Dream Duck Hunting Trip? Here's One

Favorite duck hunts may be spent in familiar haunts near home, with family and close friends.  Decoying mallards and gadwalls in cypress brakes, bouncing teal across flooded bean fields, and shooting passing woodies from oak-lined creeks are fun times we duck hunters live for.  Hunt-wise, opening day of Mississippi's dove season is the last on Earth I'd miss for anything.

Duck hunts is the stuff from which dreams are made, and dreams vary greatly among waterfowlers.  Unique species, simple changes in scenery or trigger-pulling that's been illegal in the U.S. for nearly a century are among the many reasons that seemingly normal duck hunters may travel.

Duck hunters are often described as crazy for playing in water during cold weather, but some duck hunters are crazier than others.  And it's a mighty big world.

I've got a bucket list of duck hunts around the world, too. Wild and remote places compel me.  Adventure is a must; new species are a plus.

One dream hunt presently exists solely in snapshots and the translated, first-hand description of an Argentine acquaintance's quest for his own dream duck.  The hunt occurs in a remote jungle – as wild as anything in the Amazon Basin much further to its north.  Hunters leave the hotel long before daylight, drive down tire-rutted trails into jungle blackness.  Temperatures are in the 90s.  Walk down hand-cut trails by headlights, towards coconut palm-studded swamps.  There are numerous duck species and liberal shooting limits.  The duck that draws you here feeds exclusively on young, walnut-sized coconuts. The swamp seethes with insects, with yellow anacondas as long most living rooms are wide.  Monkeys scream from the treetops at daylight, maybe a jaguar roars from deep within the forest shadows; you hear your intended quarry’s wing beats on mangroves, like fast raps n wooden doors, as they grow impatient to feed.  Later they will take flight, weaving through towering palms towards waiting decoys.

There's a crazy twist to it that is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.  That will be continued later.

What’s your dream duck hunt?

Ramsey Russell ‘s GetDucks.com is a full-time, full-service agency specializing in wing shooting with major emphasis on trophy duck species and trophy duck hunting experiences. It's duck season somewhere. Your trip of a lifetime deserves – and receives – our full attention.  Ready to pull the trigger?

Rio Salado Argentina Duck Hunting Way Off the Beaten Path

Right about the time you think you've seen and done it all, a really special duck hunt is found that reminds me of what I've really been hunting for in the first place. Getting there took some doing. 

Located in the northern Santa Fe Province, about 300 miles from Buenos Aires, the last 30 miles is regularly graded, non-graveled dirt road.  It had rained hard before our arrival so we crept at a snail's pace for the last hour.  With any idea of what lay ahead, I'd have walked it.

My heart was still beating hard from a quarter-mile walk to the blind, but in the somber, gray relief of a cloud-covered daybreak, I knew it immediately. For a decade, I'd visited duck holes world-wide to find it; it's where I want to be buried.

Gould's Turkey Hunting Mexico's Sierra Madres: Trip Report

"Gould’s turkey hunting is one of those hunting trips of a lifetime you might do twice," explained client Chris Adkins of West Virginia.  Whether you’re a serious turkey hunter or not.

Hosting Gould’s turkey hunt in Durango, Mexico falls under my job description not hobby.  Besides, I'm a duck hunter at heart.  A few days Gould’s turkey hunting in the beautiful Sierra Madres with die-hard turkey hunters is nearly enough to make even an ardent duck hunter. like myself a turkey hunter.

Uruguay Duck Hunt at New Tacuarí Lodge

It's not as easy as it sounds.  Finding and delivering duck hunting trips around the world entails long hours, arduous travel away from home and the hassle and inconveniences that come with it.

I know, I know, but someone has to do it (and just wait, I've got a whole series of stories about things that happen along the way you'll never, ever read about in slick travel brochures).  I like traveling to new places and pulling the trigger, but new and different experiences, preferably way off the beaten path, are most compelling.

Most GetDucks.com wingshooting destinations offered in South America are as convenient to an airport as Disney World to Orlando.  The duck hunting is incredible; total-package experiences relative to duck hunting locally are unbelievable. Sometimes we get real lucky and find something harder to get to, but worth it.  Our new Tacuarí Lodge Uruguay duck hunting program is the perfect example.

