A divers escape

K

Keith Bittner

Active member
So, many years ago hunting with my father we would lose a diving duck to suicide. He told me that the duck had dove to avoid us and grab hold of something on the bottom and that would be the end. It still happens and happened to my son with a ringneck this morning. Is this true on how they disappear? Or do they somehow periscope out of view and not be seen?
 
old duck hunters tale I believe

they may come up out of sight, or get hung up under something swimming away

but really- if they held on to a weed until they died- they would just let go when they expired and come up
 
I have wondered the same thing. We have had it happen with puddle ducks also. Mainly black ducks in the salt marsh. I have dropped black ducks into small salt ponds to have them dive and never reappearSome times the edges are undercut. We figure they swim under and die.
 
Luke black ducks are notorious for this. I shot one years ago while hunting wth my old lab. We were on a protected salt pond about 60 yards across . I winged a black duck and it proceeded to swim toward the opposite shoreline. However with the dog swimming for the retrieve it dove down in about the middle of the pond. Belle was not one to lose a duck. She circled a Spot about 15 yards from where the Duck first submerged, Whining and doing that high necked paddle retrievers sometimes do. Finally she dove Underwater.
She was subsurface about 5 seconds but surfaced wth the unhappy duck in her mouth. Whether that black duck would Of died underwater I don't know. But it sure wasn't comng up anytime soon.
 
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It happens.

Found birds frozen this way in shallow water. Pulled them up and weeds came along too... Stuck in their rigor mortised bill.

Also found a few fresh ones this way too. One's I killed. Seen em a foot or two under. Grab a butt and up they come. Mouth full!!
 
I wondered about this for years.
One unusually calm day we crippled a canvasback and never saw him surface.
A few minutes later we saw a v on the water like a small snake swimming.
When we came up on it we could see the duck swimming away with nothing above the waterline except the top half of bill and a little forehead.
On anything other than glass smooth water he would have been invisible.
I believe he dove before we could shoot and came up far enough away that we never saw him again.
 
I believe most lost divers do this. I've seen redheads and ringers do it, nothing but the bill sticking up, hard as hell to see them on calm days impossible on rough days.
 
The diver watersnake swim I've seen many times. The black duck thing mystifies me. Had it happen a few times over the years with no duck to show for it. Can't figure it out.
 
Ducks have hollow bones with air sacs contained within them. They control their buoyancy via deflating or inflating these air sacs. Over the years, my retrievers have "rooted" fleeing crippled puddle ducks out of submergent vegetation in shallow water during a chase, particularly the two that would dive for cripples. Last year Kane caught a black duck that dove in about six feet of VERY clear water along a rocky shoreline section in Lake Michigan. I had waded as far as I could go in pursuit, and had a great "seat" to watch. The twist in this story is that he was wearing a neoprene vest. Luckily the bird dove just as he was about to catch him and he instinctively lunged under about three feet after it. Then he bobbed back to the surface on his side. Yes, he let go of the bird and had to catch it again.

As Carl states, the vast majority of divers simply deflate their air sacs and barely break the surface to snatch another quick breath as they swim away;goldeneyes in particular.

Up here, "he took weed" is the common euphemism for loss of a crippled bird.
 
I thought it was a myth also...until I saw a wood duck do it. Early season, crystal clear water. The bird was down about 8ft, a chunk of weed in his bill. You could even see the water reddish around his little body. I waited fifteen minutes peering over the side shaking my head. I'd hoped he'd relax and float up, as he was just anchored by the weed in his mouth, feet up and everything like a crab pot buoy only underwater. It was within my spread so I just went back to hunting, hoping he'd float up at sometime. Never did float up and was still down then as I was leaving.-Seth
 
I don't know how often the "suicide" happens versus them swimming out of sight with nothing but bill and small portion of head above water (I'm a diver hunter so this is the most frustrating part) but I did find a drake hooded merganser holding tightly to a piece of submerged milfoil about 1.5 feet below the water surface several years ago. If I had not been elevated while riding in the front of a boat, and the water so clear, I would have never found the bird...
 
I understand that this does in fact happen. I have dislodged one while poling looking for it. I have not successfully done it but I understand that they can also be dislodged by powerfully slapping the water surface with a paddle or oar.
I have also been convinced that one did this on me, only to have a hawk pick up a dead duck a ways off from where I thought it was.
 
I've seen them do this also-sometimes they are just plain unrecoverable. I've also seen gadwall and wigeon do the watersnake swim, and I've even had a crippled goose dive and stay under for a good 20 seconds-I could follow him like a scuba diver from the trail of bubbles he was leaving! Strangest thing that I've ever seen one do was once I was jump shooting a frozen river and came around a bend where there was a hole in the ice with a lone goose on it-we saw each other at the same time and rather than flush off he submerged his body and grabbed on to the thin edge of ice at the edge of the hole with his bill and held on for dear life.
 
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Definitely one of the most challenging aspect of sea duck hunting. I've heard that Old Squaw can dive 200 feet deep...so, I assume that they dive and swim far enough away before they pop up to take a breath. What's even more challenging in sea duck hunting, is the surface of the open water is never like "glass", and there are often no markers around in the open water when you are trying to chase down a cripple, so you're not sure exactly where they went under, or where they may pop up.
And, to make it more challenging...I rarely get a successful follow-up shot when only their head and neck are sticking up above water line.....unless they're real close. Many o' shells have been wasted trying to finish-off a cripple that way.
But, the challenge keeps me going back for more.
 
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