Duck

With the duck season now closed almost everywhere, images of unfilled limits of ducks or geese linger on my mind along with all the mistakes I made. Perhaps you have started pulling your decoys and started cleaning them up for next year, too? Or, maybe you started putting your shotguns away in exchange for your favorite fishing rods? If some of you are like me, you are also thinking about those missed ducks and that wasted time spent chasing down cripples and wondering how that happened in the first place. Perhaps, like me, as well, you're kicking yourself for not practicing more?

Duck calling is definitely a work of art. I would also submit that it can be an acquired skill. I'm not as seasoned a duck hunter as others, although I love duck hunting and one of my New Year's resolutions is to do more of it starting fall 2014.

Many waterfowl hunters have reported their best year ever in the duck

This season started with a bang! The pun is intended.

By Dale D. Humburg, Ducks Unlimited chief scientist

The season's about half over. Ducks begin migrating south in late August and start northward in February. Late November is in fact about halfway through the birds' annual round-trip migration. For waterfowl hunters, the same schedule applies.

Mosquitoes early and iced-up decoys late characterize the seasonal transition for waterfowl hunters, whether in North Dakota or

Every aspect of our society has become so pigeon holed, we all have become victims of the cookie cutter syndrome. If we see it on TV, or in a slick magazine, we copy it. It is called mass merchandising.

Larry Whiteley, host of the award-winning Outdoor World Radio shares five of his tride and true tips for hunting duck.

My buddy to my right dodged as the gun barrel of the guy next to him swung through his zone of fire and pulled the trigger. The echo of the 3 and 1/2-inch magnum waterfowl load pained our ears.

It was one of the best shooting performances on ducks that I'd ever seen, and from one of the most unlikely shooters.

Duck hunters are well known for their sport in bad winter weather. Fact of the matter is, they often suffer out there; it's part of the sport. What many forget is that it can turn deadly. Get stuck out there in the elements, and wet, and it becomes a test of survival. Duck hunters have perished in the marsh, sometimes lots of them. For instance, a dozen scattered hunters died along the Gulf Coast during the December 1983 killer cold front.