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

My wife will occasionally roast a duck to get duck fat which is amazing. I like both goose and duck when well prepared.


mike r

My timeline of peak numbers and tapering down to close to retirement track with the OP. It’s so rich. Jerky was the method that ended up utilizing the surplus. More tender and finished taste was in line with deer.

100% wrong.

The only gamey deer I've ever had (and I've killed over 70) was a rutted out, sage eating muley.

Ever eat a western wa briar eating buck? I didn’t think so, in my opinion they are far and away the rankest gamiest deer there is hands down. 100% right

Killed truckloads of rutted up Muleys from Alberta, Idaho and Montana, I’ve never had a bad one.

Beav, this post inspired me to throw together a duck/shrimp gumbo. When I say throw together, I've been cooking for a solid 3.5 hours. The wife brought me a beer a few minutes ago, so thought I'd sit down.

The kitchen smells great. I'll have some pics in a bit. Gotta get the shrimp peeled.

Excellent News !

While you’re drinking and before you get hammered, please post a quick recipe for your gumbo.

Wife has been made aware of your other ways to prepare duck. I say this like wifey is the only means I have for getting food on a hot cooking surface....I’m a good cook too. Laffin

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Here's my take on ducks. First, store bought duck and wild duck are 2 different animals on the plate. It's like comparing corn fed beef to wild elk or deer, they're just not the same. Second, duck (and from here on when I refer to duck, it's wild duck, blasted out of the sky) shouldn't be over cooked, medium at the most (same with geese). Third, there's a lot of variation in taste with duck depending on what they've been feeding on. So, lumping them into either "they all taste like sh%t" or "they're the best tasting meat on the planet" isn't really fair. I've had teal that was simply fantastic and also a mallard or 2 that must have been feeding on a cow turd pond that had to be thrown away they smelled so bad. And lastly, if you're going to the trouble of going out to kill them, put them to use. Play with recipes until you find some that work.

My favorite ways to eat ducks and geese are as poppers or breasted and brined then smoked with apple wood and cut thin or jerky or ground up and made into summer sausage and pepperoni sticks. Honestly, I really enjoy hunting waterfowl more than I like eating waterfowl, my wife loves it though so I keep going. And it's good exercise for the dog!

Breast them, fillet them, stuff with jalapenos, pineapple, or whatever your heart desires.
Cook over a hot grill. Eat rare.

Also, a bunch of drumsticks in a crockpot with BBQ sauce is good.

Gumbo

1. make roux. 1/2 cup oil or lard and 1/2 cup flour. Can do on stove top or in oven. Cook till chocolate brown. Not burned, just dark. Takes hours.

2.Mirepoix
Chop 1 green pepper, 1 yellow or red pepper, 6 ribs of Celery and two onions. Need several tbsp of garlic and I like to add a chopped and seeded Jalapeno or two to it.

3. 3/4# of andouille sausage cut into 1/4" rounds. Start sautéing those in a heavy duty Dutch oven. Put about 3/4# duck meat (breasts or legs). Cook all until browned. Remove meat.

Sautee Mirepoix, starting with onion and Celery, when onion is soft and translucent add peppers, garlic and Jalapeno. Sautee until soft. Move pan off heat.

When roux is done, add to Mirepoix and then add 4-5 cups of stock. You want it to thicken, so don't add too much.

Then add meat back, 1/2# of chopped okra, several tbsp of tomato paste and spices. Today, I used paprika, Thyme, marjoram some chopped fresh Parsley salt and black pepper.

Cook another 1-1.5 hours, until thickened. Turn off heat and add 3/4# of shrimp, cover and let residual heat cook shrimp for 8-10 minutes.

Serve over rice with hot sauce and fresh chopped Parsley.

You can use venison, or other seafood too.

I have yet to find a way to make ducks or geese taste "good", and yes......I've had easily a dozen people tell me over the years "you haven't tried my duck jerky, gumbo, hamburger, X, Y, Z", to which I did and I still can't say it was good. Even when ground up and mixed in with deer/elk/whatever grind with bacon and turned into sausage, I could still taste the.......duck.

I largely quit (but not totally) hunting them for multiple reasons beyond taste, though they are fun as hell to shoot.

I truly believe the subjectiveness of taste buds is a huge part of why some people like ducks but hate whitetail, love elk but hate mule deer, etc. I can't tell the difference between any kind of deer, elk or moose, but can for damn sure taste waterfowl's nastiness.

Ha ha.. Tinman a lot of truth right there.... gave up duck & goose hunting 30yrs ago for that exact reason

High 5

Thanks !

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Oh, ok, now you’re gonna make this a West Coast against East Coast, Gangster Challenge. Sorta like I’m Tupac and you’re Biggie Smalls. You know they both died, right ? Laffin

I’m calling you “Smalls” from now on, brother. No more racist trappings from me towards you. You’re just “Smalls” forever.

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The thing about ducks, and geese to some extent, is that one never knows where they've been recently.

Watch them come out of a grain field, or a nice clean marsh somewhere, shoot a couple, and then wonder why they taste like "duck"?

Maybe because the night before they just came off the sewage ponds after a week of feasting there, then they continued their migration and ended up in the neighbor's stubble field, or under the flooded oaks.

I've only killed a couple, ate more that were gifted to me, and they are fine with me. Some folks, my wife for instance, have a strong dislike for them because they taste like liver they say................which is fine by me as I love liver.

I used to laugh at folks telling stories about "only eating nice mallards and teal" and such, because they eat grass and water plants and the like. Then I told them I worked on salmon rivers and streams it was always cool to run across a big old black and white fungussed up post spawn king salmon with a couple of mallards working it over. And the next day those birds might be shot flying over the hay field two miles away.

I hope to get out after some ducks or geese this season, and I will likely eat them and enjoy them..................the dogs never complain about the parts I toss them either.

Good luck Beav. Just realize, if you hunt that trout pond we've discussed, those mallards might taste a bit fishy if they find a nice dead one to mack on!

Found a shot detector at Cabela's last year. Running it over frozen duck breasts showed quite a few missed pellets. It is now a standard step in duck processing. It was cheap, too. Looking to upgrade...

Kodiak mallards typically target salmon redds. Horrible birds! Both flavors of goldeneye are great in the same time and place. Bufflehead, gadwall, redhead, and cans are great.

What Timberrunner said.

Another way for duck and goose breast as done by a buddy at the deer camp:
Marinate breasts in orange juice overnight in a Tupperware container, allow to come to room temperature, dredge In seasoned flour.

Heat an iron skillet very hot and coat the bottom with evoo and a large pat of butter. Sear both sides of breasts and don’t overcook.

Good eating.

Leftover duck/shrimp gumbo.

I've only shot a couple wood ducks. Tasted fine.
Used to blast a fair number of geese in the early season.

My kids think they can cook ( now adults ) so want me to fill the freezer w small game and waterfowl.

I'd eat that..................for sure!

Looks like some straight up culinary skills from TR.

Duck gumbo will be the first attempt at making duck not suck.

Laffin

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