IF I COULD BE REINCARNATED, I’d come back as a used-car salesman,” Ramsey Russell says to me.

It’s 5 a.m., and we’re barreling down a dark highway in Obregon, Mexico. Russell, 53, is explaining how it would be easier to sell used cars than the international waterfowl hunts he deals with in his current gig as a booking agent (though he hates that term). I’m pretty sure he’s only half kidding.

“People go in to buy a car, and they know what they want,” he says. “Me, I’ve got to sell the experience.”

Later that morning, a handful of other writers,  some reps from Benelli, and I enjoy the most epic pintail shoot I’ll ever be a part of. Drakes in their breeding plumage, long sprigs trailing behind, float out of the clear-blue sky and cup into a decoy spread set along a tidal beach. Tucked into a mangrove blind, my hunting partner and I take turns shooting until we have our limits, then we sit back and watch the spectacle of teal, wigeon, pintails, redheads, and shorebirds whip down the shoreline. By the time we get picked up for lunch, we’re sold on the Ramsey Russell experience.

We’re here on the west coast of Mexico hunting wintering ducks thanks to Russell’s connection to Frank Ruiz, an outfitter who turned his family home into a hunting lodge.

Russell sends his clients to outfitters like Ruiz all over the world. Classic wingshooting destinations such as Mexico and Argentina are entry-level trips for Russell’s hunters. Think more exotic: shelducks in Mongolia, garganey in Azerbaijan, barnacle geese in the Netherlands, red-billed teal in South Africa. Russell hunts all of these destinations before he sends clients to them. 

Not all of his trips are  high-volume shoots like the one we experienced in Mexico. On an Alaska king eider hunt, for example, you shoot only a few ducks per day. What all of Russell’s hunts have in common, though, is that they are a blend of adventure travel and species-collecting expedition. 

And the trips are not as expensive as you might think. An average hunt costs about $6,000, which isn’t chump change, but it’s still cheaper than almost any international big-game hunt, Russell reasons on our drive back after the morning shoot. His mission is to create a passion (and a market) for adventure waterfowl hunting. He wants to foster a shift away from the posh international hunt clubs. 

“These are duck hunts for real duck hunters,” Russell says. “You’re not traveling around the world to smoke fat cigars and eat edible art. You’re going to hunt. If you want all that other shit, take your wife to Italy.”

Life Is Short

Like any great outfitter, guide, or booking agent, Russell can cut up with a group of new hunters as if they’re old buddies. He knows that if a hunt isn’t going well and tensions are high, a good joke or witty story can save the day. Over the years, he’s developed an arsenal of quips:

“My favorite duck is the next one over the decoys”—for when pintails aren’t working, but shovelers are dive-bombing into the decoys. 

“I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong”—for defusing an argument with a client.

“It’s like walking through the pages of National Geographic with a shotgun”—for selling the idea of a hunt in a far-flung destination.

Russell was born in Mississippi, where his grandpa taught him to love hunting and fishing. He was tagging along on dove hunts at 8 years old. Soon enough, he was immersed in the world of duck hunting Mississippi River backwaters. Then, when he was 15, Russell was nearly killed in a freak accident. He was cleaning a paintbrush with gasoline when a water-heater pilot light caught the fumes and erupted in a fiery explosion. Russell suffered second– and third-degree burns on three-quarters of his body, but he beat the 8 percent chance of survival the doctors gave him.

Most of us save the concept of “bucket-list trips” for the twilight of our hunting career. We’re only willing to roll the dice once we acknowledge that time is running out. But Russell faced his own mortality when he was a kid. During a long, torturous recovery, the teenager forged a saying that became his personal creed and would later become his business slogan: “Life is short, get ducks.”

Eventually, Russell earned a forestry degree and landed a job with the federal government. When he worked up enough scratch, he started traveling to hunt waterfowl in Canada and Argentina. He made his first international trip to Saskatchewan in 1998. 

Russell has the ideal temperament to captain a crew of duck hunters. He’s intense enough to make sure everyone brings their A-game (“Turn off the damn phone and play for keeps”), but he’s also experienced enough to know that the whole point of the thing is to have a good time—and he’s unabashed about his love for shooting ducks (“Hell yeah, shooting ducks is fun, and hell yeah, it’s conservation”). So, Russell had no problem recruiting buddies to go with him abroad. He started bringing so many other hunters along that an outfitter convinced him to open a part-time booking–agency business. Then, in 2010, Russell went full-time with his site, getducks.com.

Greenheads International

Russell has learned some straightforward lessons during his world travels: Don’t drink the milk in Pakistan, and keep your firearms documentation on your person when you go through customs in China. 

But the biggest takeaway cuts deeper, to the culture of American waterfowl hunting. Generally, we kill fewer ducks per hunt than you can almost anywhere else in the world, and yet we’re the ones obsessed with numbers.

That’s because the strict limits on how many ducks and how many of each species we can kill forces American waterfowlers to be careful counters. Each dead bird is one notch closer to a limit. A full limit means the end of the hunt, and complete success.

As Russell says: “It’s almost like if you only shoot three ducks, you lost. It’s made to feel like if you’re not killing a limit, you’re not having fun.”

Of course, these limits are good and necessary for conservation. In the U.S., we have much higher hunter-density numbers than in other parts of the world. There are about 1 million U.S. waterfowlers. In comparison, only a few hundred Americans travel to the Yaqi Valley in Mexico to hunt ducks each winter, according to Russell. Those few hundred hunters end up harvesting a statistically insignificant number of ducks, even if they’re bringing back a whole pile of birds each day.

In the rest of the world, waterfowl hunting for sport isn’t as common, and neither are limits or hunting pressure. In some corners of the world, you set your own limit. One of Russell’s hunts in Pakistan drives home the point.

He was invited by a feudal lord to hunt a sprawling marsh along the Indus River (one of the longest rivers in Asia, which serves as a major flyway). The lord had heard that the American was a crack shot, so he made his way down to the blind to watch. He gave Russell a few boxes of shells from his personal stash—German-made, 3-inch lead loads—and insisted that Russell take long shots that most American hunters would consider sky blasting. 

“If you want to hunt in Pakistan, you must shoot like a Pakistani,” the lord said. 

So, Russell started burning through shells, and once he got the long lead figured out, birds rained from the sky. Russell wasn’t counting but figures he killed more ducks that day than most American waterfowlers shoot in a season. Each bird was recovered diligently (meat doesn’t go to waste in Pakistan), and Russell was immersed in a totally different hunting culture. To the Pakistanis, the most important aspect of the hunt was shooting ability.

The upshot? You can’t travel halfway across the world and expect locals to have the same hunting values as you do. 

And over time, Russell’s clients have developed new hunting values.

“In the beginning, the number-one question clients would ask is, ‘How many ducks can I shoot?’” Russell says. “Now hardly anyone asks that. Now everyone wants to know which species are present and what the experience is going to be like.”

But no matter how far you travel, in many ways duck hunters are all the same. 

“Mallards are the big prize bird anywhere they exist in the world,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Mongolia or Missouri.” 

Many times, Russell hunts with locals who speak a different language from him. This minimizes the small talk, but they still communicate through hand signals and gestures in the duck hunter’s common language: Fix the hide, the ducks are flaring; tweak the spread, they’re not committing close enough; good shot, here come some more birds.

“You can put four people from anywhere in the world together in a blind, and they’ll have more in common than they’ll have differences, because they’re hunters.”

The Next Migration

On our last day in Mexico, we opt to hunt Pacific brant in a tidal flat of the Sea of Cortez. Shortly after sunrise, the birds beeline for our decoys, low and tight, flying like giant black teal in slow motion. After two volleys, Russell’s 9-year-old Lab, Cooper, has a pile of retrieving work to do. Cooper is a registered service dog, and she’s traveled the world  with Russell. This is the last big tour of her career. 

Next, we head to a backwater to hunt teal, and for the first time, Russell sets aside his shotgun. 

As we pick off teal one at a time, Cooper methodically plucks our birds out of the marsh. She needs no direction from Russell, and is mostly too deaf to hear him anyway. She retrieves because it’s in her blood. It’s what she’s always done.

Meanwhile, Russell contemplates the future of waterfowling. He plans to target millennials with his international duck-hunting trips. This demographic has proven willing to spend more on travel than any other expense. He’s banking on the idea that the groups of hardcore young guns you see patrolling the goose fields of every Midwest town will one day want to chase birds in Canada, Mexico, or Russia. 

Getting this next generation of hunters excited about waterfowling and conservation on a global scale, he hopes, will be his legacy. 

“Someday, I don’t want my headstone to read, ‘Here lies Ramsey Russell: One million dead ducks,’ ” Russell says. “There has to be more to it than that. Don’t you think?” 

This story originally ran in the Fall 2019 issue. Read more OL+ stories.

The post This Old-School Duck Slayer Is Opening New Hunting Opportunities Around the World for Americans appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Many of the best duck hunters I know cut their teeth on public land, particularly walk-ins. These are some of the toughest places to kill waterfowl consistently because access is easy if you’re willing to to put in the effort. But it can be downright exhausting. It’s typically a long walk down a muddy levee, and if it’s cold enough, and the water is frozen, there’s more hard work in front of you. But that’s what makes this kind of hunting so rewarding—you have to sweat for ducks, and when you get’em there’s no better feeling.

At almost 40 years old, I still love walk-in hunting. I don’t do as many death marches anymore, but it’s fun to get out there on days when I know my brother and I have a shot at killing a few birds. That’s the key to enjoying walk-in hunting: Don’t go unless you think it will be good. It will burn you out quick, logging all those miles with too much gear in-tow, and returning with empty game straps.

This is the stuff I have accumulated over years of chasing ducks—mostly shovelers and ringnecks—in some of the most mediocre duck habitat around. But bottom line is that it works…and I wouldn’t walk-in hunt without it.

Upgrade Your Truck Tires

You might be wondering why in the hell you need a good set of truck tires for walk-in hunting. Fair question. Well, in my experience, walk-ins are the most neglected of public habitats by state agencies. You typically have to drive through some pretty sloppy/sketchy terrain to get to the parking lot, which is often a mud pit. Many times I have arrived on cold mornings when the ground is frozen and returned to a sloppy mess in the afternoon once the sun comes out. Stock tires will not get you unstuck. This year, I’ve been running Toyo’s Open Country A/T III tires. They’ve gotten me out of plenty of hairy situations when I might have otherwise needed a tow. If you drop the tire pressure down to around 20 to 25 pounds, I’m convinced they could get your truck out of quicksand. Dropping tire pressure is key if you’re stuck, and it can easily be done. Just don’t go so low that your tires are flat. And don’t feel like you have to buy Toyo. They have been great for me, but Tire Rack has plenty of options to select from, and the prices honestly aren’t that much higher than the on-road tire that came with your truck. So spend a few extra dollars and save yourself the aggravation. There’s nothing worse than getting skunked and then stuck in the marsh with no cell service.

