Duck

Choke Tubes and Practice: Keys to Being a Better Shot

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 Season From First Frost to Arctic Blast

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

Surviving the Elements of Duck Hunting

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.