Them shore am some funny lookin' ducks you got there!

STM

Senior Member
I drove about 50 miles to a lake to shoot some birds and whatever strolled into my field of view. I have been battling a chest cold for the last 3 days so dragging all of that gear, including the "beast" (600mm f/4) took a lot out of me. I set up the beast on the tripod and used a TC-300. Even with a 1200mm effective focal length the images took a fair amount of cropping. I only stopped down to f/5.6 on the lens so the depth of field was paper thin. I did not last very long because it was cold and I did not want to get any sicker so I did not take all that many images.

These are some weird looking ducks (the second one may be a goose, I usually can't tell the difference!)



 

STM

Senior Member
Nice shots. How far were you from the ducks? Sorry about your cold.

Maybe 25 meters or a little less. The lake was covered with waterfowl of all descriptions but I moved to a side where the sun was to my back to get the best light. There were not that many on that side of the lake and several took flight when I snuck up. The sight of that 600mm f/4 beast can be very intimidating!

The length of the beak on the first one still cracks me up!
 

STM

Senior Member
No Geese there.

Top is an Northern Shoveler, bottom is an American Coot.

Are they tasty? I didn't bring the 12 gauge with me. I was there all alone, I could have shot dinner!

They both did a lot of diving but all they came up with was some slimy looking green algae.
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
Are they tasty? I didn't bring the 12 gauge with me. I was there all alone, I could have shot dinner!

They both did a lot of diving but all they came up with was some slimy looking green algae.
Listen Mr. Duck Dynasty! Stop shooting tiny little innocent creatures. Go to Longhorns steak house and get a nice cut of t-bone or something.
 

STM

Senior Member
Listen Mr. Duck Dynasty! Stop shooting tiny little innocent creatures. Go to Longhorns steak house and get a nice cut of t-bone or something.

I love that show! Uncle Si just cracks me up. The only bad thing really about eating ducks you have shot is that for most medium sized ducks like mallards you have to use small shot or you would obliterate them. That means 1 1/8 oz. of BB #2 or #4 shot. I prefer to go with #2 because it has more knockdown at farther ranges. So far, FL has not forced us to go with steel shot over lead but it is coming, trust me. You will NEVER get all of that shot out of the bird, especially in the legs so you can never chomp down too hard!
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
We used to hunt them with bismuth shot in North Dakota, and it taught you to pick your shots carefully and to aim well. I quit hunting waterfowl after I saw the local sewage lagoons completely covered in ducks and geese one spring. (YUCK!!!) And then I moved to Colorado and saw the same thing.

And don't anybody go telling me about how nasty chickens are!!!!:p

WM
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Nice photos! :) Your EXIF says 18mm and f/4 for both images. Must be from having the teleconverter attached.
 

STM

Senior Member
Nice photos! :) Your EXIF says 18mm and f/4 for both images. Must be from having the teleconverter attached.

Nope. With the D700, like most Nikon DSLR's you have to add all AI/AIS lens focal length and max aperture in manually into a library. I have done it but I rarely bother to change it. Part of the exposure information is not correct either. The f/ was f/5.6 too, not f/4. The shutter speed and ISO, however, are correct.
 

STM

Senior Member
We used to hunt them with bismuth shot in North Dakota, and it taught you to pick your shots carefully and to aim well. I quit hunting waterfowl after I saw the local sewage lagoons completely covered in ducks and geese one spring. (YUCK!!!) And then I moved to Colorado and saw the same thing.

And don't anybody go telling me about how nasty chickens are!!!!:p

WM

You should NEVER hunt waterfowl unless you have a boat or dog, or both, to retrieve the birds. That is a cardinal sin amongst duck hunters. It is a terrible waste of wildlife. Now every once in a while you simply cannot find the bird but that is rare, at least in my experience. I hunt with a guy who has a golden retriever and she will sometimes come back with 2 or 3 ducks (usually heads or necks) in her mouth. Daisy is a real trooper and being a retriever, she LOVES water!