Another Set of Wheels

No legit walk-in hunter carries all the gear in on his back. You need a cart. It will make your walks in and out infinitely easier. A few years ago, I bought a Rogers Toughman Decoy Dolly (it’s rated for 600 pounds, so my brother can haul me and the decoys out), and it’s definitely the reason I’m still a walk-in hunter. There are a variety of carts on the market, and you can also build one, but with the time and money you have to invest in the construction of one, you’re better off buying in my opinion. If you’re deadest on engineering your own, here is a deer cart build that will work. I typically hunt with one other person—or solo—and can put all our gear on the cart, no problem. The one thing you have to be leery of is mud. Carts don’t like it. The mud will get caught up in the wheels so badly that they won’t be able to turn and then you are stuck hauling all your stuff back to the truck in multiple trips.

Float a Jet Sled

I couple the cart with a Jet Sled, which holds all my gear and fits perfectly into the Toughman. Beavertail and Momarsh also make good sleds, and Cabela’s still sells ice fishing sleds, but they aren’t as durable. I put the Jet Sled in the bed of my truck, load it up, and then once I’m ready to unload it, I get the cart down first, open it up and prop it up against the tailgate of my truck so I can slide the sled in myself without physically picking it up. The versatility of the sled is what you really need it for. Remember I talked about it being too muddy for the cart? Well, if you drill two holes in the front of the sled (don’t drill into the bottom or you will spring a leak) and run a rope through the holes, you now have a handle, and can pretty easily drag the sled through the mud. Another bonus is once you hit the water, just jettison the sled from the cart and take it with you. It makes throwing decoys easier, and if the water levels are high it’s a good place to keep any extra gear, like jackets and blind bags, from getting wet.

Bring the Snow Shovel

Some of the best mornings come after the temperature dips below 32 degrees the night before. I always love to hunt a cold snap, because it moves ducks. The issue on public land is there’s no way to keep water open, so you’re likely going to be dealing with some skim ice. Ducks don’t like that, so I bring my dad’s old carpenter’s hammer and a snow shovel with a 2-foot wide scoop on it. If the ice has gotten thick enough that it needs to be broken up, I go to work with the hammer and make a hole. Then, I’ll come in with the snow shovel and push all the ice out. I get a lot of odd looks from other hunters, and hear guys say “why the hell does that guy have a snow shovel?” But the same hunters have come and found me to ask if they can use it once we are in the marsh. I always oblige. Sure, I would probably kill more ducks having the only open hole, but it’s bad duck juju to ruin someone else’s hunt because they came unprepared. Plus, I run into the same groups of hunters a lot, and you never know when you’re going to need their help.

Go Light on Decoys

I like to have the option to run as many decoys as I can (up to five dozen), and the key to success on public land is showing ducks a spread they haven’t seen before. About half my spread is butt-up feeders. They are light, take up less space than full-bodies, and mimic ducks feeding, which is more natural than a blob of head-up decoys, which is what most of your competition is going to be running. For full-body floaters, I go with the Avian-X Topflight series, because they are fully flocked and have a mix of head-up and low-head feeders. I use mallards, pintails, green-wing teal, wigeon, and black ducks, depending on the time of year. Variety is a key ingredient to killing pressured public waterfowl, and you should always have a few black ducks in your spread on sunny days. They stand out so much more than any other decoy with their dark bodies.

If I have a really long walk in, but need a large decoy footprint, I go with inflatable decoys from Lucky Duck and Dakota Decoy. Or, Lifetime has the FlexFloat mallards that are hollow in the middle, so they cut down on weight. I rig all my decoys with 3- or 4-ounce weights so they are lighter. If you hunt shallow rivers, that might be a poor choice depending on the strength of the current. You’re better off with a heavier mushroom decoy weight that buries itself into the river bottom. Mallard silhouettes are awesome if you are hunting ankle-deep water, or want to add more decoys in the shallows or on river sandbars. You can easily pack in 50 silhouettes and create a much more realistic rig than your neighbors.

Every decoy spread needs motion, and I typically run two spinning-wing decoys. I don’t use mallards because they are bigger and more cumbersome. Go with teal, wood ducks or gadwall. They are just as effective and take up less space. On-water motion is also key to a good spread. My best results have been with Wonderduck. The quality is unmatched. Many of the on-water decoys are junk. They fill up with water or don’t float. I’ve never had that issue with Wonderduck. Plus, they are built like tanks. Mojo’s Flock a Flickers are good too. They are a cheap way for creating motion and they don’t take up much room. Jerk rigs are one of the best ways to create decoy motion on windless days, and they will never run out of batteries or malfunction, like electronic decoys sometimes do. Ducks also get conditioned to avoid spinners as the season goes along, but they will never grow wary of the jerk rig.

RELATED: 5 Keys to Killing Reverse Migration Mallards and Geese

Dress in Layers

I still see a lot of hunters wearing blue jeans and squeezing into Neoprene waders. God bless them, but most don’t last too long on the cold days. No matter the temperature, if you wear Neoprene waders you’re going to sweat on the walk in. You will be warm for a while, but then that sweat becomes the enemy as the morning drags on, and chills you to the bone. I wear a pair of breathable Orvis front-zip waders with a rubber-soled wading boot, and depending on the weather will wear one to three pairs of longjohns. Or I put on a Merino baselayer and wear an old (warm) pair of sweatpants. But before I walk out, I shove the sweatpants in a blind bag. I might be a little cold on the way in, but that beats having to leave early because I sweated my ass off on the walk in and the wind is crystalizing that perspiration to my skin. The wader/boot combo is a bit pricey, but I’ve had them for five years now without a leak, and the grip I get with the boots is far superior than the sole of any wader boot I have come across.

I don’t put a jacket on when walking into the marsh either. And typically I don’t even wear a parka unless it gets real cold. Most public water is going to be frozen up solid anyways if it gets to the point where I need a winter coat. I like to wear two or three baselayers (one of which will be Merino), and add a vest to keep my core warm. Sometimes I’ll just go with a Merino layer, Carhartt hooded sweatshirt and the vest (but always bring a jacket along in case it turns cold, or you fall in and need a dry/warm outer layer). The key is you want to be able to shed layers during those walks in and out without having to carry around a bunch of bulky clothes.

Take a Pump Shotgun

My favorite gun is an old semiauto Beretta, but I typically don’t take it with me to the walk-in. It’s reliable, but autoloaders have more moving parts than a pump-action, so there is a higher likelihood they will fail. And I don’t need a breakdown after walking in over a mile. A Remington 870 20-gauge is my ideal walk-in gun because it’s lighter than a 12-gauge and will function flawlessly. You can likely find a used one for less than $300 at a local gun shop. Pump guns are also damn durable, and public land is often harder on guns than private duck clubs. So you want something that can take a dip in the marsh and still run properly. You might not get that from an autoloader. There is no worse feeling than getting up at 3 a.m., doing all the work it takes to set up, and having your shotgun malfunction when the first flock comes in.

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Most duck hunters head to the patterning board after buying a new shotgun to see how their gun shoots and identify where the shotshell pellets are striking paper. You might think the results are indicative of where that payload will hit greenheads and honkers come fall. But pattering your autoloader at the range is only the beginning. It tells you what a gun will do if you point it at a target and pull the trigger, sure. But that’s not how we shoot waterfowl. Unless turkey season is around the corner, I don’t actually pattern my guns on paper targets anymore. I head to the skeet range with an assortment of choke tubes and duck loads. Then I start shooting, and I don’t stop until I find the best combination of choke and ammo for that gun. That gives me a better sense of how the gun is going to perform on birds.

Since you might not have the money (or time) to get your hands on several choke tubes and types of ammo, I talked to some of the most hardcore waterfowlers I know—none of whom have sponsor or brand affiliations—to find out their go-to gun, choke, and load combo. You might be surprised to learn that those high-end bismuth and tungsten shotshells didn’t make everyone’s list. In my experience, you don’t need a custom shotshell if your gun is properly choked for the ammo you’re shooting. But as legendary king eider guide Russ Owen always says, what works for me may not work for you.

So here are some different options to consider before your next waterfowl hunt.

1. Shelby Kirby

Destin, Florida

In the summer, Kirby and her husband Chris run a fishing charter, but once fall hits they are off to Canada (when there’s no pandemic, that is.) From there, they make their way south, following the migration through the Dakotas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. They’ll chase snow geese, too, once the conservation order hits in February.

Four years ago, Kirby switched to a Franchi Affinity Compact and hasn’t looked back. She screws in a Carlson’s Cremator full choke, and shoots the trusted blue box, better known as Federal Speed Shok, which you can often buy for less than $15 a box. Speed Shok, along with Kent’s Faststeel (both all steel loads that have been upgraded in the last few years) are some of the most widely trusted among hardcore duck hunters. I shoot both often and always see empty hulls from each brand in every duck blind I hunt.

Kirby shoots 3-inch BBs for honkers and sandhill cranes. Snows, specklebellies, and ducks all get a dose of 3-inch 2s. She has tried pricier loads, but hasn’t seen any marked difference in performance.

“To be honest I can’t understand the hype in buying bismuth or tungsten shells,” Kirby says. “If the birds are where they’re supposed to be when you call the shot, Federal does just fine.”

2. Joe Weimer

Salisbury, Missouri

If there’s one guy I know who gets the most out of cheap hunting gear, it’s Joe Weimer. Weimer is so frugal that he carries his Winchester SX3 and SX4 in an old hard case one of his buddies was about to throw out. He hunts most every day of duck, goose, and snow goose season, typically until he shoots a limit or the sun sets.

For ducks and honkers, Weimer shoots his old SX3, which looks like it spends the offseason at the bottom of a lake. It still functions flawlessly, not counting one day in Saskatchewan when he forgot to screw the fore-end cap on tight. The gun’s guts spilled out onto the Canadian prairie when the first flock hit the decoys. He pairs it with Winchester Xpert 3-inch 3s for ducks and Browning’s BXD 3-inch 2s for honkers. The SX4 feeds a touch better than the SX3, so he shoots that on spring snows when the extended magazines come out and the gun is forced to cycle more than three shells in one volley. He uses Winchester Xpert Snow Goose shells for white geese—they are incredibly economical (and effective). A Rob Roberts T3 choke is always affixed to the end of both guns.

