Duck hunting is a very popular sport that is rooted in our american history. In fact, in the sports beginning, many hunters hunted out of boats that were known as the “sink boat.” The historical weapon of choice was a very large old gun style known as the “punt.” Although hunting is a historical sport, many americans still love to duck hunt and knowing a few essential facts can make a hunter much more successful. Ducks can be big or small, with the largest duck being the common eider, which weighs up to six pounds. The biggest, most popular waterfowl, is the mallard drake. The female green-wing teal is the smallest duck in waterfowl, and can weigh as little as six ounces. Most ducks fly pretty fast with some ducks reaching 40-60 mph. …show more content…
The fastest duck that has reached limits above 60 mph, and it is the red-breasted merganser which has been recorded as flying speeds of 100 mph. This is the fastest recorded speed of a duck going this fast (Checkett & Young). The history of what duck hunters of the past used to hunt is amazing.
They used things modern hunters don’t even know about to insure a successful hunt. One example of this is of a boat called a sinkbox. This boat was level with the water and if one was compromised by one wave, it would go over the side of the boat and sink it. The construction of the boat has the look of a coffin. Wooden wings surround the box that's called the platform. The top of the box was made to have natural looking appearance with flat-bottom wing decoys. The decoys that they put on the platform, were metal and weighed 25 pounds. In these boats, to set up the normal 300 decoys, it took nearly an hour. Today, the boats hunters use are expensive. The racing duck boats cost about 16,000 dollars for a new one. Used modern day duck boats cost about 12,000 dollars. The most popular boats are the Excel and Havoc duck boats. These are specially designed for racing through timber to get to a duck hole. …show more content…
(Walsh) Back in the 1800’s, there was a very big gun that they used to put on skiff boats.
It was made to kill very large numbers of waterfowl in one shot. It was called the punt gun. The punt gun was very large. The bore (diameter of the barrel) exceeded a 2 inch diameter. When the gun would be fired across the water, it would put out a whole pound of shot. This gun would kill 90 ducks in one shot. It was taller than the person who owned it. Now days, People mainly use a 12 gauge or 20 gauge shotgun. The 12 gauge is the more popular out of the shotguns (“Punt Gun”). Back in 1904, There was a guy named Jack Miner that started a Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. This was a place for ducks to migrate. It was located in Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. In 1931, It was established in the United states, and in 1936, In canada to continue the legacy of Jack Miner. The jack Miner foundation was one of the most popular migration places for ducks. When spring came here in the United States, The ducks would all go back up north to canada to this Refuge. (“The Jack Miner Migratory Bird
Foundation”) There is a very historical refuge in arkansas that is called the Claypool Refuge. In 1940, The refuge was created and it was the best place to duck hunt in Arkansas. It seemed like every duck in Arkansas was at Claypool. At this refuge, the first live duck hunt was recorded. The hunters got a full ten minutes of footage. They even got footage of the ducks setting on the water. There was so many ducks, it covered a full 40 acres of water. There was approximately 250,000 to 300,000 Ducks, mostly mallards, settled on the refuge. The 40 acres of water was all green-heads. They said it made a literal sea of ducks. For the live shot on the lake of ducks, they ran two miles of electrical and telephone wires through the woods on muddy rutted roads. This live duck hunt was something no network could pull off. This claypool reservoir is still very historical in the duck hunting history (Clemons). Every time a hunter goes duck hunting, there is one important thing that one will need. Decoys are very important when duck hunting. There are several different types of decoys, but three are very popular. They are the floating decoy, Mojo, and the full body decoy. Floating decoys and mojos are the most popular water decoys. But the full body decoys are not just for dry fields anymore. Ducks prefer shallow water for feeding. You need to trick them into thinking that any depth is feeding depth. You need to make the full body decoys make it look like the water is shallow enough for feeding. There is a very popular thing that has come to duck hunting a while back. Its called the Jerk-cord. The jerk-cord has been around since the shackled ducks were around. Technology has pretty much made every duck hunter forget about the jerk-cord. Many duck hunters still use them (Campbell). When hunters try different strategies to get ducks to land in the decoys to get them in shooting range is called late-season duck hunting. Ducks are kind of like security guards on watch during late-season. They will land in spots that have very little or no ducks. Seeing lots of ducks are danger to them in late-season. Ducks are mainly attracted to feeding ducks. They know if ducks are feeding, then it is safe for them to land there. In late season, all ducks are decoy shy. When one is duck hunting late season, one needs to use very little or no decoys in the duck hole. If one uses decoys, one needs to have two or three feeder decoys so the ducks won’t flair off. Most of the time, no matter how many decoys one has out, the location is always the most important element to insure a good duck hunt. There are different days that a hunter should hunt different places. When it is cloudy, the hunter needs to hunt a field. If it is sunny, the hunter needs to hunt timber. Either place has the same rules for late-season hunting; feeders are the most important decoys in the late season (Migdalski). With these facts, the inexperienced hunter will learn a lot about hunting ducks and what helps insure a successful hunt.. Make sure as a new hunter to always have feeder decoys while hunting and convince the ducks that they are landing on sheet water that is shallow enough for the ducks to stand so they can feed easier.
