Daughter is addicted to quack

[Karnak]

Finally the biggest financial supporter of Wetlands and Waterfowl Conservation is a group supported by hunters, called Ducks Unlimited. One of the main reasons there exists a really good population of ducks is because of responsible hunter support.

Yup.  Hunters definitely don't want to see the wildlands go away or be destroyed by commercial interests.  Too many environmentalists can't get past the hunting part of it, which is a real shame.

[puller]

I like cooking my either roasted whole on the grill wrapped in foil with butter and peppers and a tad of garlic with some pieces of salt pork in with it as well...and also cut into thin fillets fried in bacon grease (bacon of course makes everything better) but you have to be sure not to cook it too long or it will taste like a fried piece of boot leather...Reading this thread makes me want to go get my duck stamp, my daughter and I busted a big group of mallards off the pond behind our house squirrel hunting Saturday...they were very healthy ducks

[BluBerry]

Beginning of Thanksgiving week in North Texas. Daughter braved the cold pretty well!

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DAY 2: this nice red-head to be mounted

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some good looking birds, nice work. 

[Reaper90]

How do you make duck taste good? I had duck before, it was so oily it tasted like someone had soaked the meat in vegetable oil.

Like has been said, the type of duck and its diet make a big difference. A lot of the duck hunting here in coastal SC is over salt water inlets.... ring necks, bluebills, etc., ducks that spend a lot of their life in salt water and eat a lot of fish.... well, they taste fishy.

Favorite eating birds are mallards and wood ducks, usually shot inland in swamps and on rivers. More of their diet is vegetation, not fish.

Cooking is very important. Get a good wild game cookbook. I have the L.L. Bean Game & Fish cookbook, some awesome recipes. I fixed a couple of roast stuffed mallards one night, covered with a mushroom midera wine sauce.... dynamite. Trick is not to overcook it... Duck isn't like chicken - it's best if cooked medium at most, needs to still be a little red inside. Either that or slow roasted for hours over low heat like you would BBQ. Used to my wife wouldn't even consider eating ducks, now she asks me when I'm doing to go shoot some more.

Canadian geese, now that's another story.... I've had a hard time getting them right, only had a few times cooking them that I was happy with. Oddly the best experience I had was the simplest recipe with the fewest ingredients, and the goose was almost medium rare.

[shotgunneeley]

Neeley you certainly reminded me of a weekend at Maxwell Hall at United Armadillo Movement when we got tired of the cafeteria and there weren't many folks around. 

Dad told me of the time some forestry club members cleaned, butchered and fried up a deer in the dorm room. More recently, someone shot a buck out of the Dean's yard with a bow.

Redneck Level: Daryl Dixon

[Wiley]

Like has been said, the type of duck and its diet make a big difference. A lot of the duck hunting here in coastal SC is over salt water inlets.... ring necks, bluebills, etc., ducks that spend a lot of their life in salt water and eat a lot of fish.... well, they taste fishy.

Favorite eating birds are mallards and wood ducks, usually shot inland in swamps and on rivers. More of their diet is vegetation, not fish.

This.  I'm lucky I live landlocked so our fowl only get grain for the most part.

Canadian geese, now that's another story.... I've had a hard time getting them right, only had a few times cooking them that I was happy with. Oddly the best experience I had was the simplest recipe with the fewest ingredients, and the goose was almost medium rare.

With geese, as far as I'm concerned you throw them in a roasting pan and roast them.  Some of my favorite eating.  In our family, my mother loathed turkey so the holiday meals were generally goose.

Dad told me of the time some forestry club members cleaned, butchered and fried up a deer in the dorm room.

That is a serious amount of awesome in that sentence...

Wiley.

[rogwar]

Dad told me of the time some forestry club members cleaned, butchered and fried up a deer in the dorm room. More recently, someone shot a buck out of the Dean's yard with a bow.

Redneck Level: Daryl Dixon

Yes and occasionally some were culled right from the campus over the weekend under the guidance from the wildlife biology students. Those were crazy, fun times.

