I need to figure out how it is that I can hunt birds for seasons on end, and I've never shot a banded bird... Is it more the area and how close to preserve you are or is it luck?

alot of luck, my dad has been duck hunting for 30 years and only has gotten one banded bird, meanwhile hes gone on hunts and dropped birds out of the same flock as his partners and even in the same flock hed get the un-banded birds, meanwhile i have been hunting(where i actually shoot) for 5 years, and in my fourth year i got a drake mallard that was banded as an adult in Alberta Canada in 2000, i got it in 2007, BIG drake lol

Its LUCK. My best friend and I took his little brother once. A couple woodies came in and sat down so we let the little brother shoot the drake on the water,( his first duck and he was 10) and you guessed it, banded!!!We had been hunting that swamp for 3-4 years and wore the wood ducks out and never a band before, for that matter never one since... also his gun broke when he shot so he couldn't shoot anymore that day! Talk about fate...

It has a ton to do with where you hunt. If you hunt close to where the DNR is banding them, then you are likely to kill them, particularly in the north. Consider Jeff Foiles and all his guys who run around with their lanyards that are covered in bands. Well, these guys hunt in close proximity to banding sites.

I have never killed a banded duck - ever. And it is a rare thing when anyone I hunt with kills them either. Therefore, I believe it has a lot to do with where you are.

Luck.. They say once you get that first one they just come in droves after that..

I can understand the luck in shooting one.... but shooting 5 in a day... what's there to brag about anymore?

both of my geese bands come from were banded incanada, into NY. anyone know of a site that you could use to find how much banding is going on where? or stats on avg distance traveled before killed. Basically stats on bird banding

i think it depends greatly on your location. I live near the jack miner sanctuary and hunted not far from it. This year we shot 9 jack miner bands (me and my buddy got 5 on one day, me with 3 and him with 2) We got 2 federal bands also. One from quebec and one from michigan. Its basically just luck though by shooting the right bird with a band.

not saying that I do, but when feildblindor pithuntingdoes 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 would say that wouldn't be that effective ... wasteing your time looking for bands might just lose you a shot at the birds. You probably wouldn't even be able to tell if they were banded or not unless you were within about 10 yards...even less in a picked corn field. To me that might even take a little bit out of it...when I picked up my first band it was one of the best feelings in the world.

As for the original question, location definatly increases your odds a lot. If you hunt with 15 miles of a banding site, obviously your going to shoot more bands than someone 100 miles away from one. I've shot 2 banded geese so far. My dad has been hunting for 40 years and has shot one duck band until last year. Between the two of us we shot 4 bands last year, 3 of them out of the same flock. The 3 from the same flock had band numbers within 5 numbers of each other, and all were banded in the same flock. There's a lot of luck involved.