“I’ve never thought, Man I’d have killed my birds if I had some more effective shells. These just didn’t do the trick on that decoying mallard at 21 yards,” Weimer says. “I’m not saying other shotshell brands don’t work. But I’m at a threshold where I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, so I’m not going to spend more. I hunt every day and I need something that works but that is economical. I’m not a guide or market hunter so numbers aren’t what matter to me. I try to shoot everything in the decoys, and these loads do the trick.”

3. Jeremy Thornton

Bartonville, Illinois

Most fall mornings I curse Jeremy Thornton for steering me through the gauntlet that is Illinois public-land walk-in duck hunting. It’s some of the toughest waterfowling you can do: lots of long walks for few birds. Plus, the shots you have to make on ducks are often downright difficult. Birds here get pressured badly, and like many states in the Mississippi Flyway, Illinois is seeing fewer migration days, which means more educated ducks and geese.

Read Next: 5 Tips for Shooting a Shotgun Better and Faster

Thornton learned long ago that you need to be able to shoot birds at distance here, and found that a factory modified choke in his Benelli Super Black Eagle 2 or M2 20 gauge works best. He shoots Hevi-Steel 3-inch 2s for ducks, and BBs for the big, greasy, local honkers. During snow goose season, Thornton just finds the cheapest 12-gauge steel load he can, because snows are notorious wimps who almost faint at the mere sight of a shotshell.

“I used to shoot Hevi-Metal [which is about $10 more a box], but Hevi-Steel performs just about the same…maybe we get a few more cripples,” Thornton says. “I never really got into the aftermarket chokes. I have a few Hevi-Shot chokes, but I like the pattern I get from the factory model. It covers up my bad swings.”

4. Drew Palmer

Arkansas City, Kansas

Palmer guides with some absolute killers in the Flint Hills of Kansas. They specialize in putting huge bunches of lesser Canada geese in your lap. The birds get so close that he sometimes pulls out an old Beretta with a mounted red-dot to snipe banded geese, hybrids, and Quill Lakes honkers (geese with white patches on their bodies) in tight. Most hardcore goose hunters will shoot a 12-gauge, but lessers are a smaller bird and a 20 is plenty for killing them inside the decoy spread.

His favorite setup at the moment is a Beretta A400 20 gauge, Apex Ammunition Steel/TSS blended 3-inch 4s, and an improved-modified Carlson’s choke. That rig will kill greenheads just the same, some of which are about the size of a lesser (and probably more hardy) in the late season.

“I swear by that load,” Palmer says. “It will kill anything I point my gun at. I shoot some other shells too, but Apex is hands down the best.”

5. Russ Owen

Denmark, South Carolina

For a long time Russ Owen guided for king eiders on the Bering Sea. It’s the toughest place on earth to kill a duck, and if your gun is going to fail ,it will most certainly happen here. For years, Owen relied on a Beretta Xtrema 2 and paired it with the first choke tube Patternmaster came to market. That tube, which only leaves the muzzle of his gun to be cleaned, debuted in 1993 and was revolutionary. It shortened shot strings to 2 to 3 feet so more payload connected at impact. He’s shot a variety of shells through the gun, including Speed Shok, Faststeel, and the little-known Wolf brand.

But now he predominantly is shooting the copper-plated bismuth 3-inch 5s from Boss. Shooting hardy kings at distance on the open sea takes serious knockdown power, and he needs a shell that can perform when there are so many different variables at play.

“Getting to the point where you are reliant on one gun, shell, and choke is really more about how well you know your gun,” Owen said. “I have an intimate knowledge of how my gun performs out to 60 yards, much in the way a bow or rifle hunter knows their weapon.”

6. Joe Genzel

Peoria, Illinois

As an outdoor writer, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot a wide variety of shotgun, choke, and shotshell combinations. But like many hunters, I’m a pretty average shot with flashes of good shooting sprinkled in there. I have the advantage of handling lots of shotguns, which gives me the unique opportunity to discover the best fit for me. And while I’ve shot different guns from time to time, I always go back to what I consider the best 3-inch autoloader ever built: Beretta’s A390 Silver Mallard. They stopped producing these guns in the late 1990s, which is unfortunate, because they’re truly workhorse autoloaders. If one breaks down, it’s only after tens of thousands of rounds have been put through it.

I shot a lefty Benelli Super Black Eagle 2 (I’m a natural righty but left-eye dominant) for a while because I was sick of reaching across the trigger guard to click off the safety on the A390. But once I had the Beretta converted to a left-hand safety, I shot it better on ducks than any other gun I’ve shouldered. Coupled with a Rob Roberts T2 (the gun doesn’t like the T1 or T3 for some reason), I’ve made some damn fine shots on ducks (and missed plenty, too). Hevi-Metal patterns best out of it. Any time I’ve made a long distance shot on a greenhead, it’s been with 3-inch 2s, 3s, or 4s. I know for a fact that choke, load, and gun combination makes me a much better shot that I really am, because all my best shooting days in the marsh unfolded with that setup in my hands.

The post The Favorite Shotgun, Choke, and Ammo Combinations of 5 Diehard Duck Hunters (and One Outdoor Writer) appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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The landowner in the now-infamous “I own the f*cking land” video reached a plea agreement with the state of North Dakota on March 27. As part of that agreement, landowner Jeffrey Erman pleaded guilty to the charges of disorderly conduct-obscenity and interference with the rights of hunters and trappers—both class B misdemeanors.

Eddy County state’s attorney Ashley Lies tells Outdoor Life that the prosecution decided to drop the third charge of trading in special influence during Monday’s plea hearing. A class A misdemeanor, trading in special influence is considered a type of bribery under North Dakota law, and it is punishable by up to 360 days in prison and up to $3,000 in fines.

“After discussing it with his attorney and doing some research into the legislative history of the charge, I did feel it was inappropriate,” Lies says. “I think it would be [applicable] if he were bribing an official directly, instead of just offering to influence the game warden.”

As for sentencing related to the other two misdemeanors, Lies says the judge ordered Erman to pay a total of $675 in fines. He also revoked Erman’s hunting privileges for a year. Because Erman had no prior criminal history, the judge offered him a “deferred imposition of sentence” that hinges on an unsupervised probationary period of 360 days. If he stays out of trouble during that time, the two convictions will be taken off his criminal record.

One of the hunters was also charged with a misdemeanor criminal trespassing. Dustin Brown pleaded guilty to that charge on Dec. 30 and paid the court-ordered fines of $250. The case against Brown was closed on Jan. 12, according to the New Rockford Transcript.

How a Viral Duck-Hunting Video Led to Multiple Criminal Charges

The original dispute took place in Eddy County, North Dakota, on Oct. 21. It was recorded on video by Jacob Sweere, one of the hunters in the group who also has a hunting YouTube channel. The video quickly went viral, and it has since been viewed nearly 3 million times. It shows Erman approaching the hunters around sunrise and proceeding to berate them for trespassing and ruining his own hunt. The hunters had already shot a couple ducks by this point. In the video, Erman claims the group’s A-frame blind is encroaching on his property line.

“You gotta stay a foot off [the section line],” Erman says after driving up to the blind in a side-by-side. “I was gonna hunt here this morning, but I heard you guys were coming. I own the fucking land.”

The situation deteriorates after the hunters claim they had permission to set up on the neighboring bean field. Erman goes berserk, launching into an obscenity-laced tirade and blowing up their hunt. At one point during the roughly 30-minute video clip, Erman tells the group he’ll leave them alone if they give him some money.

“Three hundred dollars and you can shoot all you want,” Erman says. “Cash money right now on the barrel head and I’ll walk away and call the [game warden] and tell him not to come,” Erman says. The hunters declined to pay Erman, and a game warden arrived at the field later that morning to defuse the situation.

Read Next: The Landowner and One Hunter From the Viral “I Own the F*cking Land” Video Are Charged with Misdemeanors

When considering charges last fall, state prosecutors determined that Erman’s request for money amounted to a bribe request. And since the request involved a public servant (in this case, a game warden), they decided to charge Erman with a class A misdemeanor trading in special influence.

On Nov. 8, the state filed two additional misdemeanor charges against Erman: interfering with the rights of hunters and trappers, and disorderly conduct-obscenity. Erman pleaded not guilty to all three charges initially, but then changed his plea as part of an agreement on March 20, court documents show.

As mentioned, the state also charged Dustin Brown, one of the hunters involved, with criminal trespassing on Nov. 9. Brown, a North Dakota resident from West Fargo, initially pleaded not guilty, then amended his plea to guilty on Dec. 30. As part of that plea agreement, Brown explained that he had permission to hunt the property neighboring Erman’s cornfield, but that he made a mistake by setting up near the property line without Erman’s explicit permission. Brown’s plea agreement stipulates that his guilty plea will be withdrawn (and the case will be dismissed) after a period of 180 days.

“I had been provided notice to avoid hunting on a specific patch of land within that larger piece of land,” Brown admitted in the plea agreement. “Before placing my blind, I had not determined with certainty that I was not on that patch of land; It turned out that I was on that patch of land.”

North Dakota is one of the only states that allows individuals to walk on or hunt private property that is not posted against trespassing. These postings became more nuanced in 2021, when the state legislature passed a law allowing landowners to post their lands electronically via an online database.

Regardless of the posting status of Erman’s land, however, Brown acknowledged that he failed to heed the advice of the landowner who gave them permission to hunt that day.

Erman’s son, also named Dustin, told reporters in October that he believed the hunters had provoked Jeffrey and then edited the video footage to make it look like they were innocent.

“They were told to stay away from that area,” Dustin told the Grand Forks Herald. “Also, that video, these guys hunt, and they do videos all the time, they edit [stuff] all the time. They edited out every single thing they said to provoke [him] to get to that point.”

Sweere has denied this allegation, claiming that he turned over all the uncut footage to the state during its investigation.

This article was updated on March 28 to include comments from Eddy County state’s attorney Ashley Lies.

The post Landowner in “I Own the F*cking Land” Video Takes Plea Deal appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Steel shot is here to stay. Despite its tarnished (and undeserved) reputation and the popularity of other nontoxic pellets types, steel shot has emerged as the number-one selling nontoxic shot type worldwide. It has also become the least expensive of all pellet choices—and that includes lead shot. All of this has been aided by shotgun manufacturers who learned to make choke systems that can withstand the stresses of hard shot like steel and tungsten composite, rather than just soft shot like lead or bismuth. This has eliminated barrel damage concerns for most shotguns, old and new.

Still, there are folks who argue that steel shot doesn’t kill game birds effectively. I’ve got the field data that say otherwise.   

