What was your first Duck

Matt

Wow they came back on you. Great shooting, Going back in time is wonderful. When I close my eyes sometime I feel like it happen today. Thanks Matt.
 
Paper. Bought at Bayless Hardware in the Stony Brook Village. $2.75 a box. Had to save hard for those shells. The Bayless family were shipbuilders in Stony Brook and Port Jefferson in the 19th century. One of the big salt meadows in Stony Brook Harbor was named Bayless Meadows. Several great potholes, now filled with oysters when the oysters came back in the 80s.
 
Drake Bufflehead. On a farm pond using a 12g 870 Remington in 1974. Still have it but I use a 3" 12g 870 now for ducks.


Joe
 
Dec 1985 black duck drake, location Seaford NY < long island > gun a Mossburg 500, weather : a gray snowy afternoon very cold. my friends dog would not go out and pick up the bird I had to retrieve the bird and my waders took on water .I was so excited I never felt the cold sat in wet waders the rest of the afternoon I felt the cold then.
 
My dad was born in Conway, Michigan in 1918. When he was 48, I was a "surprise baby" born in 1966. In 1975 I killed my first duck off "Graham Point" on Crooked Lake in Conway, Michigan using a crack barrel .410. Michigan had a law about not being able to hunt at the age of 12....... I was 9. ;)

I grew up killing ducks from our blind on this point, the same point my dad started killing ducks when he was a young boy in 1929. I was blessed to have been raised a duck hunter.

My dad's been gone 19 years now. He was an incredible mentor. Here's an old pic after I got a Remington 1100 chambered 3" mag.
View attachment Dad and Paul duck hunting (2).jpg
 
Joseph

Nothing like going over your waders on a winters day. Been there done that. But if you got your duck ,and you did. It was all worth it. Thanks
 
Shot my first duck in November of 1974. Was out rabbit hunting along a small creek in northern Indiana. I jumped a pair of mallards with a Model 42 Winchester pump 410 in hand. Dropped the drake stone dead in the creek. The good news is, I shot the duck, the bad news is, I had to wade in over my rubber pac boots to pluck it out of the creek. That hooked me on duck hunting but switched to a little more firepower the next year. Brings back good memories. Thanks Anthony!
 
Rod

Great walk back in time my friend, 410 is a little small for me. I'm not that good of a shot like you. Living the past ! only make the future better. If you past down a story . Then maybe the next generation will want one just like you had. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Here are my two sons on their first out of state duck hunting trip 18 years ago. 750 miles from home and 20 miles by boat to tent camp for a week in the marsh and hunt ducks. My youngest shot his first duck on this trip, it was a bluewing teal. He slept that night with the teal's foot with him in his sleeping bag. Those memories will be with us forever and the price I paid for a box of .410 Bismuth for my youngest to shoot will too. :)

The second picture of them is from this past November. It's a lot tougher to get them both together in the same place now that they've grown up with full time jobs. They grew up way too fast.


View attachment Andrew and Zach 6 and 8 yo.jpg



View attachment IMG_0903 (2).JPG
 
Good morning, Paul et al~


I remember your first bird vividly, but....at the time I had no idea it was your first. You carried yourself with the aplomb of a seasoned veteran....


I've been searching for the "commemorative" photo but cannot locate it yet. I also remember that we had a grey phase Gyrfalcon fly the rig that afternoon - came almost as nicely as your Broadie-beak - but kept on flying.


I also recall my first bird - October 1965 with a Mossberg .410 bolt action. Lead pellets in Winchester-Western paper cartridges back then.... guided through a poly-choke. I do not have a photo of first bird - but here's my second bird - the next day in the same spot on the Connetquot River. The drake Black Duck fell "dead-in-the-air" right over the Herter's Model Canada (balsa) stool.



View attachment A 01 - SJS First Black Duck - Connetquot River, October 1965.jpg



BTW: No way would I wear black afield nowadays. But, I wish I could still get those rubberized canvas "parkas" (I guess they were really anoraks).


Lots of miles since then - but the thrill is has not diminished.


All the best,


SJS





 
Steve

Great story my friend, Paper shells , lead shot ! the good old days. Once the sites and smells and sounds of duck hunting hits are souls. We are hooked for life. Know one but the Lord himself can take that away from us.
 
Drake Bufflehead - Shinnecock Bay - 14 years old while flounder fishing with a family friend, Bill, and his buddies.
They would drift for flounders and as ducks approached drop their fishing poles, pick up their shotguns, crouch down and if the birds were close enough SHOOT!
Since I had a newly acquired hunting license and duck stamp I was given the first opportunity to shoot using Bills' JC Higgins 12 ga. pump.
I was proficient with a bb and air rifle but only shot a shotgun twice before this trip and that was at a tin can being thrown up in the air. I connected with the first shot on the butterball and that was the last time they let me shoot for the day ha ha ha.
Years later I was told they were guessing I wasn't going to hit anything and after I did there was just no way I was getting bragging rights my first time out.
I really loved and miss them guys ......... may they all RIP..
 
Joe

What a nice time on the water. Good shooting! yes there is nothing like your first time. You didn't need to brag anyway. You knew what you did. And its still with you today. God Bless your buddies , may they RIP. But I bet ! they are still watching over you and saying: how did that kid hit that duck. Thanks
 
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Anthony, I shot my first duck in 1954, when I was a 13 year old kid. It was a bluewing teal drake. The shotgun I bought with my paper route money was a Winchester model 12 sweet 16. My next door neighbor, Marvin Gess, took me on the hunt. Shortly after that Dr. Reed took me on a cornfield hunt. That was fun but no ducks. I do remember Dr. Karn, our family MD, that took me on several hunts out at his farm. He had a great duck slough there. I also shot my first pheasant at his farm.

Little did I know that 12 years later, I would be driving to Alaska to teach. What got me there was being told that was the place where the Pacific Flyway was hatched. I sure had fun for the 8 years I lived there.
Al
 
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