Took out my '73 Lund duck boat this morning to hunt an island on the mighty Merrimac. Haven't hunted this rig in maybe ten years. Four minutes into shooting light, give or take, we had a limit of mallards down, all drakes. This year 2 bird per man limit, of which only one may be a hen.

To say my mentee was excited would be a gross understatement. Who shot what will not be specifically addressed here, but Nick is having one of the greenheads mounted.

I used to have a killer blind set up on the boat, and the thing would literally disappear when set up, but due to abuse and lack of care, I tore the blind off a couple years back and sort of took the rig out of rotation. I had so much fun running it today, I'm committed to rigging it up proper for next season for sure. Right after I do the other three duck boats I've been threatening to do!

Over my two labs I put Nick on his first game critters earlier this fall, a pair of stocked rooster pheasant. I posted a couple of pics here back a while. His enthusiasm and happiness when afield tempers his constant missteps and, well, rather annoying greenhorn ways. All good though. As I've said to him, 'Not for nothing, but please understand you're getting something that I and many others never had--that is to say, someone to show you how to hunt and what to do, and maybe more important, what *not* to do. All I ask is that some day, you pay it forward. Agreed?' He promised that he'd hold up his end. I trust he follows through.

Anyway, ten days ago or so it was 3F with a -10 windchill. Today, locally it hit 67F. Good news is that the recent cold brought birds down in very good numbers. Great news is that the current mild weather should keep them here for awhile. Migrating big ducks are in, as are several flavors of divers and Canadas. Both inland and coastal are open through the end of the season. Brant and sea ducks are wide open too.

A couple of pics. Back at it tomorrow, and the next day. And the next. And the next.

I know there are some duckmen here. Love to hear what others are seeing. JeffP? Oregon, Washington and CA boys? DelMarVa crew? TX and Coonass gang? Love to see some pics and hear what's going on in other flyways.

Anyway, long live the waterfowlers who live to chase them, and all of their old school gear. If I can find them, I'll post up some shots I took years ago of some very cool, very old and very special, purpose built (for market gunning) duck boats that a friend owns.

You're going to cook them now, right? And share the photos?

Found them.

Joppa Flats sneak boat/sculler. Out of Newbury, MA.

Very well done my man. I hope you teach that damn kid how to cook!

Great story telling. That A390 looks fantastic.

Damn, I need to call the other Geoff.

Love those boats. I’m a sucker for little boats if they fill a niche. Yours does. While tooling down the road we often pass a little boat in a roadside sale. My wife reflexively grabs the truck’s “Oh Sheet” handle ‘cause she knows I’m hittin the brakes. Doubly so if it shows duck boat potential. I’m sure it’s a mental disorder but I’ve not been diagnosed. I guess there’s worse problems a guy could have. 🤔

Well done, KG. The migration is on here on the Pacific flyway. Ducks and geese and swans everywhere.

I don't hunt ducks much anymore but I do like hunting and eating Speckle Bellies. Delicious.

Thank you, sir. I like a man who knows his shotguns.

Cool sneak boat, thanks for sharing. Used to have a copy of an old book about sneak boats, punt guns and market gunners. Loaned it out and the guys lab pup chewed the cover off. It was never replaced.

Pretty sure this was it.

https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Gunner-Harry-M-Walsh/dp/0870336096

My buddy lives with us, actually he lives in his 32 foot 5th wheel that’s parked in my RV parking and when he’s not working he’s duck hunting. I haven’t gone the last couple of years because as this state continues to screw sportsmen over and bringing birdwatchers, liberals and faqs into the ever decreasing hunting areas the amount of “trouble” is increasing. My bud has had words with effeminate cucks and old white haired liberals that would have gone different had I been there. I go hunting to get away from dickheads not find them in greater concentrations. My temperament and those dipshits crapping on my hunting area and my day would have been in for a hell of a lot more than what they got from my bud, he’s a pretty nice guy and he’s far more patient with losers than I am.

