ORIGINAL: buckclub
not saying that I do, but when feild blind or pit hunting does anyone else let them land and scope them out for bands while on the ground walking around, then jump shooting them if you do find a banded bird?? how successfull of a tactic is this?
I guess that would work if you just want to kill banded birds. Personally, I don't waterfowl hunt because they are banded, or because its trendy, or because its cool.... when a group of ten mallards bomb out of the clear blue sky to come into my decoys, to tune of my call... and I can make them hover 15 feet off the water and pick out a nice drake and watch the dog I trained from 7 weeks old make a to hand retrieve... thats why I waterfowl hunt. The noise coming off the wings from a group of 20 geese as they rip over your head low to circle around downwind one last time before committing to the decoys.... thats why I waterfowl hunt. I'd miss all that if all I thought about was banded birds.
Bands are great and all, and I guess I feel this way because I have been lucky to kill more than my share already... but I think there is nothing more gaudy or flat out ***** than someone with two lanyards full of bands actually going hunting.... especially if they are wearing camo everything, shooting camo guns...face paint etc etc... then turn around and put the equivelent of sleigh bells around their neck.... why not just have a bon fire? You'd keep warm at least...
In my experience, killing banded birds is 75% location and 25% luck. Every single mallard duck I shot in South Carolina (when I lived there... and there weren't many mallard ducks either) was banded by the SCWA, or some private plantation... basically they were chicken mallards, released for hunters, who escaped the rich to come die at the hand of the poor college kid with funny looking decoys and duck calls with a slight VA mountain accent. I know a few guys who hunt in proximity to large parks where geese are banded in the summer... during the resident goose season in sepetember, they count the number of geese they killed... and list how many WEREN'T banded... in six days of hunting last year they killed over 125 geese... six without bands.... they put them together on a jump rope and said that they've been at it for six years and they are trying to get 50 in perfect sequential order.... then need two more to finally hit 50 IN ORDER! To me... whats the point.. where is the magic in it? Bands are just a nice perk.... shouldn't be the point of the exercise.