder and harder to do, but I will always skip sleep to go kill ducks. 12 AM leave times on Saturday morning to drive 4 hours and get there for shooting time is the norm.

My family of five has eaten over 200 ducks since last season closed. If you don't want to eat it, don't shoot 'em and leave 'em for us.

I kill my share of big game too (those ducks don't last long) and if you have any ability to cook vension, you should be able to properly cook duck meat.

I just walk up to the tank and shoot them when they get over hard ground.




Dave

I've heard stories of American outfitters going up to Canada and trying to lock locals out of their areas. Shame so many dickhead want to ruin it for the rest of us.

I've hunted Saskatchewan afew times on a friend's farm for snows and ducks. What a blast to see thousands of geese and ducks a day. You really are blessed up north with great hunting and fishing

Heading up to Viking Alberta next month to hunt another friend's farm. Have not been there yet but hear recently from him that they are harvesting now and expect a really good year

cant beat the good folks up north

If I'm hunting with anyone, I'll be glad to take a few ducks home if they don't want em. Taken care of properly they are real hard to beat. The few I get here are northern mallards for the most part, corn fed.

I used to hunt ducks a lot, when I lived in northern Alberta. But my ex-wife didn't care for the taste of duck and loved pheasant, so I gravitated to pheasant hunting instead. I still hunted ducks a lot, some over dekes, but mostly jump shooting prairie creeks and sloughs. More than once I've walked up to a dugout slough and killed a limit of flushing mallards with 2 shots. Not my chosen hunting method, but you take what Ma Nature gives you and don't ask questions!

I agree, the equipment list and workload for good decoy hunting is mor than for a lot of other sports, but it's worth it. I don't mind the extra money I spend on non-toxic shot because I don't shoot enough of it to be a burden, but if I hunted 20 days a season, it would sure add up. I load my own shells using Ballistic Products ITX shot... the stuff is phenomenally deadly and it allows me to hunt with my old double guns, so it's worth the extra dough for me. I have good duck hunter friends down here on the Gulf Coast now, so I expect to do a lot more duck hunting than I did on the past 15-20 years when I lived in in duck deserts.

I can't abide crowds, so I scout for places that are lightly hunted. Guided hunts are a good way to go, reasonable prices are there for the asking if you look. Here in TX there are a number of good guide outfits in the Panhandle and down here on the coast. Guys who don't blink at paying $5000 to hunt trophy deer will choke at a duck guide charging $500 for a weekend, though. I gu s it takes all kinds.

As for eating... there is no meal finer than roast mallard with wild rice. I grew up eating 'em, and I cook them just like Mom did. Slice up an apple and an onion and an orange, stuff the bird with the fruit, roast 'em for 20 minutes at 450 or so. Meat should be medium rare, and they are self-basting with all that good fat under the crispy skin. Even better, cook them in a covered charcoal grill. Mallard, blacks, pintails, woodies are best. Most of the other puddle ducks are too small to bother plucking, so they get breasted out and I flash fry them in butter with light breading, salt and pepper, and chopped garlic in the melted butter. Gadwall, shoveler, and some of the stronger ducks get brined and marinated, then roasted like mallards. But you have to leave the skin on. Cover them with bacon if you must, but I like duck that tastes like duck, not pig. YMMV.

Plucking gals up in Canada are easy to find at the nearest Hutterite colony. Down here I have yet to find some, but there should be some gals who do that work. Otherwise you can do it yourself if you invest in one of those rubber fingers machines. They work even better if you scald the birds first, but add a few drops of Dawn dish soap to the water to break the seal on the feathers so the hot water can penetrate.

Sheeeeittt!!

There's more people duck hunting than ever. Thanks to duck dynasty every 19 yr old with an LED light bar wants to be a duck hunter.

Went teal hunting this morning ,took 90 year old friend .he has gotten me into a lot of ducks over the years.we did not shoot a thing this morning.Had a good time 15 minutes from house.

Here too. Don't forget the beards...

That was the only way we duck hunted when I was a kid. We have two big stock tanks and a big creek on the old home place Ranch.
And we knew every farmer & rancher for miles around who would let us jump shoot their tanks too. We killed the crap out of them.

I just bought a new Remington Turkey / Duck gun in 12 ga that's Camo with a 21" rem choke barrel the other day. Plan to take a couple of the nephews to do some duck hunting this season. It will be the first time in almost 10 years for me.

Duck Dynasty is a good explanation why my "promotion" of hunting starts and stops with my kids.



Dave

I have had the good fortune to hunt the same piece of property in south Louisiana since 1973. In the past 43 seasons we have seen many changes in the marsh/swamp. We are far enough north to not be effected by coastal erosion, but several hurricanes have created new ponds and filled in old ones. Native trees on a 200 acre portion have died and the area basically turned from swamp to marsh. Back in the late 70's we had an area the ducks would use as a roost. It was great pleasure to watch the mallards pour in right at dark.

Beginning in 2000 we started to see a drop in duck numbers. Since then we have not enjoyed a great season. We have killed some birds, with a couple of years being good, but a lot of years are just plain terrible. I will hunt there until I die but feel the best of our duck hunting is behind us.

We leave for Cold Lake Alberta in a couple of weeks to go duck/goose hunting. This is our fourth consecutive year to go. The duck and goose numbers there are unbelievable. The only bad thing is I cannot hunt with my dogs.

I am lucky if I kill 1 or 2 woodies with an occasional mallard on each outing. There are better places to hunt than where I go but my son and I have the swamp to ourselves. We bring our retriever and have a fun couple of hours. I love watching it barely get light out and hearing "oo-eek, oo-eek" as the woodies streak by. Unless there are bigger ducks around, the best wood duck hunting ends after the first hour or so.

Kinda funny but we have a pond behind the house and I probably saw more woodies there this year than what we killed in the swamp. It is a residential area we we don't hunt it. We put out corn all winter into the summer to keep the ducks there and enjoy them from our kitchen window. After a while, they are trained to swim in and get the corn. I even had them come into the yard and eat scratch with the chickens. Mallards adapt really easy but the wood ducks stay a little shy. I never thought we could feed the woodies like that as shy as they are.

The best part this past year was that 2 different hen mallards had ducklings. I think the woodies did too because the numbers shot up. They all left for parts unknown when the summer came. We look forward to seeing ducks back there every year. It's like watching duck TV from the kitchen window.

I think all you need to bring a dog from the US to Canada is proof of current rabies vaccination. See Canada Regulations

However, I realize that you might not want to transport a dog via plane -- or perhaps it is very expensive?

In any case, hunting with your own dog adds another level of enjoyment, so I hope you can take your dog!

Also, a young dog will get a YUGE amount of experience in a short time there. Just don't shoot any sandhill cranes for your dog to retrieve though -- being stabbed by the bill of a crippled crane will turn most dogs off and they may not want to ever retrieve a bird again! Seriously.

In any case, you will love your trip to Alberta! The folks are very friendly (e.g. BC30cal, DocRocket here on the 'Fire!) and as you say, the goose and duck numbers are off the chart!

Also, these young of the year northern birds haven't been "educated" by hunters yet, so they can sure provide some exciting hunting! When I lived on the Canadian prairies, I got a kick out of calling a flock in, shooting some, then calling the flock back in to shoot some more! I almost felt guilty, but I did like to see that my calling wasn't too bad! <insert evil grin here!>

John