Ruddy duck hunting

[Howard]

Clinton, we get 2 03 3 billion here every year. Start showing up in Oct. and won;t leave sometimes till May. If a boat spooks them they will fly but just off the water and that is the best chance for decoying them. Most of the time they swim in though. Plan on having to mud swat 'em. They do seem to like GHG bluebill hens. As a couple other guys said, you'll find canvasback right in with them. In fact, when we scout down here for cans, we look at ruddy flocks. For table fare they are the equal to any other duck in my estimation. They are so slow I actually ran over 2 of them with the boat comming in to the launch some years ago. Sneed saw them and and ran to the back of the boat raising hell. I looked back and sure nuff 2 of 'em floating belly up. Fortunatly I had gotton skunked that day so.... the Lord will provide. I enjoy watching them too, funny birds.

 

[noweil Mike]

I hunt a couple different place where there are Ruddy Ducks. They always swim in and I let them stay. Those live decoys sure seem to draw other ducks in. I like having them in my decoys and not competing with my decoys. One of my best weeks of duck hunting was when almost all the water froze and we had one little open water hole we could access that was full of Ruddy's. We shot the big ducks that came to the little ducks.

 

[Jon Yenulonis]

One of my regrets in life is when I was first married, we Honeymooned on what was to become one of our most favorite places in the world- Chincoteague Island, Virginia. On the island is, a now closed up, Waterfowl museum- The Refuge Waterfowl Museum. Back then, there was a carver who spent a lot of time there carving and visiting by the the name of Delbert "Cigar" Daisey. I watched him carve and paint a little Ruddy over the course of a day or two. He offered to sell it to me for $30.00, as they were going for. Today, those same birds are bringing upwards of $3,000.00! IF you can locate one. And the last I heard, Cigar was still alive and well at like 86 years young.

Jon