The red-cockaded woodpecker, an inhabitant of mature pine forests and pine-grassland ecosystems from Maryland to eastern Texas, has had a troubled history within the last decade (Roise et al, 1990). Ten years ago, James documented a population decline in America’s largest remaining red-cockaded woodpecker population (1991). Of the 2,157 clusters, or living groups, contained in national forests, 693 of them were located in Florid...
You need steel shot. Before 1992 you were able to you brass shot, but they changed that. They switched to steel shot because it’s a non-toxic metal, opposed to brass. It made the water ways just a little less toxic and when you shoot a duck and say you just hit it with one or two brass pellets. Well that’s not a fatal blow the duck could survive, but with the brass shot being toxic and harmful it would die from blood poisoning down the road which is bad for Waterfowl. If you hit the duck with steel shot it has a chance to live if it go away because it wouldn’t die from blood poisoning. When choosing your type of bullet there are a lot of considerations to take into hand. First of all you get steel shot but the best to get is either four shot or lower. Then choosing the velocity of the bullet you want to get something that is going to move out there at a reasonable speed. The lowest you can go is 1330 feet per second, which really isn’t recommended. Then the highest velocity that you can go is 1760 feet per second. What a lot of people usually prefer is 1550 feet per second, which is the happy medium. If you make the transition to a higher or lower velocity then it makes it hard to hit your target, because when the duck or goose is flying you have to lead it and it’s hard to get a range on how much to lead them when you switching around on what velocity that you are shooting. Then you have to take into consideration the size of your bullet. When choosing a bullet size you can have usually anywhere from two and three quarters of an inch up to three and a half inches. The typical sizes are two and three quarters and three inches, because they won’t get jammed when cocking out your
The rifle and the coveted shotgun, literally brought home the bacon. With sleek models such as the Winchester .44 in 1873, accurate targeting sights increased a hunter’s ability to take down his prey, even from large distances, often exceeding 200 yards. The other weapon of choice, the shotgun, did not boast a straight, clean shot, but had the capacity to tear anything to shreds in a single blast. A short barrel provided the advantage of a wider blast range and easier handling (Trachtman et al 50). In many battles, the shotguns were often preferred for their simplifying features.