He went out Christmas morning with another friend and they had 10 birds in 2 hours. I don’t think he takes many pictures and none of the birds from Christmas but he said they got mostly mallards, a Goldeneye and a crested Merganser. Our friend loves Mergansers and buffleheads for eating which is great since he’s welcome to ours. Saw some Harlequins down the street at the little boat launch the other day, there has been a decent return of Pintails these past couple years and the damn snow geese turn the local agricultural fields white with their incredible numbers. A couple months ago we were outside when a flock of geese flew over. I called them early and said they were Brant but my buddy disagreed because of the size of the flock but when they were overhead it was clear that they were Brant…the biggest gaggle we’ve ever seen of Brant and Brant alone.

I’m in Alaska mode now and I plan on being up there almost every month this coming year and getting to work on the cabins and the shop. I’ll get back into waterfowl hunting once I’m up there and away from the dipshits.

Nice job Kamo on a quick limit of mallards and I like that sneak boat. We have a lot of shallow tidewater which makes those sneak boats very useful and effective. 👍🏼

Yeah, well, I have my work cut out for me on that one.





He proudly texted me these shots and asked, 'how'd I do?' I responded with, 'say, looking pretty good but what's the story with the feet?'

His reply? 'I forgot about those!'

My hopes are pretty low, but we'll see....

Nice job.

Dude,

he's got most the feathers off at least.


Glad you're around to post this stuff, and even gladder there are still guys like you to take a novice duck hunting.

Reckon you dont have to eat the feets if you dont want to?


Probably nothing wrong with them though.

Hey now! Thanks for that. Looks like a great read. Back in the day, to be sure some of the 'market gunners' were little more than wild game pirates/privateers. In some ways I fully support their old efforts. I'm no poacher, but if it ever came to 'illegally' taking game vs. feeding a family, well, prepare to die, bird!

Whack those feet off and take a propane torch to it to burn off the residual feathers and it's ready to go clean as a whistle.

Attaboy'! You're welcome in my boat/blind anytime, brother.

I’ve always just carved out the meat. Fugg plucking them. Great boat and congrats on the ducks.

Hey Aces. Thanks for the sharing and your bud sounds like he qualifies for the 'serious about killing birds kind of guy' club.

I might be ignorant, but the three flavors of mergansers/sawbills/fish ducks I'm familiar with are the hooded, red-breasted and common. Never heard of a 'crested'.

Thanks for the chiming in on the thread and in any event, best regards to you and yours.

What exactly does the weeping Ginzo playing the Wounded Knee 'victim' have to do with this thread?

Maybe I wanna get invited to go duck hunting sometime.......


Not that I have the money to go...but it would be nice to be asked.

I never woulda thought sculling would be that efficient, the guy was moving along pretty good. Cool boat 😎

To put things in perspective, it’s the bird dweebs in the American Ornithological Society ( formerly the AOU) who choose the “official” English names of our North American birds, more specifically the North American Classification Committee (NACC).

Some of these people will be pretty hard core but I’d guess most voted for Biden and prob’ly only one or two have been in a duck boat.

The hooded does have a serious crest going on, maybe it’s that one.

Kamo….it is the hooded Merganser. My bud calls them crested and I’d always screw with him and his somewhat made up names…the “crested” is “Tim speak” for hooded merganser. He’s going to laugh his ass off at me when I tell him that he’s got me calling the damn things “crested”. They’re a beautiful bird, as you know, and it’s one of the the first “ducks” I dropped on my first duck hunt 42 years ago and ever since I’ve had a soft spot for them.

Thanks Birdie and you’re correct that the “crested” is the hooded.

Those boards look like they would get the job done but I could never enjoy one, Same with a kayak..... If my legs are straight I am laying in my back. I have no flexibility that allows me to sit up with my legs straight out in front of me. To many injuries in my youth.

Glad you had an opportunity to take the old girl out again!

You definitely live the outdoors life most can only dream of👍🏻

Thought if you the other day, made the news here in Michigan, a huge flock of ducks were on the water, just off the Big Mack bridge, folks thought it was a oil slick at first. Part of the flock was a group of 6,000 Red Heads, said to be the largest flock of them ever. Happy Hunting

Merganser and cormorant both have three syllables... just chance?

