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Can you guys tell a difference in the meat of divers vs puddle ducks?

yes. fish ducks are ineatable.

My take as well. Gumbo maybe?

Yes. Divers - stuff like canvasbacks, redheads, ringbills, and such are a little more liver-y than puddle ducks. They're still good, but not as mild as a good, young mallard drake or woodie that is fattened up on acorns.

Absolutely
That said, divers need to brine a bit before gumbo. There is NOTHING better than an early fall puddle duck that has not stored a bunch of lactic acid in muscle tissue from flying. The birds we shoot in Canada/Dakotas taste more like prime beef than they do waterfowl.
The birds I shoot here in SC in Dec/Jan taste like ducks... good but not great.

If cooked in the skillet or on the grill, yes.. i usually throw em in a gumbo mixed up with other ducks and i cant tell one from the other

In the past when I shot more divers, I would set them aside for mixing in the next batch of smoked sausage. In that manner they become indistinguishable.

Hell, I can make merganser or coot taste good by way of a snack stick… but I rarely shoot them anymore.

Coastal LA, it amazes me how the ducks (puddlers and divers) taste sooo much better than my local birds….more like the ducks we kill in Canada. Not sure if it’s the feed, but they don’t seem to have the lactic build up. Maybe they loaf there for long enough?

Okay, then my memory is correct. Growing up we mostly shot divers, and I thought they were the nastiest thing I've ever eaten. After I got married, someone told me to cook ducks just til medium rare, and they tasted great, but they were puddle ducks.

So I didn't know if it was how my mom cooked them, or if it was just the different types of duck tasted different.

It came up this year cause a new place I'm hunting has mostly divers, and I didn't feel like shooting them since I remember how horrible they were.

^^^^typically, yes. However, I’d take a coastal LA diver (especially a canvasback) over a TN/MS/OH Valley puddle duck, any day. I know….flies in the face of most of my life duck hunting, but if the divers are eating straight grain for a month or more, maybe that’s it?

You canABSOLUTELY RUIN a duck by overcooking. I love them and will not eat one that is overcooked... Rare/med rare and let REST before consuming... just like good beef.

Soak the breasts covered in milk or buttermilk overnight in a Tupperware container. It changes the protein that gives the meat the liver flavor.

Canvas backs and redheads have never been fishy to me. I throw them in bags with puddle ducks when cleaning.

Just cook it rare.

I'll have to shoot a few and try it next year.

The Canvasback is regarded as a regal duck. Big, pretty and good on the table. I think they were the market hunter's prize. I don't see many where I hunt, but wish that I did.

Yep. Cook them fast and hot. I need to try the milk/buttermilk on non-puddle ducks.

Canvasbacks/Redheads eat vegetation not minnows or mollusks.

One of the best meals I have eaten was merganser twirled over a driftwood fire and basted with some sort of lard, probably whale blubber for all I know as it was in what is now called Nunavut.

Of course, this was after spending 45 days canoeing to get there of which 3 days was on pretty meager rations as were were wind bound with an onshore wind keeping us from paddling down Hudson's Bay. An Inuit came by, shot, and prepared a pair of mergansers for us. It was manna from Heaven compared to what we could cobble together from what was left in the backpacks which was mostly dried vegetables and dehydrated deserts.

Back in the market hunting days, canvasbacks were the premier ducks with a price of $2.50 each in a reprint of a price list I saw from one of the major Minnesota migratory lakes years back. Redheads and Mallards were $2.25 each though mallards could dip to $2.00 for some reason I don't recall.

Teal were around $1.50, other puddle ducks (other than widgeon) $1.25, and divers $.75- $1.15 each depending on species and time of year. Herons, egrets, and cranes were also listed but they were less than mallards. I don't recall seeing anything regarding geese, either they weren't desired or they weren't common to the area at the time.

We shoot a lot of redheads here on the south ,TX Gulf Coast - I’ve tried cooking ‘em all the ways mentioned and have given up. Ruined a pot or two of gumbo with ‘em (it was edible, but not near as good as without them nasty things in it). I grew up in NE Ark and mallards and woodies were the majority of what I shot and ate (usually grilled to med rare)… miss those days!

Mississippi puddlers, grilled with a compound butter. Fantastic.