Mallards and Ringnecks

J

Jeff Bowen

Active member
I have gained access to some new timber hunting over the last few seasons. The area holds mallards together with ringnecks on a regular basis.

Has anyone ever seen that combo before ? It has happened the last couple of seasons. I personally can't figure this one out....
 
Ring-necks are the most puddle duck-ish birds in the diver clan. Not unusual to find them on small weedy creeks and ponds.
They feed almost exclusively on seeds, tubers and vegetation. So that are most likely their for the same reason the mallards are.
Years back, when we had tons of them wintering down here, I found a huge group feeding along a very narrow weedy tidal creek. The creek was maybe 15 yards wide, with the longest straight areas around 75 yards long. The ringers would circle over head and then drop down between the trees like fighter jets running a canyon. Made for some very tricky shooting, had to put in a skeet tube. But we shot limits of them 3 straight trips before the season ended.
 
I believe ring necks frequently nest and breed in the up north in small wooded ponds.

I don't remember where I heard this though. So it might not be right.
 
Last year during the spring migration we had a group of ringers stop by our deep water pond to dive and feed off the bottom. I think they were feeding on minnows and snails?
 
Probably the snails. Divers will eat a lot of snails, easy pickings.
 
Over 45 years of hunting in NW-PA, Mallards and Ringnecks always in the same places, marsh and lakes. Never shot them in flooded timber, as it was always much to late in the season and they had migrated south.

Ringbills are known as the half puddle, half diving duck, every one I shot and ate tasted good. They tend to circle more like puddle ducks than bore straight in like Bluebills. I like em, they are a damn fine duck to carve, hunt and eat.
 
By far my favorite duck to have decoy. We don't get many of them but every year they are in the same areas each year. They are a very neat bird. They will feed up in close to the bank and doesn't surprise me that they are with the mallards or the mallards are with them as they might be stirring up seeds and vegetation off the bottom. They are a very interesting bird to look at up close they have some colors on them that you can't see unless you have on in your hand. Taste great also.
 
Twenty some years ago a buddy and I would make an annual trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan to hunt ducks for a week. We hunted a lot of beaver ponds and small marshes and we always saw and shot a lot of ringers. Like Vince said, they are fun to hunt and carve and very good on the table. I remember seeing them pile into a pond only about three or four acres in size by the hundreds. Not sure what they were feeding on but it was a sight to see. I certainly miss making that trip but now we go to North Dakota for a week where we see a lot more variety. Maybe in my retirement years I can make both trips.
 
I never see ring necks in the fall, but on the spring migration north we see lots of them in shallow wet spots out in the fields and in little sloughs and wetlands. In the spring they will be with many other species of puddle ducks and divers.
 
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Only time I've ever shot them was in timber along with mallards. Like a broadbill that thinks it's a puddle duck.
 
I've shot about as many Ringnecks in the timber as I've shot in the open. In tight little Wood Duck holes where its like trying to shoot ping pong balls bouncing behind a picket fence to more open swamps where they're mixed in with Mallards and Gadwalls. No lightwts in that situation either as they don't know "drop down through the tree tops" like Puddle Ducks do..


Favorite shoot for them has to be on a day when I never pulled the trigger on them. I was in Texas with Glenn Hilyer and Jeff Jacobs, (both names long term members will recall), and Glenn had set us up on a Mallard shoot in a stock pond ringed with cypress and tupelos. The Mallards came from way up high, tiny spec's in the blue with their wings already set by the time you saw them locked onto the pond like they were on wires. No calling needed cause we were the only water for miles and they were coming there come hell or high water. We had shot a couple of flocks when the first Ringnecks showed up, a tight little squadron of birds that ripped through the tops of the trees with that tearing canvas sound. Too fast on the fast pass to land they rolled into a turn out over the open pasture, gained a little altitude and turned back to the pond right through the center of a fifty bird flock of Mallards that was parachuting in. As they say MAYHEM ENSUED..


At that point in time I had shot way more Ringnecks than Mallards so I waited on the Mallards. Jeff, an Iowa boy who grew up on Mallards had shot very few Ringnecks and set out to finish his limit on Ringnecks. Lets just say that at the end of the hunt there were alot more empties at his stand than there were at mine his shots all being at birds making strafing runs while mine were slowly settling balloons..


These days with more Mallards under my belt I'm not sure I wouldn't be piling up the empties with Jeff..


Neat times...Great fun...



Steve
 
Pretty cool to hear from everyone. I have been hunting timber holes in Alabama for 30 years and have only seen this in the last couple. We shoot a lot of ringers in our open waters but to hear that "rocket sound" in the timber as they come through is something new.....
 
I've hunted them from Manitoba to Louisiana .one of my top targets.I enjoy their boldness and acrobatics . Up north we get them in the rice and are as fine a table bird as you can get. Down south they are not as highly regarded.Blackjacks are a good decoy to make in my opinion because they are dual purpose if you get into bills and cans. They show enough black and white in a pinch. The low body style says diver but can be found where the puddles feed.
 
Hunt a lot on Canadian Border, Lake of the Woods-Nortern Minnesota. We get a large migration of ring bills about 2nd week in Oct. If we have good rice in the bay's they will stick around for quite some time. Mallards can be found in the same bays, but they typically will spend the days somewhere else and show up at last rays of light. Ring necks are not an open water duck so if there is no rice in the bay's they won't stick around.
 
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