Testing Shot Material on Wild Birds

I was involved in research that consisted of 13 nontoxic shot types in double-blind U.S. field tests. Data was published in peer-reviewed professional journals or was delivered to wildlife agencies and hunter organizations worldwide. I also did testing for ammunition manufacturers Remington, Environ-Metal, and Winchester. My responsibility was to co-design, direct, conduct, and author the reports of the results measured. That work occurred over a 40-year period and continues today. Nothing I am going to report here is mere opinion. It is all proven fact via objectively derived, controlled testing on wild birds and based on statistically sound sample sizes. Much of it involved volunteer participation by thousands of U.S. hunters.  

The research involved taking X-rays and necropsies of some 26,000 North American ducks, geese, pheasants, doves, quail, and turkeys to study pellet penetration and striking phenomena. This resulted in the world’s largest lethality data base on lead and nontoxic shotshell ammunition performance on wild game birds. It also involved the destructive testing of dozens of shotguns and the pattern testing of 25,000-plus rounds of shotgun ammunition.  

So what have we learned from all this testing? Let’s look at an overview of the results. 

Steel Shot Did Not Produce Higher Wounding Losses

In field tests with regular hunters, steel shot did not prove to produce higher wounding losses than lead shot—as is commonly touted by the steel-shot haters. As a gross generalization, the test results thus far have found that on ducks from 30 to 50 yards, for example, steel and lead shot produced about a 34-percent wounding rate per 100 birds bagged. In comparison, tungsten-composite shot produced about a 27-percent wounding rate, and unbuffered bismuth shot produced about a 42-percent wounding rate.

Hunters shooting steel did require more shells to bag their birds (ducks, geese, pheasants and doves) than with lead loads. That’s because the hunters missed significantly more with the steel loads than with the lead loads tested.  

This is likely because steel and all hard tungsten-composite pellet types produce a significantly shorter and narrower shot string than lead or bismuth shot. This demands more precise shooting because, unlike lead and bismuth, all current hard nontoxic shot possess rounder pellets to begin with, which do not deform during shell-firing and barrel passage. Shot patterns are directly proportional to how consistently round a load’s pellets are when they exit the muzzle. 

It’s important to note that, because this was a double-blind study, neither the hunters nor the observers knew which shot type or load was being fired. Rather than using a load’s real name and shot type for the study, shells were assigned code names so even the data crunchers didn’t know which pellet type was involved. In other words, tese tests were rigorously objective. 

Matching Shot Size to Species 

Which loads and shot sizes proved the best by bird type? All reasonable shot sizes were tested: No. 7.5s to T’s depending on the targeted birds. Across all distances, the findings revealed that size No. 2 steel, No. 3 bismuth, and No. 4 for all the tungsten-composite pellets were the most lethal for large ducks (meaning dead or immobile within 30 seconds of one round striking). One smaller pellet size in each load was a close second on big ducks, and proved most lethal for medium-sized ducks. For large Canada geese, BBB steel, No. 2 tungsten, and BB bismuth proved most lethal. For medium geese (snows and whitefronts), BB steel, No. 1 bismuth, and No. 2 or No. 4 tungsten were the most lethal loads.  

Pheasants, which are about the same size as large ducks, proved much harder to kill than many hunters would expect. No. 2 steel, No. 3 bismuth, and No. 4 or No. 5 tungsten-composite pellets were required to produce the same killing performance on pheasants as large ducks. Necropsies revealed this had mainly to do with the angle of shots and tissues that have to be penetrated given the shot presentation pheasants provide compared to most duck. With doves and quail in a Texas dove field test, No. 6 and No. 7 steel proved equally as effective as No. 7.5 lead. No. 7 steel and No. 8 lead proved most lethal on quail. Neither bismuth nor tungsten-based shot was tested on doves or quail. Thus far in the study, only lead and steel shot have been tested for taking turkeys. Assuming turkey head/neck shots, No. 4 steel and  No. 5 lead  proved most effective.  

Match Load Weight to Species

Load weight analysis indicated that for ducks and pheasants a minimum of one oz. of steel, 1-1/8 oz. of bismuth and tungsten-based shot were needed regardless of gauge for the highest lethality rate. For geese and turkeys it was 1¼ oz.; for doves 7/8 oz. and ¾ oz. for quail.  

The tungsten-composite pellets tested proved more effective than steel or bismuth shot for taking birds beyond 40 yard distances. Those were HEVI-Shot, HW 13, two different 13 g/cc to 15 g/cc density tungsten-composite pellets sold for reloading, and 18 g/cc density TSS.

Minimum Pattern Density Makes Choke Selection and Ranging Critical 

Extensive pattern testing of all the loads involved in shooting birds produced some valuable minimum-patterning requirements at all distances. In other words, there’s a minimum threshold of pellet strikes within a 30-inch circle for lethality. These details are summarized in my copyrighted Nontoxic Shot Lethality Table (below) which, by permission, accompanies this article.  

You will note in my table that Improved/Modified and Full chokes proved needed for required pattern densities at longer range with nontoxic shot just as with lead. Do not believe the oversimplified misinformation that hunters should be employing only Improved Cylinder and Modified chokes when shooting hard nontoxic shot. Open chokes result in inadequate pattern densities beyond 40 yards with all shot types. And if your manufacturer warns against tighter chokes than Modified when shooting steel and the hard tungsten pellets, simply buy after-market chokes in the tighter constrictions that are advertised as hard-shot compatible and will thread into your shotgun’s choke system.   

Increasing Velocity Does Not Increase Lethality 

What about load velocity? Velocity vs. lethality was tested from 1225 fps to 1600 fps. Despite the trend these days for many factory nontoxic loads to possess ultra-high velocity levels (above 1400 fps), no improvement in lethality was found on the game birds targeted for loads with velocities above 1400 fps. Instead, there was a significant increase in recoil and degradation of patterning performance with such high velocity levels for all shot types tested. So this rigorous empirical testing on wild birds indicates clearly that bird hunters will do just as well, if not better, with modest velocity levels of 1250 to 1400 fps with all shot types. There is little to no ballistic improvement or lethality to be gained by going higher. Remember that recoil-related stresses to your shotgun and radial strain to your chokes go up exponentially with velocity.

READ NEXT: Are Duck Hunters Really Losing 1 in 5 Birds? Here’s How We Can Do Better

Final Thoughts on Steel Shot Lethality

There is a ton of objective, science-based nontoxic shot performance plus barrel damage testing info that’s been published, such as “A Comparison of Lead and Steel Shot Loads for Harvesting Mourning Doves.” Also, my nontoxic shot table is published on the websites of some 30 state wildlife agencies (try ND, SD, MT and TX as examples) and hunter organizations worldwide. Abandon rumor, hearsay, and internet forum discussions about nontoxic shot. Your confidence and success afield will improve markedly.

The post Is Steel Shot Effective? Here’s What the Data Say After Decades of Testing appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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The flock poured into the timber hole, the sound of their wingbeats growing loud in the still morning air. More than forty greenwings descended on our decoys and, when the shooting ended, eight lay on the water and the bank. It was the sort of sight you remember years later. But I had missed the entire thing.

Instead of shooting, I had been crouched at the doorway to the big wooden blind, one eye on the hunters inside and the other on my Lab, Hatchet, in the dog box. We were hunting at Habitat Flats in Missouri, and my guides had graciously agreed to let my 18-month-old pup pick up birds—on the condition that he was quiet and “100 percent” steady. So when Hatchet popped out of the unfamiliar dog box where I’d put him before legal light, I abandoned my spot in the shooting hole and put him right back. Now, instead of killing ducks at one of the best duck outfits in the country, I was babysitting my bird dog. But that’s the commitment you make in order to train a duck dog during his first few seasons.

Painful though it might be for diehard duck hunters to continue training once the season opens, that patience is what every gun dog trainer I know advises: Handle first, hunt second. I’ve spoken with a dozen trainers in my efforts to train my own bird dog, and the following tips are all drawn from their collective wisdom. These tips should be helpful for a hunter who is training their first dog, but experienced duck hunters training their first pup in a decade might learn something, too.

After several more waves of ducks and some mild corrections—and no more breaking—I felt confident I could leave Hatchet alone in the dog box, which was separated from the shooting holes. When I finally pulled up on my first ducks of the day, I doubled on a greenhead and a woodie that splashed stone-dead into the pond—and right in front of Hatchet. He waited, silent and shaking in the dog box, for me to send him.

Don’t Rush It

No matter how much off-season training you do, a young retriever won’t perform like a seasoned one. So don’t fight the process, advises Kody Reynolds, head trainer of Habitat Flats Kennels in Marceline, Missouri.

“I wish everybody would just slow down and take their time,” says Reynolds, who oversees the training of 60 dogs each year and hunts two Labs of his own. “Enjoy the puppy stage and don’t push them so fast.”

Once you create a problem—breaking at the shot, say—it will take you twice as long to fix it, warns Reynolds. Whining or barking while hunting is an especially thorny issue that’s critical to nip in the bud immediately. (Whining, something Reynolds and many other trainers say is difficult to squash because dogs don’t know they’re doing it, might be addressed early on by standing beside your dog while hunting and physically grabbing its muzzle and issuing a verbal correction.)

“People say, ‘I’ve got to have a hunting dog for this hunting season.’ Well, you’ve got that dog for the rest of its life—so no, you don’t,” says Reynolds. “You can make or break that dog in the first 10 to 12 hunts, especially.”

Train for How You Hunt

Before our hunt at Habitat Flats, I drilled for all the scenarios I thought we’d encounter there: extended place, kenneling in unfamiliar hides, steadiness to shot, and water retrieves among decoys. All that homework helped make his first experience hunting from a brushed-in dog box that much easier.

“Think through everything and prepare dogs for every situation,” says Joshua Parvin, a trainer with Cornerstone Gundog Academy. “Don’t … just run headlong into this, thinking your dog is ready to roll, and then all of a sudden things go south. It doesn’t go as expected and then you’re upset. We don’t want to get there because we want to set up our dogs for success.”

Parvin accomplishes this by slowly introducing variables as hunting season approaches to ultimately produce the most realistic hunting scenario possible, down to blowing a duck call. Combining too many new elements too quickly—as many waterfowlers do in a pup’s first season—can lead to bad habits or full-blown failure.

In his 52-week online course for DIY trainers, Parvin spends a week apiece on three different waterfowl scenarios: a small body of water, pocket water, and a field hunt. Practice the way you hunt most often, he advises, but prepare for all scenarios. That’s especially important when you get an invitation from a buddy or go on an outfitted hunt where you can’t easily control your setup.

Plan Your First Hunt

When you do hunt your duck dog for the first time, bring one buddy. Make sure he’s a good shot, too, advises retriever trainer Tom Dokken. Your job is to handle your dog, and your buddy’s job is to kill ducks as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Choose a setup that allows you to stand beside your dog. You should be able to see your dog, restrain him with a leash or by hand, and issue quiet commands. Think of a high bank over a small farm pond, where your dog can easily mark ducks and reach cripples. Resist the urge to invite more hunters, do not hunt other dogs, and do not shoot unless your buddy is capable of handling your retriever.