The best duck hunting in Uruguay is located to the east.  Many duck species common to Uruguay are rare or not available throughout much of Argentina.  Uruguay duck hunts are usually operated from hotels and let's face it, who wants to travel that far to stay in a hotel?

Tacuarí Lodge is located 5.5 hours from Montevideo, in remote northeastern Uruguay, right across the river from Brazil.  We drove past other duck hunting operations getting there.  It was worth it.  What awaited surprised us.

Eight of Clubs

At Willow Break, we draw blinds at 5:30 AM.  Sharp.  High card gets first pick.  There’s always a crowd of anxious duck hunters on Opening Day.  There’s always friendly handshakes and back slapping between gulps of warm coffee.  There’s never mention of duck reports or favorite spots. You’d think we’d not seen each other in months and were just having a friendly reunion.  It then gets quietly serious as the dog-eared deck is shuffled and members pull chances from the scattered pile.

Eight of Clubs didn’t win the big prize,  for damned sure.  It was poor consolation that I out-drew Ian, my long-time friend and former college professor, with whom the blind is traditionally shared on opening morning.

Our chosen spot consisted of flooded coffeweeds.  There’d been enough ducks in preceding weeks that my oldest son broke from deer hunting and joined us - me, Duncan and Ian - in the blind. I’ve tried to raise him better and morning deer hunting during duck season is hopefully just a phase he’ll outgrow.

Ducks took flight as we walked into the darkness.  A few quacked from the shadows as we tossed decoys.  The morning held promise.

There was heavy cloud cover and no wind.  Knowing there’d be no shadows to hide in later, we situated ourselves further back into the coffeweeds, where we kicked water when working ducks.
The first pair ripped into the decoys from out of nowhere and splashed paddles-up on the water by the boy’s steel fusillade.  Redheads!

Next up were 3 mallards and I got in on the action, too.  With little to no wind, the morning's ducks decoyed randomly from all directions.   It was no barrel-burner, but mallards, wood ducks, green-winged teal, and ringnecks trickled in most of the morning. The rain held off, too, mostly.

During a similar duck hunt several years previously, Ian overheard Forrest and Duncan discussing a big buck they’d seen.  He struck the deal that for his not sharing the buck’s location with anyone else in camp, they’d agree to say, “Nice shot, Mr. Ian” every time he killed a duck in their presence.  The deal backfired during the very next volley.  It’s more fun to say it after misses, which happens as often as not.  The 2012 Mississippi duck hunting season opener was no exception, and we all abided the tradition of saying it on several occasions.

Cooper’s inexperience may have cost us a few birds on the strap were it not for the more experienced Asia, Ian’s pup out of Delta.  She marked and then recovered them handily from dense cover. 

We’ve shot more ducks together, and we’ve certainly shot fewer, but it felt good again to be in knee-deep water, duck hunting in Mississippi.  It felt good to be among a long-time friend, with both sons, and with a new retriever that was showing promise. Duck season and all that comes with it - including the occasional Eight of Clubs - had finally arrived.

Unique Uruguay Duck Hunting Recipe: Duck Pate

Like everyone else at duck camp, I used to always put on a few pounds during hunting season and spent the summer losing them.  Now "it's ducks season somewhere" and that is more the exception than the rule.

Ramsey Russell's GetDucks.com Reviews Russia Duck Hunting

Fumbling hurriedly through loose ammo that’d also been dumped into the coat pocket, the wooden duck call was retrieved just in time to blow 4 lousy notes that squelched due to dried cork.   It was enough.  The drake mallard’s head yanked as he hit the end of an invisible tie, he turned on a dime and locked onto a solitary, paintless decoy and descended cupped-and-committed until his feet were right above ice-rimmed creek water near.  He recoiled backasswards at the clap of a single shot and I could only chuckle at having traveled such inconceivably great distance to start the hunt with a ordinarily beautiful greenhead.  It was only the beginning.

Russia duck hunting offers one of the few spring waterfowl hunts remaining in the world and it coincides with hunting for Capercaillie and Black Grouse during their famous courtship rituals.  Until recently, nearly everything I knew about Russia derived from watching James Bond reruns.  The real thing was much better.

In addition to hunting 2 of the most coveted trophy grouse species in the world, duck hunting in Russia presents