[Rich46yo]

Two kinda ducks. Divers and puddlers. Puddle ducks are like these mallards. They pretty much feed on grains and other good stuff while divers feed on fish and all kinda nasty stuff. While Ive had decent divers they generally taste like crap, you hunt them for their beauty,taking only males, or for their sport, its a trip to see a flight of them hit a string of open water dekes. A late season, mature drake diver like a red head, canvasback, bufflehead, is a magnificent mount.

Early season local ducks you can take sitting in a lawnchair with a tuxedo on as long as you dont move. Of course camo is always helpful but movement within the blind is even more important. Just reaching for a shotgun before its time can flair birds. The later the season the more you have to pay attention to all the Ps&Qs. From brushing the blind to your calling, your camo, your decoys, your decoy spread. The dumb ducks have been whacked out and the ones left have been shot at all the way down their migration and they learn quick. They get decoy shy, blind shy, call shy, and just generally dont want to die.

And then there is the duck hunters "promised Land". That late season arctic howler that seems to empty 6 states of ducks right into your blind. Oh what a sight that is to see and it doesnt happen all that often. Good waterfowl hunting is very dependent on weather. Shooting puddlers over dekes calls for #4 or #5 shot depending on the nontoxic loads your using and the gun/choke. No its not really a long range danger, not like shooting a rifle or handgun. Mostly the danger comes from within the blind and good safety measures lessen this.

All this has been covered. Forgive me if a love of water fowling caused me to repeat. Im glad you got to spend blind time with your daughter. Good hunting to you.

Yup.  Hunters definitely don't want to see the wildlands go away or be destroyed by commercial interests.  Too many environmentalists can't get past the hunting part of it, which is a real shame.

Those arent "environmentalists". Envirementalists, the kind who will write a check to preserve a pot hole they will never even see, are almost always hunters. It was the hunters who brought the waterfowl back from the brink.

[mtnman]

Nice job rogwar!  Nice to see you guys were successful, and especially that you're getting your daughter out and excited about the outdoors!

Oh, it's cold out in north Texas?

That's cute. It's starting to feel like spring here in Wisconsin, with a temperature of 12 degrees minus the wind chill.

Ha!  I was thinking the same thing!  Heck, I bet the water doesn't even get stiff down there!

I was down in Arkansas in February, and other than the dull gray and brown appearance of everything it was like winter never even showed up.

It was a bit brisk this last week, eh?  We managed to see deer a good share of the time, but mostly just does and fawns.  Bucks were scarce (west of Oshkosh about 30 miles).

[rogwar]

For you Yankees ya'll probably would have been hunting in shorts and t-shirts in that balmy 29 degree weather.

 

Our brutal weather here is in August as well as hail and tornader season.


Also just a note of interest, many of the banded ducks people report about harvesting on the Texas Hunting Forum in North Texas were banded in Saskatchewan and Ontario, Canada. For any of you that don't know, when you take a banded duck it's good form to report it to the banding agency.

[68valu]

Outstanding!!

Teaching our youth to hunt responsibly and safely is what keeps the sport alive. I have taught and taken my sons hunting from a very young age and both have been successful for deer.

Most of the anti-hunting garbage is propagated by unskilled and ignorant people who are influenced by the biased media's portrayal of a few irresponsible people versus the far greater numbers who safely and humanely harvest the limited number of animals allowed.


                                                                                                       68valu

[Shuffler]

Why would you wear all that camo stuff + camo paint to hunt ducks?

Doesn't that make you more likely to not be seen and possibly in danger from other hunters?

Do ducks have really good eyes when it comes to spotting humans pointing guns at them or something?

You obviously never hunted a thing.

[Lone82]

On this day in 1967, my mother hid her labor contractions from my father so he could go hunt the last day of the season.. When he got back... I popped out

[68valu]

On this day in 1967, my mother hid her labor contractions from my father so he could go hunt the last day of the season.. When he got back... I popped out

  To your Mom!! now that is a good wife!


                                                                                                                                             68valu

[RotBaron]

Nice green heads.

Is that your own pond? Great cover around there, seems like you have no shortage...

I miss still water, past few years have all been on a river that has large swings in volume due to rainfall - no dams on the river. Conditions can change over course of just a couple days with weather 100-200miles away.

Congrats to you and your daughter!