Read Next: Tom Dokken Is the Godfather of Retriever Training in America

“It’s always about the dog,” says Reynolds. “Hunters have to learn to put the gun down and worry about the dog. You always want to make sure that dog is set up for success in a way that you’re paying attention to it and not the hunt.”

Keep your hunt short and sweet—30 minutes is plenty if the hunting is slow, says Dokken. Finish the hunt while your pup is still engaged and, above all else, make sure he has fun. You wouldn’t train for two hours straight, so don’t hunt your pup for that long.

Pack a Doggy Bag

It might be a hassle to carry a couple bumpers and a half-thawed teal in your blind bag, but you’ll be glad you brought them. When you plan to train a duck dog during the season, make sure to bring the following gear on each hunt:

• A leash or collar tab. No matter how confident you are in your dog’s steadiness, restrain him until you’re sure he’s bombproof in every scenario. I made this mistake on my dog’s fourth hunt, by which time I had grown complacent about his steadiness. As my hunting partner tried to finish a diver on the water, Hatchet couldn’t take the shooting and flapping anymore—and leapt off his platform, his leash slipping through my hands. The duck was still alive, my buddy wouldn’t shoot with a dog in the water, and we had to hope Hatchet would reach the duck before it dove. He made the retrieve, but it was an unsafe situation that also reinforced bad behavior: Breaking had earned him a duck. If he’d lost the bird, it would have been a critical early failure in cripple retrieval (on top of breaking). Avoid this pitfall altogether by securely leashing your pup until he can sit through everything from multiple sloppy shooters to delayed sends.
• A neoprene vest. Even if it doesn’t seem that cold, bring it. Young retrievers don’t yet have the fat or muscle to stay as warm as an older dog and a miserable morning shivering on place won’t endear your dog to duck hunting. If he needs it, you’ll be glad you brought it.
• A pocket full of rocks. This is an old trick, but a good one. Sooner or later, your pup will miss a mark on a downed duck and you won’t yet be able to handle him to it. Toss a rock near the floating duck, and the splash will draw his attention.
• Snacks. You don’t want to feed your dog before or during a hunt, but you don’t want him getting hypoglycemic, either. On longer or colder hunts, come prepared with snack cups of peanut butter or a squeeze bottle of honey. The morale boost from the treat won’t hurt.
• A bumper. If the hunting is slow—and it will be some days—give your dog a break with a few fun retrieves. It’s good practice, too.
• A frozen or recently killed bird. When possible, I’ll tuck a real bird (a dead one, obviously) into my bag. This is a trick I learned from Dokken, who stresses that no matter how bad your hunt goes, young duck dogs must be rewarded with, well, ducks. Hunt for an hour without killing a single bird? You can still end the hunt with a realistic retrieve. Put your dog on a cripple that never turns up? Plant the dead bird for him instead. Just keep in mind hunting regulations and bag limits if you pack a real duck into the field.

Be Honest with Outfitters (and Yourself)

Many waterfowl outfitters are wary of clients who want to hunt their dogs, and for good reason. Their job, as they see it, is to help you kill ducks. If your dog is breaking or splashing in the decoys—a frequent problem with client dogs—it’s difficult to kill ducks. So the best thing to do is be up front with an outfitter when you’re planning a hunt. When booking, explain that you want part of the hunt to be about training a duck dog. Then, be honest about your dog’s capabilities—and limitations.

The biggest problem with clients is simple obedience: Their dogs won’t stay in their hide, or even respond to recall commands. “It’s usually just the basics of obedience for the owner working their dog” that are lacking, says Reynolds. “Put in that little extra effort to make sure the dog’s ready.”

Well before the hunt, explain to your guide what your goals are for your dog (lots of retrieves), and what you’re willing to sacrifice to accomplish them (shooting ducks yourself). Then ask the right questions to make sure your dog can successfully hunt the setup your guide has planned. What kind of hide is available for your pup? Will he have to kennel in a dog box or can he sit on his MOMarsh platform? Will he be able to easily see birds? Can you stand beside him? Will the guide be hunting his dog? If so, will he honor your dog and let your dog get most of the retrieves?

Read Next: Best Duck Hunting Dogs

One of my guides at Habitat Flats brought his veteran retriever on our hunt as backup. It was the perfect introduction to hunting with another dog: His Lab honored my pup and picked up a duck that required handling in cover, in addition to picking up one of the eight teal. All told, Hatchet retrieved two-plus limits and earned high praise from the guide. “If everyone hunted their dogs the way you did,” he said as we packed up, “everyone’s dog would be welcome.”

Troubleshoot Problems as They Arise

The next morning, Hatchet and I proceeded to burn nearly every scrap of good will we had earned. He didn’t break and he stayed quiet, but he started cheating around the bank instead of taking a direct line into the water, causing him to lose his marks. My pride from the day before turned to puzzlement, then frustration, and finally embarrassment. I desperately wished I had finished his “back” command, something we’d practiced on land but not yet in water.

When Hatchet started blindly searching for ducks I felt sure he should have seen fall, I tried clearing away brush from his dog box. When that didn’t work, I put him on the guide’s dog stand, hoping he’d have an unobstructed view of the pond. After that failed, I started heeling him to the pond edge, then sending him on retrieves. That worked a little better, but he continued to cheat and lose marks more often than not. The best solution was the last one: to stop hunting before I did more harm than good.

How to Train a Duck Dog for the Next Hunt

Mercifully, we had a veteran retriever with us to help pick up birds. Another guide whispered to me, “I don’t understand—he did so well yesterday.” But I did: We had more training to do.

Read Next: Your Retriever Will Teach You These 5 Life Lessons

While most pro trainers I spoke with recommend hunting your duck dog once he’s steady to shot and can retrieve to hand (including Dokken), Reynolds prefers to train a duck dog on blinds before their very first duck hunt. “They’ve got to be steady, and they must be able to handle and stop on a whistle,” he says. “That’s the absolute must-have.”

That morning I paid attention to Hatchet’s strengths and I took specific notes on where he was weak so I could develop a training. It had been fun to watch my bird dog succeed, but his failures—which were really my failures as a trainer and a handler—motivated me even more.

The post How to Train a Duck Dog Throughout His First Hunting Season appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Two unidentified waterfowl hunters were lucky to make it out alive after flipping their kayaks on Indiana’s Deam Lake in Clark County, Indiana, on Wednesday morning, Jan. 18. They temporarily lost their shotguns to the drink before Indiana Conservation Officer Logan Carter fished them out of the water with a magnet later that day.

Photos in an Indiana DNR Law Enforcement Facebook post show two autoloaders—a Winchester SX4 Waterfowl Hunter and a Browning Maxus II Hunter—plus a collection of Hevi-Steel and Fasteel 2.0 shells clinging to Officer Carter’s magnet.

Until now, we’ve looked at magnet fishing as a hobby for folks who like finding old, abandoned stuff, especially guns, underwater. This is the first time we’ve heard of the practice being used by authorities as a public service. IDNR Law Enforcement public information officer Jim Schreck confirmed that Carter had recently acquired the magnet to assist in underwater evidence searches, although their dive teams and underwater remote operating vehicles (ROVs) with attached cameras are still the tools of choice. Carter thought this would be a good opportunity to try the magnet out, Schreck tells Outdoor Life.

Read Next: As Magnet Fishing Booms, More Guns Are Being Pulled from America’s Waters. Can Magnet Fishers Legally Keep Them?

Gear rescue aside, the hunters’ self-rescue was a bit of a miracle. In the Facebook post, IDNR says the water was a teeth-chattering 41 degrees. Both hunters had life jackets in their possession, although only one was wearing it. Indiana law requires that all boaters have their own personal flotation devices in the vessel, but wearing them is not mandatory.

“They’re definitely pretty lucky,” Schreck says. “We could have been doing a body recovery instead of a firearms recovery.”

Waterfowl hunting in kayaks has its pros and cons, which we’ve explored in the past. While we don’t know for sure what happened to these two hunters, there are plenty of things that can go wrong when hunting from a kayak. One of the downsides to the practice is the limited mobility kayaks offer. It’s not recommended to shoot from the boat, which can result in hunters turning their bodies at awkward angles and putting themselves at risk of tipping over.

If the hunters were just paddling in deeper water rather than actively hunting, there’s a chance a larger boat kicked up a big enough wake to tip them over. That’s one of the reasons why kayak hunting is best done in ultra-shallow waters that are unreachable even for mud motors and might require a drag or two. Sometimes deepwater crossings are inevitable, though, and there’s always a risk of a shotgun (or other gear) going overboard. This is where floating gun cases come in handy.

The post After Duck Hunters Flip Their Kayaks, Indiana Game Warden Recovers Shotguns with a Magnet appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Best All Around		Sitka Hudson Jacket	SEE IT
Best for Cold Weather		Browning 3-in-1 Parka	SEE IT
Best for Field Hunting		Carhartt Insulated Active Jac	SEE IT

Duck hunters chase birds in humid swamps of the south, frigid prairies of the north and everywhere in between. While the terrain and subspecies are all different, the one thing duck hunters in all four flyways have in common is that the more brutal the weather, the better the hunting. Having the best duck hunting jacket for the conditions is key.

You need to stay warm and dry for hours on end if you want to shoot a limit on the best migration days. You also need to be able to move freely to set decoys and blinds without a bulky jacket slowing you down. And, most importantly, you need to be able to mount your gun swiftly. The following jackets will get the job done no matter where or when you hunt. 

• Best All Around: Sitka Hudson Jacket
• Best for Cold Weather: Browning 3-in-1 Parka
• Best for Mid Season: Drake ¼ Zip Refuge Eqwader Jacket
• Best for Field Hunting: Carhartt Insulated Active Jac
• Best Puffy: Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer 2
• Best Rain Jacket: Kuiu Yukon
• Best Old School: Avery Heritage Waterfowl Sweater

How We Picked the Best Duck Hunting Jackets

I’ve hunted ducks all over the continent with a variety of diehard waterfowlers who all use slightly different gear. Through those experiences, I got to see which duck hunting jackets perform, and which ones fail. I also surveyed other Outdoor Life editors who have field tested top jackets. We made our final picks based on wind and waterproofness, warmth, comfort and fit, price, and overall design. There are a lot of jackets that will work just fine for everyday duck hunts, but these are the true standouts. 

Best All Around: Sitka Hudson Jacket

Sitka

SEE IT

Why It Made the Cut

Sitka’s Hudson is a reliable outer layer with creative solutions to some of the challenges associated with hunting in the worst weather.