And NO ONE has to tell me how nasty chickens are. I had a poultry processing plant in Montgomery AL where I treated the chiller water with chlorine dioxide. Those birds come off the trucks covered in their own poo. The plant was highly automated with the exception of hanging the birds on the hangers. There were A LOT of Hispanics there, most of which I am sure were not legal, but they used to have a dozen of them running around grabbing the chickens and hanging them upside down on the hangers. That kind of comedy you just can't buy!!! Their is nothing funnier than watching guys chasing chickens around a fenced in area and cursing (presumably) in Spanish.

That plant used to process over a quarter million birds a day
 
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zutty

Senior Member
I have some odd duck photos as well...They're cool little animals
D810 #2 Cape 70-200 #1 HD2a.jpg


D7100 #2 Cape Park-Tele HD3.jpg


D7100 #2 Cp Tele_024.jpg
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
You should NEVER hunt waterfowl unless you have a boat or dog, or both, to retrieve the birds. That is a cardinal sin amongst duck hunters. It is a terrible waste of wildlife. Now every once in a while you simply cannot find the bird but that is rare, at least in my experience. I hunt with a guy who has a golden retriever and she will sometimes come back with 2 or 3 ducks (usually heads or necks) in her mouth. Daisy is a real trooper and being a retriever, she LOVES water!

And NO ONE has to tell me how nasty chickens are. I had a poultry processing plant in Montgomery AL where I treated the chiller water with chlorine dioxide. Those birds come off the trucks covered in their own poo. The plant was highly automated with the exception of hanging the birds on the hangers. There were A LOT of Hispanics there, most of which I am sure were not legal, but they used to have a dozen of them running around grabbing the chickens and hanging them upside down on the hangers. That kind of comedy you just can't buy!!! Their is nothing funnier than watching guys chasing chickens around a fenced in area and cursing (presumably) in Spanish.

That plant used to process over a quarter million birds a day

We always used a dog to retrieve the game, even pheasants, and yes there was one time I remember a winged bird dove and never surfaced; that being the only bird I remember leaving in the field. We also had a dog (another Golden Retriever) that would retrieve a skunk every now and then. That was a long ride home afterward!

My reference to picking shots and aiming well referred to the price of the shells. If I remember right, bismuth shotshells were about three times the price of lead...

And I asked not to hear how nasty chickens are, but at least I'm done with dinner tonight (Chicken tortilla soup). My grandparents raised chickens for eggs and frying when I was a kid, and my cousins and I were frequently dispatched to catch dinner, which invariably led to the adults coming out to watch and then telling stories about it for years afterwards. :p I know how nasty they can be, too.

WM
 

STM

Senior Member
We always used a dog to retrieve the game, even pheasants, and yes there was one time I remember a winged bird dove and never surfaced; that being the only bird I remember leaving in the field. We also had a dog (another Golden Retriever) that would retrieve a skunk every now and then. That was a long ride home afterward!

My reference to picking shots and aiming well referred to the price of the shells. If I remember right, bismuth shotshells were about three times the price of lead...

And I asked not to hear how nasty chickens are, but at least I'm done with dinner tonight (Chicken tortilla soup). My grandparents raised chickens for eggs and frying when I was a kid, and my cousins and I were frequently dispatched to catch dinner, which invariably led to the adults coming out to watch and then telling stories about it for years afterwards. :p I know how nasty they can be, too.

WM

I reload my hulls, just like my rifle and pistol rounds so it is pretty inexpensive for me. I know that steel is more "environmentally friendly" than lead, blah, blah, blah, but for the equivalent sized shot, it just does not have the knockdown power of lead because it is not as heavy or dense. If you shot #4 lead for medium sized ducks like Mallards or Woodiesb you would have to go to at least #2 steel for the same knockdown. And forget it for turkey. I use #6 or #5 lead for turkey depending on the range. I can get a one shot kill with #5 out to about 45-50 yards or so. I don't know ANYONE who shoots turkey with steel so I really can't comment on what gives equivalent killing power but I would not be surprised it would be #2 steel.
 

