Shooting Ducks on Water?

[SoonerATC]

So this evening I was out pond hopping and came across a pond that had about a dozen divers on it. When I popped up, they all took off and on my first shot, two of them fell into the water wounded. They were still swimming around, wounded but alive, but whenever I waded out into the pond to get them, they'd just swim to the other side. I know I could have just shot them again and no one probably would have been the wiser, but I wasn't sure if that was legal or not since they weren't in flight. I went ahead and called the game warden to ask if there was an exception to shooting wounded birds on the water, and he said it wasn't illegal in the first place to shoot any bird on the water. He said it's only illegal to shoot quail on the ground and turkeys in the roost.

I shot the first one and pretty much blew its head to pieces (unintentionally). The second one kept diving and I had trouble finding it after it would come back up (there was a lot of brush along the edge of the water). Anyway, it got to be so close to the end of LST that I didn't want any roaming game wardens to hear my shot and think that I had shot it after hours (I had a cell phone but didn't know if the time was accurate or not), so I left the second one unharvested. I could have told a game warden it was wounded and I was just trying to prevent wanton waste if they asked, but wouldn't have had a way to prove it. I figured it wasn't worth a potential citation.

I was disappointed I didn't harvest the second one and now it's probably going to die from the weather or from infection, but the point of this whole post was to say I didn't realize it was legal to shoot ducks on the water. I thought they had to be in flight.

 

[imhntn]

Sure it is legal....especially on wounded birds so that you can retrieve your harvest. I think it is legal even on non-wounded birds though. Just the difference between a meat hunter and a guy who enjoys the challenge of a tough shot.

 

[SoonerATC]

It was only the third time I'd ever been out duck hunting, so I'll chalk it up to a lesson learned.

 

[dennishoddy]

I can't prove it, but have been told that wounded ducks will swim down, and hold on to underwater brush with their bills until they die in place. I don't quite buy that theory, thinking that they swim down, and get entangled in the weeds, etc, and expire.

 

[WacosSon]

Isn't that the definition of pond jumping? shooting ducks on water?

 

[dennishoddy]

Isn't that the definition of pond jumping? shooting ducks on water?

When we pond jump, its to shoot the ducks leaving the water.

 

[r00s7a]

Isn't that the definition of pond jumping? shooting ducks on water?

I think that can go either way... It may not be considered the most "sporting" way to get one in the bag, but like imhntn said, that is the method of the meat hunter. When you shoot them on the water, you can line up their heads and take multiple ducks (sometimes a whole limit) with one shot. You could also label this conservative duck hunting... or going green! heh I would much rather shoot a duck that is ten feet off the water, than sitting on it. But I'm not going to act like I hadn't shot one on the water either.

 

[Okieshootist]

First off, i suggest you carry a handful of one oz steel 6's or 7's to finish off any wounded birds. My prefence when pond hopping is to locate, stalk and flush the birds taking my shots once they clear rhe water.

 

[SoonerATC]

Interesting epilogue to this story. I returned this morning to the same pond as last evening, since it had ducks on it twice yesterday. When I got to the pond, I didn't see the wounded duck, but I did shoot a single and found a dead doe that something had dragged to the pond's edge overnight. As I was walking back to my truck, I was about 50 yards from the pond when something started moving in the grass about 10 feet ahead of me. After recovering from my near heart attack, I saw that it was the wounded duck from last night and it was moving as fast as it could through the grass away from me. I couldn't believe it. The only sporting thing to do was to finish it off and just chalk it up to today's bag limit.

I went and hit a few other ponds, then returned to this pond again since it seemed to be holding them pretty consistently. I bagged another two ringnecks (that's what all the ducks in this story have been), then went to check on the deer carcass again. Something had clearly been back to it in the hour or so since I had left the first time. I'm thinking I might have interrupted whatever it was the first time I had been there and it came back after I left.

I also saw a turkey, but there is no fall turkey season at the WMA I was at.

 

[cvrx4]

I can't prove it, but have been told that wounded ducks will swim down, and hold on to underwater brush with their bills until they die in place. I don't quite buy that theory, thinking that they swim down, and get entangled in the weeds, etc, and expire.

My grandfather was an avid waterfowler. I think it was his most favorite thing to hunt. He told me this same story because he had many ponds on his land. We would pond jump his ponds every morning during duck season. It was a blast. He would not let me shoot the ducks sitting on the pond. I had to wait until they took flight and then it was on. We would shoot wounded ducks swimming around on the pond. In fact he would tell me to "Hurry and kill them before they dive down and hold on to some weeds with their bills " LOL I could not quite figure it out but I never questioned my grandpa.

I think the "no shooting of birds on the water" goes back many years and is passed down by word of mouth as law without it ever being one. I thought it was a law too for a long while.