Key Features

• Weight: 42 ounces
• GORE OPTIFADE concealment waterfowl marsh camo
• 3-layer GORE-TEX stretch technology
• PrimaLoft insulation
• Bellowed shell pockets and zippered tuck-away pockets
• Water-sealing gasket cuffs
• Drawcord hem

Pros

• Wind and waterproof
• Great mobility
• Gasket cuffs protect from wet sleeves

Cons

• May need to size up
• Finicky front zipper

Product Description

The Hudson is a hard-core shell that’s adept at keeping out the elements while allowing a full range of motion. Special GORE-TEX stretch material is incorporated into panels behind the shoulders for a quick and agile shotgun mount. It was plenty breathable while I was in motion, but sealed against wind and ice. A major perk is the gasket sealing cuffs that keep water out while placing decoys in case your gloves fail or you have to reach farther than anticipated. The insulation is thin and body mapped to increase flexibility and breathability so the Hudson doesn’t provide much warmth on its own besides protecting against cold splashes and breeze. This means you’ll want some serious mid-layers and maybe a puffy underneath. This jacket fits more snugly than a shell should and you may want to size up to avoid compressing underlayers and leaving no room for warm air to sit.

The pockets on the Hudson provide ample storage. There are two open pockets on the chest to warm up your hands, two bellowed shell pockets that fit a full box of shells but lay flat when empty, and two zippered tuck-away call pockets on the exterior. There is also an interior zipper pocket over the left chest. I would have appreciated two additional open pockets behind the bellowed shell pockets at the waist for another place to keep my hands warm. Sitka’s Hudson is a performance layer with a women’s fit that will keep you warm and dry to stay dialed on your next waterfowl hunt. —Ashley Thess

Best for Cold Weather: Browning 3-in-1 Parka

Browning

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Why It Made the Cut

The weatherproof shell is ideal for keeping warmth in and wind out.

Key Features 

• Sizes: XL, S, M, L, 2XL, 3XL
• 80 grams of Primaloft insulation 
• Three-layer water/windproof fabric
• Pit zips
• Hooded
• Removable liner jacket
• MSRP: $229.99

Pros

• Plenty of pockets
• Taped seams
• Good range of motion 

Cons

• Needs additional layers for warmth below freezing

Product Description

I wore the Wicked Wing 3-in-1 Parka on an eastern Colorado hunt with lows in the single digits and highs in the 30s. Paired with the Wicked Wing Bibs, Sitka Ambient hoody, and a merino base layer, I was comfortable throughout three days of hunting. I never shivered and stayed warm from the first bird through my limit. One of the keys to keeping warm was not sweating while setting up the blind and a huge spread of decoys. During the pre-dawn work, I unzipped the jacket, opened the pit zips, and then zipped up during the hunt. On the second day of the hunt, we hunted a field for geese in the afternoon. That’s where I got my first taste of the eastern Colorado wind, but it never got through the outer layer. Another feature I liked is the jacket never impeded shouldering the shotgun or doing anything active. 

You’ll be disappointed in the warmth if you use the Wicked Wing 3-in-1 Parka as your primary insulator. It needs help from a good base and mid-layer—quality bibs help too. I recommend using the Parka an insulated, weather-proof shell. Another great use for this parka is in conjunction with a heated vest.

Best for Mid Season: Drake ¼ Zip Refuge Eqwader Jacket

Drake

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Why It Made the Cut

The Refuge Eqwader is the perfect combination of function and comfort at a reasonable price.

Key Features

• Waterproof and windproof Refuge HSTM fabric on upper body and arms
• 2 Magnattach call-and-whistle pockets
• Offered in a variety of camo patterns
• Taped seams

Pros

• Comfortable
• Waterproof
• Light and sleek

Cons

• Not super warm
• No hood

Product Description

This pull-over jacket is ideal for those mid-season days when it’s chilly in the morning and then warm by midday. The top half is waterproof and windproof so you stay comfortable while running in the boat or setting decoys. The bottom half is breathable polyester material so you don’t sweat to death in your waders while picking up the spread. It has a thoughtful chest pocket that’s magnetized for holding your calls. This is nice even when you have your calls on a lanyard because it keeps them from getting tangled or from getting in the way when you bend over. 

Drake says this is the best selling wading garment of all time. I’m not sure about that, but I do know that this is a surprisingly versatile jacket that will keep you hunting comfortably through a good part of the season. 

Best for Field Hunting: Carhartt Insulated Active Jac

Carhartt

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Why It Made the Cut

Running a big field hunt is hard work. This jacket was built for just that. 

Key Features

• Heavyweight, 12-Ounce 100 percent ring-spun washed cotton duck
• 80g 3M Thinsulate
• Elbow pleats
• Knit cuffs to keep out the cold
• Triple-stitched main seams

Pros

• Durable
• Affordable
• Versatile

Cons

• Not very waterproof

Product description

Field hunting can feel a lot like work. You’ve got to haul around endless bags of decoys, mess with trailers that are always getting flat tires, and then pack it all up again at the end of the day. So it makes sense that a lot of hunting guides who run field shoots don’t wear fancy camo, they opt for workwear. The Carhartt Insulated Active Jac will stand up to all the hard labor a field hunt requires and it will keep you warm enough to stay in the field until the birds fly. Since you’re hunting out of a blind on field hunts, highly detailed camo is not needed, and the traditional Carhartt brown will work just fine. 

This is not the most windproof or waterproof jacket in the list, so if you’re planning on hunting arctic conditions, consider a parka-style hunting coat. But for everything else this classic Carhartt jacket will get the job done. 

Best Puffy Jacket: Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer 2

Mountain Hardwear

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Why It Made the Cut

The low-profile Ghost Whisperer puffer jacket adds warmth without the bulk to long chilly mornings.   

Key Features

• 800 fill power RDS-certified down
• Nylon ripstop shell with durable water resistant finish
• Drawcord hem
• Two zip hand pockets

Pros

• Excellent warmth for weight
• Synthetic insulation at the cuffs helps prevent wetting out

Cons

• Expensive

Product Description

Sitting still for hours waiting for the ducks to come can get pretty dang cold. Fortunately for you, the birds you’re after already came up with the perfect insulation layer: down. Duck down (or goose down) are the tiny feathers closest to the bird’s body that have wispy filaments that form pockets to trap hot air. They are such a powerful insulator that synthetic alternatives haven’t yet been able to match it. While the traditional puffer jacket of yore is a bulky marshmallow affair that probably isn’t going to fit under one of the duck jackets on this list, newer models that use higher-grade down provide a ton of additional warmth without a lot of bulk. My favorite of these is Mountain Hardwear’s Ghost Whisperer 2, which pairs 800 fill power down (the sweet spot between less insulative lower grades and the extreme price point of 1000fp down) with a streamlined, no-frills design. And if you run especially cold, there is always the option to add the Ghost Whisperer 2 pants which will keep you toasty beneath your duck hunting waders even on the most brutally cold days. —Laura Lancaster

Best Rain Jacket: Kuiu Yukon

Kuiu

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Why It Made the Cut

This lightweight rain jacket can handle anything you throw at it.    

Key Features

• Articulated elbows for better mobility
• Adjustable drawcord 
• Hook and Loop rubberized wrist closures
• Zippered hand pockets (2)
• Zippered chest pocket (2)
• Fully seam taped

Pros

• Waterproof and windproof
• Excellent all-around rain jacket
• Lots of high-end features

Cons

• Pricey

Product Description

I’ve worn Kuiu rain gear on wood duck hunts near home in Minnesota and on mountain goat hunts in Alaska. It has always held up to the elements. The Yukon jacket is Kuiu’s most heavy duty rain coat. It was designed for guides and hunters who plan to wear their rain gear all day. Duck hunters are just as tough on their gear as any sheep guide, so you want a serious piece of equipment to keep you dry when you’re hunting on a wet, windy day with temps hovering in the 40s. You won’t do much better than the Kuiu Yukon.

This jacket has a three-layer construction and utilizes 4-way stretch primeflex polyester, plus a dermizax NX waterproof membrane. This jacket is overbuilt (in a good way) featuring pit zips, reinforced elbows, and rubberized cuffs designed to keep water out. The Valo camo pattern works just fine in the duck marsh. 

Best Old School: Avery Heritage Waterfowl Sweater

Avery

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Why It Made the Cut

They call it a sweater, but really, it’s a pullover jacket that combines old-school waxed cotton and modern fabrics.   

Key Features

• 8-ounce waxed cotton outer layer 
• Polyester softshell fleece underneath
• Fleece lined side pockets and upper chest pockets
• Rib knit cuffs

Pros

• Excellent warmth for weight
• Synthetic insulation at the cuffs helps prevent wetting out

Cons

• Pricey
• Stiff

Product Description

Quite simply, this is a windproof polyester fleece that’s overlaid in 8-ounce olive drab waxed cotton. This pullover jacket (or sweater) is made for those duck hunters who care about style and performance. If you’re nostalgic for the good old days when men smoked pipes in the blind, drank fine bourbon in camp, and never even missed ducks, then the Avery Heritage Waterfowl Sweater is for you. It will allow you to relive those good old days without freezing your ass off. 

FAQs

Final Thoughts on Duck Hunting Jackets

I was once on a sea duck hunt in Maine where the guide rigged two layout boats next to each other. I sat comfortably in one boat, and my partner (who had on inferior gear) began to shiver in the other. Just as the ducks started flying my partner caught a bad chill from the wind and the waves that were spilling into his layout and had to be picked up by our tender boat. I toughed it out and shot my ducks (eiders, longtails, and bufflehead) as they cruised over the surf into my spread. The takeaway? Duck hunting is hard, and if you don’t have the right gear for the gnarly conditions that often make for the best gunning, well, then you might as well just stay home. Buying one (or two) of the best duck hunting jackets is a good start.

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Duck hunting is synonymous with wet and cold conditions. Typically, the colder, snowier, and windier the weather, the better the hunting. To be successful on the most brutal migration days, you need serious outerwear like the Sitka Hudson Jacket. I used it while breaking ice, setting decoys, and sitting in a blind for hours in high winds and freezing temps during a late-season hunt in Utah. Here’s how the Hudson Jacket stood up to the conditions.