Kamo gari: Thanks for sharing your photos and the story of your Hunt!
Great job there.
I try to get out at least once a year to Hunt Ducks and Geese - over decoys in fields. But on rare occasion we jump shoot Mallards from spring creeks (they never freeze up).
This year we are allowed to harvest 7 (seven!) Mallards (only 2 can be hens) a day and the "dark Geese" limit was raised to 5 (five) this year and the Snow Geese bag limit is 20 (twenty).
Two years ago I put in for one of the 500 Swan permits they give out here in the Pacific Flyway of Montana and was drawn for it - but alas I could NOT bring myself to go bonk one!
Due to the early and profound cold here this winter most all of the migrating waterfowl have long since left here - passed over us.
Thanks again for the great photos.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: I meant to add/inquire - is there a shortage of Mallards this year in your area or are the limits always this low?

Got it and thanks for sharing. Only had an hour or so for this morning outing, and today's sunrise was worth the price of admission, but also had a few run-ins with these pretty fellers (common merganser drakes). One looks like he'll make the cut, as it were, and join the birds already here in the cases after a time with my bird guy. I'll just need the RB now for the complete merg set. The other two are going to a bud for training with his new male Chessie pup.





V-Fingers, yes sir. We used to have a four bird limit on mallards (w/2 hens) until two years ago when they chopped it in half due to dropping mallard numbers. Good news is that they doubled our black ducks from one to two. Total daily bag--if you could limit on everything open-- is six ducks total with a pretty wide variety of species, with certain restrictions. Also in regular season daily bag we can take two Canada geese, three brant, six sea ducks, fifteen snow and blue geese. Also in early season we can hunt snipe and two types of rails. MA and New England in general is not seen as a bird hunter's destination, but I love the variety. One year I took 23 species of waterfowl here (insert Gump and his box of chocolates line here). One of these days I'm going to get after a swan. Thinking maybe NC.

Thanks to you boys who commented. There's something so special about hunting stuff, especially so with older stuff, and all the memories that they help make with we hunters.

Article on declining eastern mallard numbers below. Unsure of publication date. To be honest, I'm just not seeing the decline that is cited, but if it is to actually benefit them, I'm in. Just have to hunt twice as many days to get my greenheads.

https://www.ducks.org/conservation/...erfowl-whats-wrong-with-eastern-mallards



Understanding Waterfowl: What's Wrong with Eastern Mallards?

Declining numbers of this popular species will likely result in changes to hunting regulations in the Atlantic Flyway
© MICHAELFURTMAN.COM
By John M. Coluccy, Ph.D.

The mallard is far and away North America's most abundant duck, and this highly adaptable species is found year-round throughout almost the entire continental United States. Historical accounts suggest that breeding mallards were once rare in eastern North America, although they were common seasonal visitors along the Atlantic coast during migration and winter. Today, nearly 1 million mallards breed in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, but surveys indicate that this population has been declining in recent years.

How did mallards gain a foothold in the East? During the 20th century, millions of captive-reared mallards were released in eastern states to supplement wild populations. Coupled with changes in habitat conditions caused by farming and urbanization, breeding mallards became well established from the mid-Atlantic states north to New England and across much of eastern Canada. Recent advances in genetic techniques have confirmed that eastern mallards are more closely related to Old World mallards (the source of captive-reared stock) than are their counterparts in other flyways.

The Status of Mallard Populations Overall, continental mallard populations have been doing well. In 2017, breeding mallards in the traditional survey area (including the Prairie Pothole Region, Western Boreal Forest, and other breeding areas) numbered 10.5 million birds (a level 34 percent above the long-term average), and have been trending upward over the long term. Mallards are counted separately in the eastern survey area (encompassing eastern Canada and parts of Maine) and in the northeastern United States from Virginia to New Hampshire. Over the past 20 years, this population—which numbered just under 900,000 birds in 2017—has been gradually declining at a rate of about 1 percent per year. While breeding mallard numbers have been largely stable in eastern Canada, they have decreased by about 38 percent in the northeastern United States. Data from the independent Breeding Bird Survey also suggest that breeding mallards have been declining in this region.


