Black Duck on the Bay
 

The only one in the bag this morning for me. A big Black duck with a Parker 10ga NH, shot in Little Bay NH this morning. It's been a very warm fall so far and the duck hunting has been slow.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...duck10gaNH.jpg

With black ducks, one is enough some days.

DLH

Hi Destry, one Black a day is all we are allowed and all I got today :-) Scott got a hen Mallard and the rest of the ducks steered clear of us.

them ducks new you boys had them 10 ga s was the reason they did not come in....got my first black duck to see much lessgetting to shoot one...i envy you fellas... good picture.... some day.... charlie

Great Photo. Looks like a beautiful place to hunt.

It is a beautiful brakish water bay to hunt, however it was much more pristine with far less shoreline development 30 years ago.

Wow its still dark in KS. Great picture Pete!

Kathy and I had a late lunch today at the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound at about the tail end of the ebb tide. There were mallards everywhere and not a single black in sight. Black Ducks have sure seen some bad times in the last several decades and the picture is somewhat bleak. One of the reasons for their low numbers is their propensity to breed with mallards thus thinning the bloodlines of the true Black Duck. The result of this cross-breeding is a duck that has more mallard characteristics than blacks.

Dean that and the marsh area's where they like to nest have a endless supply of gulls that will eat every chick as fast as the hen can hatch them and get them to water. I and others witnessed this when I was in the Guard working buoys up the coast of ME. One fisherman made the papers after he killed a big Black Back gull that he caught eating chicks.

Gulls are like coyotes - opportunistic feeders of the highest order that will eat anything and everything that will fit down their throats.