Sitka Hudson Jacket Specs and Features

Sitka

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• Weight: 42 ounces
• GORE OPTIFADE concealment waterfowl marsh camo
• 3-layer GORE-TEX stretch technology 
• PrimaLoft insulation
• Bellowed shell pockets and zippered tuck-away pockets
• Water-sealing gasket cuffs 
• Drawcord hem

3-Layer GORE-TEX

There are panels of GORE-TEX stretch material behind the shoulders of the Hudson to allow for a speedy shotgun mount and a free range of motion while retaining extreme water and wind protection. The panels don’t allow cold, wind, or water in although they vary drastically from the rest of the hard shell. The material feels more like a treated and stretchable waffle knit than your typical thick and smooth GORE-TEX. Being able to efficiently pull yourself back into the boat, reach for decoys, and mount your shotgun smoothly is a huge benefit of this jacket. I was impressed that these panels did not result in a cold spot and instead retained the integrity typical GORE-TEX performance.

Gasket Cuffs 

The water-sealing cuffs adjust to prevent water from getting up your sleeve, even when submerged. You can seal the cuffs underneath your gloves to prevent water from seeping in. This way you won’t have to deal with damp sleeves for the rest of the day if your gloves fail or you have to reach underwater. 

Pockets

The Hudson features two open pockets on the chest to warm up your hands, two bellowed shell pockets that fit a full box of shells but lay flat when empty, and two zippered tuck-away call pockets on the exterior. There is also an interior zipper pocket over the left chest. The call pockets will keep your reeds from freezing and removable straps on the front of the coat allow you to secure calls for easy access. I would have appreciated two additional open pockets behind the bellowed shell pockets at the waist for an additional place to keep my hands warm, but all in all there is plenty of storage in this jacket.

Testing the Sitka Hudson Jacket In the Field

I took the Hudson duck hunting in freezing temperatures to test just how water and wind resistant it really is. The bay I was hunting was frozen over with about an inch of ice. Realistically, our prospects for killing ducks were not very good with the bay iced up, but it did make for ideal conditions to test my jacket. After the only other boat out there turned around with a busted prop, we hopped into the water to break up the ice for the boat. I trudged through mud and used my body weight to break the ice, so I was working up a sweat while splashing plenty of water against my coat. This shell operated beautifully, keeping the cold out without causing me to overheat. It was plenty breathable while I was in motion, but sealed against wind and ice. 

After clearing a half-dome of ice out from the boat blind, we began setting decoys. No splashes or breeze penetrated the Hudson and I was still comfortable waist deep in freezing water. Next, the real test of sitting still for hours with wet waders on.

While the Hudson features PrimaLoft insulation, it performs like a shell, not a puffy. The heavy GORE-TEX was certainly a helpful layer when trying to keep warm, but without insulating mid layers, you won’t last the day in frigid temps. The padding inside the jacket is slim and body mapped to allow the back and underarms more breathability yet the design keeps your core and arms more insulated. 

This jacket isn’t extremely warm by itself. It also fits snugly, which I thought kept me less warm because it compressed my mid-layers. However, after a few hours of little action, I was just as warm as when I first started the sit. I would recommend sizing up to accommodate thicker layers underneath.

What the Sitka Hudson Jacket Does Best

This is a performance piece of outerwear that is well-designed for its intended purpose. It blocks the elements while giving the wearer mobility and breathability when necessary. The extreme water resistance and wind resistance are the best parts about this jacket, which are also the most important factors when shopping for a duck hunting jacket. The technologically advanced GORE-TEX stretch panels, plentitude of pockets, and gasket cuffs make this coat worth the investment for serious duck hunters.

What the Sitka Hudson Jacket Does Worst

This jacket could benefit from a looser fit to accommodate more layers. It’s snug for a medium, my typical size. At times it felt like it was compressing my layers, not allowing them to trap enough warm air to really keep me toasty. A shell shouldn’t fit so snugly, but the stretch technology helps mitigate this issue so you are still flexible even if it is a trim cut.

The closure features dual zippers to make sitting more comfortable, but it takes some convincing to secure the zipper lead. When it’s frozen and you have gloves on, it can be finicky. Though, the tabs on the zippers give gloves enough purchase to operate.

Final Thoughts

Sitka’s Hudson jacket is a reliable outer layer with some creative solutions to the challenges associated with hunting in the worst weather. Staying warm and dry is crucial to crushing a duck hunt where action can happen quickly or after hours and hours of sitting in the cold. The mobility in this hard-core shell is something you’ll notice and appreciate on every hunt you wear it.

The post Sitka Hudson Jacket: A Hardcore Shell for Waterfowl Hunters appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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This story, “A Shot at Pothole Ducks,” originally ran in the November 1947 issue of Outdoor Life.

DOC POST stopped his car, with the duck boat lashed on top, at the crest of a low rise in the prairie road and waited for us. We had had to drive two cars that morning. Sam Weller and I planned to hunt pheasants later in the day, but Doc had an afternoon appointment—filing down somebody’s bridgework—and would head back to town around noon.

We pulled up beside Doc’s car and stepped down to see what he wanted. 

“Flock of thirty or forty pintails got out of that last pothole when I drove past,” he explained. “Likely there’s six or eight that didn’t leave. Shall we try for ’em?”

Sam looked at his watch. “Legal shooting in ten minutes,” he announced. “That’s not long to wait.” 

Doc nodded. “Might as well start here as any place,” he remarked. “We can sneak through that standing corn and get right up to ’em without any crawling if we’re careful.” 

We stood there beside the cars and watched the overcast dawn break across the wide and empty South Dakota prairie, and it came over me that I was about to learn a new brand of duck hunting. 

Doc Post, they had told me back in the town of Mitchell, where he lives, is a pothole shooter. When they say that about a man out there in the prairie country they’re paying him a pretty high compliment. They don’t mean pothunter, not by a long shot. What they mean is he takes his ducks the hard way. He still-hunts ’em.

He crawls 100 yards on his belly for a chance at a single. He lies in the wild sunflower tangles without blind or decoys and waits for his birds to come in of their own free will. He matches wits with bluewing teal and mallards and pintails on their terms. He stalks ducks the way a good deer hunter stalks whitetails. He takes ’em without trickery or subterfuge—or drives back to town without a single bird in the bag. 

In short, when the folks out in Dakota call a man a pothole shooter they mean he’s a duck hunter, thirty-third degree. 

And now Doc and Sam, another apostle of pothole shooting, had invited me to go along with them and see for myself. Luckily for me, this was before 1947, so nonresidents were still free to hunt ducks in South Dakota; and I arrived in Mitchell at the height of the heaviest early-season duck flight the prairie folk had seen in thirty years. 

Hunting pheasants that week, we’d seen the sky literally alive with waterfowl. There was rarely a time when we could not look up and watch ducks moving somewhere. The glint of sunlight on the wings of distant flocks became almost as much a part of those days in the big Dakota cornfields as the clatter of pheasants rocketing out of the weeds. 

SLOUGHS and potholes were swarming with teal and spoonbills and pintails, with a good scattering of greenheads mixed in. Some were local ducks hatched on the prairies, some had come down from the north with a few days of stormy weather. 

“The duck depression has ended out here,” Sam said to me the evening we planned our pothole hunt. “If you go out with Doc and me in the morning you’ll earn your ducks. It’s not armchair hunting. But we’ll show you some shooting to remember.” 

AND NOW the three of us were waiting there at the side of the muddy road while the light brightened steadily over the big level fields. The prairie wind was raw and wet on our faces. The morning promised rain. But while we watched, a narrow band of rose showed under the gray on the eastern skyline and the clouds overhead began to break, driven by a wild, high, northwest wind. 

“It’s really blowing up there,” Doc remarked. “Ducks will move today.” 

Finally Sam looked at his watch again. “Time,” he said crisply, and snapped three shells into the magazine of his 12 gauge. 

The pond where we hoped the ducks were waiting lay 200 or 300 yards back down the road. It covered a couple of acres and was dotted with clumps of grass and low brush. A big field of uncut corn shut it in on three sides. 

We moved off the road into the corn and began our stalk, creeping down the weedy rows at a half crouch, pussyfooting along as cautiously as three cats after a robin. 

The wet wind rustled the corn blades with enough noise to cover any minor racket we might make. This, I told myself, would be duck soup. I could vision those startled pintails rising in panic off the pond. I could see myself lining my 20 gauge on the nearest bird. The thought went through my mind that I’d likely make a double. 

THEN I came down to earth. We were still fifty yards from the edge of the pond, hidden in the corn, when from about the same distance out on the water there came a sound as of heavy rain pattering down, then a sharp wing rustle and a bunch of seven pintails went zooming up like a well-drilled squadron of miniature rocket planes. 

They didn’t appear panic-stricken. They went out in a hurry, duck fashion,but they were well out of range and something about their swift and ordered flight suggested that they knew it. 

I stood and watched them beat their way across the prairie, gaining altitude as they went, and cussed softly under my breath. When I looked around Doc was grinning at me. 

“They’re pretty smart,” he said mildly. And Sam added, also grinning, “That’s why we like it.” 

“We’ll go look for another pond,” Doc decided then. 

The pond wasn’t hard to find. Water had come back on the South Dakota prairies in the previous couple of years. In the section where we were hunting, every square mile of land had from two to twenty potholes and small sloughs. 

“There are some good pintail holes over on the next section,” Sam suggested. “Let’s look ’em over.” We did and I got my first real taste of pothole hunting on one of those pintail ponds. Full of weeds and grass, it lay beside the road at the foot of a long grade. We parked the cars at the top of the hill a quarter mile away. 

“I’ll go down through the corn on the opposite side of the road,” Sam proposed. “You two swing around and come in from the east and we’ll have the birds between us.” He took it for granted that there’d be ducks in the hole. 

Doc and I climbed the fence into an old pasture grown with sparse weeds and began a long circle to come up to the pond where Sam had indicated. We were halfway there and I could see water over the top of the grass when I heard a noise like the distant rumble of thunder behind us. 

I was flat on my belly by that time making a stalk, but that low muttering noise stopped me in my tracks. There was an ominous quality about it that I didn’t like. 

I twisted my head around and my worst misgivings were confirmed. On the near side of a fence, maybe 200 yards away, was a black bull about the size of a buffalo. He had spotted us inching along through the grass of his pasture and resented it. He stood watching us, mumbling under his breath, and even at 200 yards I knew there was a truculent gleam in his eye. Every few seconds, just to lend emphasis to what he was saying, he dropped his big black head and pawed a handful of turf. 

Doc Post was twenty feet away on my right, wiggling along as close to the ground as a sidewinder. I signaled him with a sharp hiss. 

HE STOPPED and turned his head my way without lifting his face three inches from the ground. “Look behind you, Doc,” I whispered urgently. “Bull!” 

He managed a nod with his nose still down in the grass. “Never mind him,” he snorted. “There’s ducks down in that pothole.” And with that he crawled ahead again. 

I went on, but my mind wasn’t on the duck hunt. The bull stayed by the fence, muttering and grumbling, and while we made the rest of that agonized crawl I kept my head twisted over my shoulder most of the time to make sure who was stalking whom. 