If mallards are doing so well continentally, why should we be concerned about the status of the eastern population? To answer this question, we must examine how source populations contribute to the mallard harvest in different areas. This is accomplished by calculating harvest derivation using data from mallards banded on specific breeding areas, band recovery data from mallards harvested in different states, and breeding population data. In the northeastern United States, an estimated 79 percent of the mallards harvested by hunters are produced in that region. In Pennsylvania, 75 percent of harvested mallards are raised in the state, while in New York, 69 percent of harvested mallards are homegrown. As you move south in the Atlantic Flyway, the proportion of locally raised mallards in the harvest decreases. For example, in the mid-Atlantic region only 39 percent of harvested mallards are produced locally, although 72 percent are derived from the eastern mallard population.

Why Are Eastern Mallards Declining?
Waterfowl managers are not sure what has caused the decline of the eastern mallard population. There are many theories, including the loss and degradation of breeding and nonbreeding habitat, lower survival and fitness caused by winter food shortages, and the adverse effects of hybridization between wild birds and released game-farm mallards. But none of these hypotheses have been formally tested.

The size of the annual mallard breeding population is largely influenced by two factors: adult survival and production of young. The long-term decline in eastern mallards suggests that there is a problem with either survival or production, or perhaps both. However, survival estimates from banding data have changed little since the 1990s, when the population was stable. Over the same period, estimates of mallard production obtained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Parts Collection Survey have not decreased either. This suggests that there might be an issue with the accuracy of one or both of these data sources.

Proposed Changes to Hunting Regulations
Since 2000, the status of the eastern mallard population has been used to set hunting seasons and bag limits for ducks in the Atlantic Flyway. Given that mallards make up only 20 percent or less of the total duck harvest in the flyway, this is no longer considered an optimal strategy. As a result, the Atlantic Flyway Council and USFWS have developed a new approach to harvest management based on the status of four other common species (wood ducks, American green-winged teal, ring-necked ducks, and common goldeneyes). Moving forward, hunting regulations for eastern mallards will be developed like other species that are currently below their population objectives, such as northern pintails and scaup. Based on our current understanding of eastern mallard population dynamics, recent harvest rates for these birds may no longer be sustainable. Consequently, waterfowl managers have recommended a reduction in the mallard bag limit from four birds to two (in the Atlantic Flyway only), beginning in the 2019–2020 waterfowl season. Hen restrictions within the two-bird mallard limit are still being considered. Managers are hopeful that a bag-limit reduction will stabilize the eastern mallard population while a new harvest strategy is developed using the best available science.

Final decisions regarding the change in the mallard bag limit and a new multispecies harvest management approach will be made this fall. The Atlantic Flyway Council will make a final recommendation to the Service Regulations Committee following their September meeting. The USFWS will then make a recommendation to the assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, who makes the final decision on the regulations. (See "How the Seasons Are Set" on page 48 of the printed magazine for more information about this process.)

Assisting the Recovery of Eastern Mallards
A crucial first step toward the recovery of the eastern mallard population is evaluating potential bias in banding and Parts Collection Survey data to help pinpoint the cause or causes of the decline. Specific research can then be conducted to evaluate what's potentially impacting survival or production. If research shows that habitat loss is significantly influencing the decline of eastern mallards, DU will work with our state and federal partners to develop conservation strategies to help stabilize and increase the population.


Dr. John Coluccy is director of conservation planning in DU's Great Lakes/Atlantic Region.

Very cool. Many years ago locally we'd get rafts of scaup in those kinds of numbers. We see very few now. I've read that lack of eel grass, a common forage for them, amongst other food sources, is the culprit.

I can only imagine what it'd have been like to put the sneak on a massive flock of ducks and torching off one of these beasts mounted in the bow...

First geese of the season this evening, a flock of specks (greater white fronted geese) passing overhead, actually cheered 😎😎😎😎

Geese are hit or miss over San Antonio, same thing with Sandhills.

College Station further East, there would be long lines of snows passing overhead against a starry sky, lit up by the city lights below. Spectacular!

Pulling an all-nighter in Grad school in College Station one rainy and windy night, a flock of specks, mistaking the flooded parking lot outside my office window for water, came in below the parking lot lights, touched down briefly before moving on, they were having a tough night.

Funny thing is, never saw geese going north in the spring, just heading south in the fall.

I believe my Alumacraft ducker was built in the early 60's. I love that boat and it will float over wet grass!