STM

Senior Member
I feel compelled to retract my statement about ducklings being some of the cutest animals on the planet. Although technically a Coot is not a duck. Below is a photo of American Coot ducklings. Those are some of the ugliest birds I have ever seen!

American-Coot-Bird-image-02.jpg
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
I reload my hulls, just like my rifle and pistol rounds so it is pretty inexpensive for me. I know that steel is more "environmentally friendly" than lead, blah, blah, blah, but for the equivalent sized shot, it just does not have the knockdown power of lead because it is not as heavy or dense. If you shot #4 lead for medium sized ducks like Mallards or Woodiesb you would have to go to at least #2 steel for the same knockdown. And forget it for turkey. I use #6 or #5 lead for turkey depending on the range. I can get a one shot kill with #5 out to about 45-50 yards or so. I don't know ANYONE who shoots turkey with steel so I really can't comment on what gives equivalent killing power but I would not be surprised it would be #2 steel.

I never used steel because it had such a bad rep by the time I needed to shoot lead-free. I do remember we had to use larger bismuth shot than lead shot for whatever we hunted.

One experience I did have when I was a kid was not paying attention to my shot and hitting a dove with buckshot; it didn't leave much of the bird. :mad: I've never hunted turkeys, but used to hunt crows with a .22LR. That was challenging, without a doubt, and a great teacher of patience.


WM
 

STM

Senior Member
I never used steel because it had such a bad rep by the time I needed to shoot lead-free. I do remember we had to use larger bismuth shot than lead shot for whatever we hunted.

One experience I did have when I was a kid was not paying attention to my shot and hitting a dove with buckshot; it didn't leave much of the bird. :mad: I've never hunted turkeys, but used to hunt crows with a .22LR. That was challenging, without a doubt, and a great teacher of patience.


WM

Yeah, 00 does have a way of obliterating anything under about 50 pounds but look on the bright side, the dove was already cleaned and probably mostly defeathered!! I once conducted a very scientific experiment to see how many 3" 12ga 00 shells it would take to chop down a 6" in diameter (at the base) oak tree. 3 shells from about 5' away worked exceedingly well! I get around shot load mishaps like that by always loading 00 in green hulls, duck loads in red and turkey in yellow.

#5 lead with a full choke works quite well with gobblers. Some people go for a center of mass shot but I prefer to go for a head/upper neck shot because it is far more humane. I have never had to shoot one twice in all my years of turkey hunting. One guy I went turkey hunting with shot one center of mass, knocked it over and the rascal got up and started running away! We caught up with it about 150 yards away. It fell when it bled out. I hated to see that bird suffer like that.

Although it won't happen this year because I am here, I have provided the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner for every year in the last 20, unless I was in the desert, which happened a couple of times. Natural turkeys are much leaner than farm raised turkeys and I prefer the taste. But since they are wild after all, you absolutely have to make sure you cook the bird to at least 165º degrees everywhere in case they have worms or parasites or most commonly, Salmonella or E. coli. And as mentioned earlier, you should never chomp down real hard just in case one of those rogue pellets went off on its own somewhere, which has been known to happen! My wife really busted my chops one Thanksgiving when she bit down on a piece of shot from the breast. She said "I thought you always shot them in the head!" I told her I did but once the pellets leave the barrel I no longer have any control over them.
 
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Whiskeyman

Senior Member
And as mentioned earlier, you should never chomp down real hard just in case one of those rogue pellets went off on its own somewhere, which has been known to happen! My wife really busted my chops one Thanksgiving when she bit down on a piece of shot from the breast. She said "I thought you always shot them in the head!" I told her I did but once the pellets leave the barrel I no longer have any control over them.

That's why I always hunted crow with a .22 LR; it's much easier to eat that way!! :eek:
 
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