We were twenty yards from the marsh, the grass was thinning out, and I realized that whatever was going to happen wouldn’t be delayed much longer. Then, right in front of my face, a big gray jack rabbit took off like a bat out of a chimney. 

My nerves were geared to the bull back by the fence, and set on a hair trigger. I was stretched out as flat as a living-room rug, literally worming through the short grass. When the rabbit went out I choked back a yell that would have scared the ducks out of half the county. But right after the rabbit’s clattering getaway I heard duck wings ripping the water. Doc bounced up on one knee and his pump gun talked out in three short, solid syllables. 

I forgot the bull and the rabbit. I scrambled to my feet and laid two shots across the pond. At the second I saw a duck crumple and drop back to the water with a splash. Then Sam had two shots from the corn on the far side of the pothole, and I counted four ducks that the flock had left behind.

“Spoonbills,” Doc said. “There are other ducks I’d rather shoot, but this isn’t bad for a beginning.” 

I started down to the marsh to retrieve but he halted me. 

“We’ll get down and wait,” he explained. “Chances are they’ll circle back and give us another shot.” 

We lay in the grass and watched the spoonbills swing far out over the corn. I realized the bull had lost interest in us and stopped bellowing and I felt a lot better. Then the ducks headed back, just as Doc had predicted. 

They came in over the end of the pond, too high for shooting. They circled and slanted down and made up their minds to alight, and I could hardly believe my eyes. But when thirty feet above the water they seemed to recall suddenly that this was where all the trouble had started five minutes before. They flared and swung off—and a second later they were boring straight over our heads. 

It seemed a high shot but I risked it. I missed clean and then the heavier report of Doc’s big gun smashed out and a spoonbill dropped, killed as if hit by a lightning bolt. While we watched them rocket on, a second faltered, lost flight speed, and pitched steeply down into the prairie grass. Doc had made a double with one shot. 

We picked up our ducks and held a little council of war. Sam voted to wait in the corn beside this pothole for half an hour while Doc and I tried another pond a couple of fields away. 

“Ducks are on the move,” Sam pointed out. “There’ll be more dropping in here. I’ll take a bet I have some pintails or mallards by the time you two get back.” On the next pothole, in the middle of a bare pasture where a stalk was out of the question, Doc and I spotted a flock of close to fifty pintails. 

They were huddled in a little raft in the middle of the pond, feeding and making a lot of duck conversation. We watched them from the crest of a low ridge for a quarter hour, trying to scheme up some way of getting near enough for shooting. The chances looked slim but Doc finally hatched a plan. 

“I’ll go up to the head of the pond,” he proposed. “Give me fifteen minutes to get set and then crawl along this ridge as close as you can. If you put ’em up they may swing over me. If they’re still on the water in twenty minutes I’ll come down on ’em and drive ’em this way. One of us ought to pick off a couple.” 

It sounded good but the ducks upset it. They must have had sentries out; for Doc was still on his way to the head of the pond and I was getting organized for my crawl when they took alarm. They climbed steeply over the far side of the pothole and were gone. I heard Doc hail me. 

“Beat it down to the edge of the water and find a place to hide if you can,” he yelled. “They’ll be back!” 

I didn’t believe it, not in a place like that, but I did as I was told. We raced for opposite sides of the pond and as I ran I picked the nearest thing to a natural blind anywhere in that pasture. Cattle coming down to water had cut the bank away with their hoofs in one place on my side, leaving a steep dropoff two or three feet high. I could crouch there, and if the ducks came in at the right angle maybe they’d overlook me. 

I dropped down under the bank and looked for Doc. There was no shelter of any kind on his side, but a dozen feet above the water a small scrubby cottonwood stood all by itself. Doc was flattened under it, hugging the ground. He saw me watching and jerked a warning arm off to the south. There, sure enough, came the pintails back. 

They made a big circle around the pond, out of range but low enough for us to hear the rustling passage of their wings. They were looking the place over. And suddenly to my amazement they seemed satisfied. They swung out over the prairie, wheeled in close formation, set their wings, and came slanting in. 

That was a sight I’ll never forget, that band of fifty sprigs planing down, tilting, guiding themselves in the air like a squadron of little monoplanes, the whole bunch coming in without a wingbeat. It was as pretty a piece of duck acrobatics as I’ve ever watched, and even while it happened I couldn’t believe it. There was Doc under his cottonwood, conspicuous as a tombstone in the middle of the cow pasture. And there I was, crouched under the low pank in plain sight of every duck in the flock. 

But still they came on, dropping steeply now. They were seventy feet above the water, then fifty, twenty—another beat of time would bring them square between us at easy range. I braced myself to whip the gun up. But I never lifted it. For the pintails at the head of the flock saw us in that last split second before they came within reach of our cross fire. As one duck the bunch flared and pounded up almost vertically. That time they went for good. 

Three or four minutes later we heard shooting from Sam’s direction. 

“They went that way,” Doc pointed out. “Bet he got him some ducks.” 

On the way back to join Sam we circled to take in a little pothole at the edge of a cornfield where Doc had killed three or four mallards the weekend before. We found it empty. Doc was disappointed. 

“Ought to be mallards here,” he declared; “it’s a great spot for ’em. I’ve seen—” He broke off suddenly. “Here comes one,” he whispered. “A single. Over your shoulder.” 

There was no need to crouch down. We were hidden in a thick growth of sunflowers taller than a man’s head. I twisted around and watched the lone duck come racing in. 

“He’s a big greenhead,” Doc whispered. “It’s your turn. Take him!” 

I took him. I swung with the duck as he rocketed over. My shot broke his arrowing flight and he turned shapeless and came curving down upon the water. 

When we got back to Sam he had collected a couple of pintails and a greenwing teal, and had lost a cripple in the thick grass of the pond, all without leaving his place in the corn. He had had far better shooting than we. We joined him in a hunt for the cripple but after ten minutes of wading we gave up and went back to the cars.

“There’s a great mallard pond a couple of miles down the road,” Doc Post told me. “It’s in the middle of a big cornfield. If there are ducks anywhere in South Dakota today there’ll be greenheads on that pothole!” 

I got into Doc’s car for a change and we started off. Less than half a mile on the way to the mallard pond we tangled with another little bunch of pintails. They were in a shallow pothole in a weedy wheat stubble. We spotted them from the road. There was plenty of tall grass for a crawl and it looked like the sweetest set-up we had encountered that morning. What we didn’t know was that the ducks were holding a fortified position. The wheat field was full of sand burs. 

Those Dakota sand burs grow anywhere from a foot to three feet high and they form a tangle that’s almost manproof. The burs are in bunches and the stems are loaded with ’em. The spines are a quarter inch long and as sharp as a needle. You walk through an infested field, hunting pheasants, and every few yards you have to stop and pick the burs out of your pants at the back of the knees. 

Try getting down on your belly as flat as a bull snake and wiggling through a mess of that stuff! 

We were halfway to the pond when I put my hand into the first clump of burs. I cussed and pulled back and looked for a way around the obstacle. I noticed that Sam and Doc had slowed down about the same time. 

We wormed ahead, sliding our guns along on the ground, inching around the burs the way you’d go through a mine field. It took us ten minutes to cover the last fifty yards. We made it at last and Doc waved us up with a swift hand signal. The ducks flailed the water in sudden and frantic confusion, and as they lifted clear the guns began to talk. We put down four out of the bunch. 

“Should’ve done better,” Doc commented. “That’s a lot of sand burs to crawl through for four pintails!” 

A little farther down the road we drove past a small pond at the corner of a farmer’s barnyard. His flock of tame geese drowsed on the muddy bank but there were no other waterfowl in sight. We remarked about it because that was one of the very few potholes we saw that forenoon that were empty of wild birds. 

Just after we went past the farm pond I missed my hunting cap and recalled that I had left it back among the sand burs. It was a bright-red leather affair and I had snatched it off and dropped it, fearing the ducks might notice the spot of vivid color through the grass tops. 

I called a halt and we went back to pick up the cap. It took maybe five minutes. But when we drove past the barnyard pond the second time six or eight spoonbills were feeding there. They had dropped in as casually as tame ducks in that five-minute interval. 

The farmer could have stood in his kitchen door and reached that bunch with a slingshot. We drove just beyond the house, parked, and sneaked back through the sunflowers along the side of the road. When we reached a spot that put the flock of geese out of line of fire we stepped into the open, flushed the shovelers, and blazed away. We got three of ’em. 

Then at last we went on to the mallard pond and heard ducks gabbling in the corn when we stepped out of the cars. “They’ll be mallards,” Doc predicted. His eyes were shining. “Let’s do this right!” 

We separated so as to come at the pothole from two sides. The weedy corn stood shoulder-high, making the stalk an easy one. Doc and I halted a bit back from the water’s edge and gave Sam five minutes more to get in place. Then we crouched over and covered the last few yards with a rush. 

The pond exploded with ducks. There were somewhere between 100 and 200 mallards in that bunch. The whole pothole was alive with them. As they flailed their way up in the steep vertical climb so typical of greenheads we opened on them from the edge of the corn at point-blank range. 

Doc shot twice so close together it was almost one gun blast, and I saw two ducks start to drop before I made my first play. I didn’t do so well. Maybe there were too many ducks. Maybe I had mallard fever. Maybe I just shot into the flock. Anyway I poured three rounds out of the 20 gauge, with the marsh in front of me blanketed with rising drakes and Susies, and never lifted a feather.

It was all over in four or five seconds and I stood and watched the big flock wheeling off above the corn, not knowing whether to laugh at myself or get mad and throw the gun after ’em. 

“Man, that was shooting!” Doc yelled. “We got six or seven. I can see four from here.” 

Sam hailed us from across the pond. “Three down on this side,” he announced.

I waded out after the nearest mallard, saying nothing, and fifty feet in front of me a lone straggler lifted belatedly out of the rushes. What had delayed him I don’t know. Maybe he had made up his mind to skulk and then thought better of it. 

He climbed straight up with hammering wings, his green head and chestnut breast glinting in the morning sun that came through the broken clouds overhead. He was a jeweled duck, a perfect mallard drake if ever I saw one. I laid the gun on him as he labored up. He crumpled at the shot and fell like a stone. 

“That’s shooting!” Doc yelled again, and now I turned and answered him. 

“Doc,” I said, “this pothole hunting of yours is the greatest duck business I ever got mixed up with.” 

“Pothole hunting?” Doc looked hurt. “That’s no name for what we’ve done this morning. This is duck hunting—Dakota style. If there’s anything better we don’t know about it out here!”

This text has been minimally edited to meet contemporary standards. Read more OL+ stories.

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