Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ducks...Shooting & Eating Them.

It really depends on many factors or the duck menu and the skill of the cook

Whoa. Nice

I have a friend who Duck Hunts everyday of season. He breasts the ducks and throws the skin and fat away. But he gives me a bunch every year.
I season them with pepper onion and garlic powder. Put them in a ziplock bag and marinate them all day. Last thing I used was.Allegro marinade and it was excellent. Tooth pick some thin bacon around each one.and grill medium rare.
I would eat them once a week happily.

Ducks that have been living on shrimp or minmows are horrible.

Those that are grain or rice or pin oak acorn fed are great.

People would say that about honey if it were made from pistachio pollen.

Pan seared mallard with bourbon butter sauce.

Beaver10;
Top of the morning to you my cyber friend, I hope you all got a wee bit of rain or it's cooled off some or both.

With the understanding that I've personally not shot a duck since the mid '80's, here we go with another story.

Because of the beer flu mess last fall, Canuck outfitters were offering screaming deals to Canucks to come hunting.

Good neighbor across the gully who was also an award winning wine maker has for years used our game pole in the yard here to skin his bucks. I help him if I'm around as frankly I find debarking animals a very satisfying activity, much like digging potatoes or picking beans actually now that I think about it.

Anyways, even though he's always been told he doesn't need to, he'll drop a bottle of wine off afterward and to be honest, I really appreciate it - did I mention he's an award winner???

Because of the outfitter situation, last year he went moose hunting in northern BC and then duck and goose hunting up out of Cold Lake, AB. For the moose hunt, I took most of an afternoon to set up a rifle he'd won at a game banquet and again said he owed me zip/zero/zilch - we've both got German names and understand zilch...

In spite of my protestations, he knows I am an unabashed carnivore Beaver, so he brought over a big boot box containing a bottle of very, very nice red AND here's the part pertaining to your thread - a mixture of the goose sausage they'd made.

They shot so many ducks and snow geese in Alberta that they'd skinned them, filleted off the breasts and made a couple kinds of sausage. I want to say they used pork fat Beaver, it had that creamier texture to the meat like pork has.

They made a chorizo and a smoky, both of which were good, but the smoky honestly I couldn't tell it wasn't say pork or beef. They were great.

There's my suggestion sir, if you get too many waterfowl, make a batch of your favorite sausage!

Hope that was useful and good luck on the hunts.

Dwayne

In my experience , what you do with them depends on the species and time of year. A fat northern mallard deserves only the best by being either grilled or cast iron skilleted, with skin side down (skin still on) to render the fat. Then cooked until rare to medium rare, sliced against the grain and eaten with only salt and pepper to your liking. If you like venison you should like a duck this way. If you have divers, you’d best have one of those “hide the flavor” recipes but they can be palatable. If you don’t like any of those, jalapeños, cream cheese and bacon will get the extended family to gorge on them during the holidays.

One Thanksgiving when I was a kid my mom decided we would have duck instead of turkey. There was a revolt. It's become legend.

I do not like duck so I quit hunting them 30 years ago. Felt bad shooting them for nothing, as I do not have a vendetta against them. If I were starving or dirt poor, I would hunt them...but its much easier to go to the grocery store these days.

Breast em out throw em in the pepperoni/sausage/kielbasa pile with the rank blacktail meat. 👍

Is blacktail gross? I am not much of a fan of eating mulies. Elk or antelope for the win!

k

This is the reason you hunt ducks (and all birds really) anyway. 😁

Ya, hate the stuff. Very much prefer whitetail/muley. Gamey as hell. If I can’t give it away goes in to pepperoni. And ya, elk and antelope for the win for sure. 👍

I concur. The same can be said for geese, IMO.

Sunday Bingo Amen !

Soak the filleted breasts in slightly salty water overnight, lay them out flat and then wrap with bacon and anchor the bacon with toothpicks. You will then have what looks like small fillet mignons. Grill or pan fry to no more them “medium”.
To me, done this way they’re almost like deer backstrap.

Blacktails ain't rank.
Ducks are.

100% spot on.

Stomp em into the marsh and pick up steaks on the way home.