water fowl leg bands

[charlie cleveland]

any you old goose and duck hunters got any stories willing to share about your leg bands you have gathered up...my storey is short only shot at two ducks one down and the other still flying.... charlie

[OH Osthaus]

Back when I was hanging out in swamps with the wrong crowd (duck hunters ) i shot two banded birds in one year. One was a standard federal band and was a local bird. The other was not federal and only had a confusing set of initials and numbers on it and no address.

I did a lot of digging and some one suggested the abbreviation sounded like a nature center located about 75 miles east of where I shot the widgeon. I contacted them and it was from their program. I always wondered what their return rate was since only a local willing to spend the time was likely to figure it out.

[charlie cleveland]

ive got my first band to collect when i was young i killed a lot of ducks but the band was seldom seen on a duck around my area..although my dad did kill a few with bands...each year i plan to go back too duck hunting but before long the season has come and gone and i aint fired a shell other than maybe a duck on my dads small pond... charlie

[Jeff Christie]

Originally Posted by charlie cleveland

any you old goose and duck hunters got any stories willing to share about your leg bands you have gathered up...my storey is short only shot at two ducks one down and the other still flying.... charlie

Charlie- A batting average of 500 will get you rehired in any league. Since returning to Iowa from VA I have exactly 2 bands from Canada geese. One was a road kill (not mine) and one over the decoys. My partner gets one about every other hunt, sometimes 2 in one hunt. However he runs out and brings back all the geese. Of course the banded ones are his (according to him).

[Double Lab]

Get yourself a good retriever Jeff. They bring everyones birds back to you, no matter who shot them. Almost got me in trouble a few years back while dove shooting. Three of us were shooting and it was fast and furious (sorry Eric Holder). Before I knew it there was 20+ birds in a pile in front of me. Thank the Lord I saw how many were there as about 30 mins. later the warden shows up. The limit is 15/man. Whew! Anyway, shot a Canada goose with a neck band. Could'nt miss that as he approached with flaps down. Yep... dog brought him to me but the band does'nt fit on my call lanyard.

[Dean Romig]

I've seen a few resident Canadas with neck bands.... unfortunately they had been discarded after some idiot finished his six-pak

[MarketHunter]

My first goose band was on a private field owned by a taxidermist friend near Marion, Illinois. I was 16 years old at the time, hunting with my high school gunning partner. Our taxidermist friend had just bought the place and I think we were the first ones to hunt it in many years. It was just a big pasture with a pond in the center, we only owned a dozen goose shadows but we were keen to give it a try anyway. It was a long walk as the road wasn't drivable even in dry weather. We decided just to walk back without the decoys to take a look at the place. We jumped about 50 geese off the small pond so decided to hide in a nearby fence row and see if we couldn't get a shot. About an hour of waiting and a group of five geese reappeared in the distance. I started hooting at them on my old Ken Martin call and amazingly they turned. They came in to land (no decoys mind you) kind of far off to my friends side. He fired three shots from his pump without touching a feather but they flew off across my end so I tried a snap shot at a fair distance and tipped one down. I ran out and gave it a finishing shot them picked up the bird and it was banded! My friend about died, tried to claim that was the bird he was shooting at, etc etc etc. But he was empty and I'd fired the shot that brought the bird to earth so the band went on my lanyard needless to say. I was on pins and needles waiting for the information to come back from Laurel, Maryland. Turns out the goose had been banded about 5 miles from where I killed it eleven years before. Officially my oldest band to date and one of my strongest memories of waterfowling.

My first duck band was a wood duck at Mermet Lake, again down in Southern Illinois. I was 18 years old at the time. Friend and I had been hunting in the Central Zone of the state and making a killing on ducks before our season (South Zone) opened up. We were excited for opening day to come at home and anticipated limits all around. We went to our favorite spot and somehow managed to draw the worst blind on the lake. We never saw a bird till about 10am when we were talking about picking up. I just happened to see a hen wood duck zipping over the timber behind us and managed a snap shot. Friend was on the end of the blind with the door so he hopped out to get it. He came storming back into the blind and literally threw the duck at me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong till I noticed the ring on the bird leg. Hah!

There have been quite a few bands since in lots of different places. Good stories like three goose bands in one day, two duck bands on another, a banded greenwing teal, two duck bands in Ireland on the same trip, but I always remember the first two the best.

Sadly I don't have my bands from the early days anymore. Some derelict broke into my truck when I was living in Northern Illinois and stole my shooting bag off the back seat. They could have had all that crap, the only real loss was my call lanyard. I've built up a nice batch on the new one in the years afterward but I sure would like to have those early ones back......


DLH

[charlie cleveland]

mighty good storey destrey...sure wish those first two bands would turn up for you.. charlie

[Brad Boyer]

Thanks Destry!! Always love to hear your hunting stories from Southern Illinois.....

[MarketHunter]

P.S. to Jeff,

There was a boy like that who did some hunting with us for awhile in Ontario. He'd run out to "help" pick up all the geese and invariably any bands would be from his birds. I saw that happen twice then had him figured out. He was threatened with a load of #2 out of my 10 gauge if he came anywhere near geese I'd shot. I killed a band myself on the very next hunt......


Destry