I have never shot a banded duck. Almost everyone who has shot as a guest on my ranch has shot a banded bird. A buddy shot a goose with a neck band. The neighbor shot a bird with a band which resulted in a money reward when he sent it in, or so he claimed. Maybe it's true; no idea. The bird flew off my place and he shot it over his pond....one of his workers could not wait to tell me. It is mentioned every year. Have to admit, it was pretty funny.

Even one of my hispanic workers got a banded bird....a giant drake mallard. We were in the blind together on a slow afternoon when the drake came right in. I was up on that bird with the reflexes of a 25 year old, but forgot to load the gun (like a 61 year old). Click and click watching it fly off. The 25 year old mexican kid stood up and dropped it at 50 yards. He is a natural.

Three days later the kid and the local sheriff go out and the sheriff gets a banded snow goose. Bet he'll be patrolling extra this year. Like he says "we treat everyone equally when it comes to patrolling property....just some more equally." Both fish and game wardens and the local hi-way patrol guys are given free hunting.

Oh well, closing duck camp and migrating south to the beach for the balance of winter and spring. Better luck next year. I plan on living well over 100 years old and should be able to hunt till the end. There is no doubt I will shoot a banded bird one day. Just gotta remember to put shells in the gun.

Wow, I can't believe you've never shot one! My buddy David had hunted all his life, started younger than I did, and never killed one till he was over 30.

They do put money reward bands on ducks, Kaas killed one up in Quebec that was $100 bucks a couple seasons back.

The goose neck band always eluded me, I had one try to land in the decoys once when I was out of the pit with no gun. Now they don't put them on much anymore, so I'll probably never kill one.


Destry

Destry;

Two rules when waterfowling......
1. If you are having a slow day and nothing is happening the surest way to bring birds into the dekes is to either go out and rearrange the dekes or to start to pick them up.
2. The most important. NEVER get out of the pit or go retreive a bird without a gun in hand.:nono::rotf:

Hopefully, Destry, we both get the elusive trophies prior to the end of our hunting days. May that not come for a very long time!

...or peel your waders down to pee, guaranteed to bring in the birds.

When living on a farm in VA, I set up some decoys in a corn field for my wife, who rarely hunts by the way, and went back to the house. I heard her attempting to call some geese and looked over in time to see her make a double with her POS Remington 1187. One of those birds, which were her first geese had both a leg band and a neck band. We still have it.

I was guiding at the time and it was technically after shooting hours. But, that being said, if I'd have had gun in hand the bird would have fallen. I was so close to the goose I could see the band was green and was one of the very early riveted type so the bird had to be ancient. I can still just see it in my minds eye.....

Destry

Here is my $100 band, shot on a local pond. The picture doesn't show it but the drake was double banded both legs. The feds wanted both band numbers before paying up.

I'm guessing the money band was green or red or yellow?

D

The green band is $100, the gold band is $50 and the red band is $25. I was lucky enough to shoot a drake mallard with a green band in '07 on the Pymatuning (PA) WMA, it also was double banded.