Prior to the invention of the Minié ball it was necessary for the bullet to be the same diameter as the barrel in order for it to engage the rifling. This made it difficult and time consuming to load because the bullet would have to be rammed down the barrel with some force. Due to this fact, muzzle loading rifles had not seen any previous use in combat. The Minié ball, however, changed this. The Minié bullet was slightly smaller in diameter than the rifle barrel, was conical in shape, and contained an iron plug in its hollow base. When fired the force of the expanding charge would force the iron plug into the base of the bullet, thus causing the base to expand slightly and engage the rifling. The Minié bullet, fired from a rifled musket, had an effective range of up to 250 yards, which was a vast improvement over earlier muskets and ammunition. The rifled musket firing the Minié ball became the most common firearm used by both sides during the Civil War, and the Springfield armory in Massachusetts produce nearly two million for the Union Army. (History.com, 2010)
A popular weapon used by both sides was the rifle. Rifles were invented before the Civil War and were greatly used in the War of 1812. However, more types were built and a larger amount was used during the Civil War. Rifles added a spin to bullets for a greater accuracy at longer ranges. Using this weapon, soldiers could fire 400 yards away, as opposed to the average 80 yards (Robertson 50). Rifles were the fastest and hardest weapon of the time. Rifles allowed their bullets to be shot harder and faster towards its target. New inventions, used by the Union more than the Confederate, included Parrott rifles. They were composed of iron. Robert Parker Parrott, an American soldier and inventor, created these weapons, hence the name Parrott rifles. Despite its name, the Parrott rifle was actually a cannon. Its size ranged from 10 to 300 pounders. It was not favored by most because it was considered unsafe (“Civil War Artillery”). Because of its bulkiness and heaviness, it seldom led soldiers to inaccuratel...
Scouting is the first key element of waterfowl hunting. Scouting is looking for the birds, finding their pattern, figuring out what times they fly, and determining where they fly to. Michael R Shea says, ¨Following the duck a few weeks before the
Duck Hunting has been around since the 17th century and waterfowlers have been passing down the great tradition of waterfowl. Waterfowl or also known as duck hunting has been a growing sport and more and more people are starting to duck hunt around America.
head which was wrapped in buckskin on a wooden handle. They also used the common bow and
Pheasants are one of the most popular game birds around South Dakota. A lot of people are known to have pheasant farms because they are so populated and are worth quite a bit of money. The pheasant is native to Asia and has widely introduced itself as a game bird. The ring-necked pheasant is a species that can be found anywhere in North America. It gets the ring neck name from the white ring around its neck separated a blue or black color on top and a light brown color on the bottom. Some of the other game birds that people hunt are geese, ducks, grouse, and some people hunt quail. Geese are a bigger game bird and most game birds are usually shot with a 12 or 20 gauge shotgun. All of these animals have a certain date for their season for when they can be
They used bows and arrows and spears to hunt their food. Buffalo was plentiful, so they were hunted often. Elk and moose were only hunted occasionally and not as often as buffalo. Coyotes, lynx, wolves and rabbits were mostly caught with traps. It was a great reward to them to catch an eagle and get the feathers from
I have been bow hunting since I was about 8 years old. I am going to go over the basic steps and necessary equipment needed to start becoming a successful bow hunter. Some of the key things you will need during this are a decent set of camouflage, a compound hunting bow and a place to hunt. Despite the time it takes to be successful; bow hunting can be very rewarding.
The rifle was an extremely effective advancement in military history. The rifle has been used for centuries because of its effectiveness, shooting bullets straight and accurate because of the aerodynamics and physics of the spiral motion with the bullet. What makes the rifle a rifle and much better than a musket, is the fact that it has rifling throughout the barrel of the gun. Rifling is a system of spiral grooves in the surface of the bore of a gun causing a projectile when fired to rotate about its longer axis (Merriam-Webster). The rifle changed America by starting long range warfare, enforcing a new industry of American weaponry, and leading to the sniper rifle which now has many important uses such as protecting the white house.
They also hunted small game with blowguns that were accurate from up to 60 feet
My passion for duck hunting began when I met Bruce, a friend of my dad's who introduced me to the sport. He is a phenomenal man who really has a brilliant knowledge in the sport of duck hunting.
Many people see hunting and fishing as the slaughtering of innocent animals for no reason other than sport and fun. However, the truth is, hunting and fishing are beneficial to people, environments, and the economy. Hunting and fishing are beneficial to the economy because they cause a major economic impact. Hunting and fishing are beneficial to environments and people because they reduce damages done by wildlife overcrowding. Hunting and fishing are also beneficial to people because they provide a healthy, affordable source of food.