Charlie and Brown M&M's

 

There are two things I always carry when I go duck hunting: trail mix and toilet paper.  I haven’t had to deploy them on every hunt, but the needs they serve are common enough that I feel naked in the field without them.  Though I have had a couple close encounters of the second kind, I actually haven’t had to poop in the woods since I was a boy.  I make a point of squeezing out what I have on board before I leave the house, and there’s always been a porta-potty or a gas station near enough at hand for post-hunt needs.  But I’m terrified of having a blowout in my waders more than anything.  I’ll “forget” the life jacket, but not the TP.  The trail mix, on the other hand, gets pulled out more often than not since the slowest part of the day seems to line up with breakfast wearing off.  A couple handfuls of something munchy can help bolster your will to perch on a mud seat in the rain.

Or in the sand behind a pile of tumble weeds.  When I lived in Central Washington, I’d take my two older sons hunting along the Frenchman Hills Wasteway.  I loved hunting these little ponds in the desert, not because I was very successful there, but because it seemed so sand people lumping over the dunes to a little pothole.

Sand People

 I know the smart people call it sagebrush steppe, but too me, who grew up in a place where you had to mow your lawn twice a week, it’s desert.  Sand + scrubby, poky things + rattlesnakes = desert.   

Anyway, the boys loved it too.  Making a blind was a cinch; just turn them loose for a few minutes and I’d have enough tumble weed for four blinds.  And there was always random things to find lying around.  They also took great delight in the trail mix and started angling for it about the time I finish setting the decoys.  I imagine that they conflate the two in a Pavlovian way.  

Well, as anyone who has kids will anticipate, at some point one day, they both had to rock a deuce.  Charlie, the older one, wanted to go home.  I said, no way and handed him the TP.  He was reluctant and decided to hold it.  On the other hand, Jasper, the younger one, saw no sense in that.  A couple minutes behind a sagebrush on the other side of the dune and he was much more comfortable.  Jasper’s new-found relaxation convinced Charlie, and he headed off to find his own seat of ease.  He was gone longer, which isn’t a good sign in these situations, but just before I got up to go look for him, he returned with an uncertain look on his face. 

“You OK?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you smell?”

“I kind of got some on my hands…”

Of course, I didn’t have soap with me--why would I?  The whole point of toilet paper is to keep the poop off your hands.  I directed him to do his best with what we had, so he “washed” them in the pond and rubbed them on some scrubby grass.  Which worked about as well as you’d expect pond water and grass to… pretty much not at all. 

Most people lower their personal hygiene standards to some extent when in the field.  At home, they insist on clean dishes, refrigeration, and hot, soapy water for whole bodies, but once in a campground, the five second rule gets extended to just before the ants show up.  My own standards are pretty low to begin with, but even with the out-of-doors modification, I draw the line at eating with poop on your hands.  So no, Charlie couldn’t have any trail mix… unless he could figure a way to eat it without his hands. 

He asked if I could pour some into his mouth.  I gladly obliged , but of course, it quickly devolved into seeing how far we could throw a cashew into his mouth.  We stopped short of complete Burgundian court behavior (viz., making him sing a special song before we flung nuts at him, while dancing dwarfs emerged from a huge pie in floppy hats and velvet doublets), but we did only let him have the brown M&M’s. 

So many lessons were learned that day. 

 

Diminishing Returns?

 

When discussing the merits of various waterfowling loads, I’ve read several folks use the phrase, “Diminishing Returns.”  In general, it is dropped into the sentence without any real explanation as if it’s shorthand for a full argument the reader should just know.  Akin to an English major’s, “It calls to mind Captain Ahab and pasteboard masks, right?”  So we see folks say, “you can speed a steel pellet up all you want, but at some point, you reach the point of diminishing returns.”

The concept of Diminishing Returns—that increases of investment bring progressively smaller rates of return—is only useful in the context of reality.  Something like, “x gets you y, but x+1 gets you y+.5” doesn’t really mean anything.  The variables have to be filled in with real values in order to use it in decision making; it’s only with values that we can decide what is or isn’t an acceptable return.  So if I speed that pellet up all I want, what does it mean to reach the Unacceptable Point of Diminshing Returns?  Are we talking an investment in powder? recoil? loss of pattern performance?   And what is my return on that investment?  Would a gain of 2.5 yards be worth the price of 3 ft/lbs extra recoil?  What about 15 ft/lbs?    

Obviously, this is COMPLETELY dependant on the person.  How much recoil do you want to handle?  How much money do you have?  How many days can you hunt?  How many ducks are in your flyway?

So can we define the undefinable?  Well, if we learned anything from PBS’s Square One, it’s that when in doubt, use a chart.  This one lists values for “standard” factory 12 ga loadings of #BBB shot (this size may not be available in all loadings obviously).  I chose this shot size arbitrarily, but all I say below would apply to any other size.  The recoil is calculated for a 7.5# gun, and the range is for 2.25” penetration at 32°F and sea level.

Load	Yardage for 2.25” penetration	In-shell Pellet count	pattern percentage needed for 50 pellets	Recoil in 7.5 lb gun	Cost, viz grains of powder
A: 1.125 oz @ 1400	48.7	68	73.5%	30.5	32
B: 1.125 oz @ 1550	51.3	68	73.5%	33.5	38
C: 1.25 oz @ 1300	45.1	76	65.8%	31.73	29?
D: 1.25 oz @ 1400	48.7	76	65.8%	36.26	34
E: 1.375 oz @ 1300	45.1	83	60.2%	37.16	32
B: 1.375 oz @ 1550	51.3	83	60.2%	51.2	40?
C: 1.5 oz @ 1500	52.1	91	54.9%	55.91	40?
D: 1.5625 oz @ 1300	45.1	95	52.6%	46.1	35

 

Yardage:

Going from 1300 fps to 1550 fps gains you an extra 6.2 yards, a 13.7% increase.  Six yards may not seem like much--which is why it’s so important!  You have a load that has penetration at 45 yards.  A Goose flies by at about 45 yards.  Are you SURE that goose is passing at 45 yards and not 48 yards?  Or looked at another way, the 1300 fps load has 2.43” of penetration at 40 yards.  The 1550 fps load has 2.75” of penetration at the same distance, a 13.2% increase.  What if the goose doesn’t provide the most desirable angle?  To those who only shoot “in your face” birds, what about a clearly hit, but not stopping bird?  Do you not shoot at sailers that have crossed out of the “in you face” territory?  Is that extra 13% in range worth the increased recoil, or powder?  Or if we keep the powder the same, is it worth a decrease in pellet count?

Pellet count:

There are two numbers here to talk about: the in-shell count and the in-pattern count.  Obviously, the two are connected, since the later is a portion of the former.  Which would be easier to achieve a pattern of 50 pellets (the minimum to cleanly take a goose): a load with 60 in-shell pellets, or one with 75?  The first would require a choke that would produce an 83% pattern, whereas the second only needs a 67% pattern.  I own several chokes that will produce 67% or better patterns with #BBB, but I’d have to spend a lot more fiddling around time to get 83%.  And the same is true of smaller shot.  More pellets in the shell makes it easier to get more pellets in the circle.  But more pellets come at the cost of either more recoil, or less penetration. 

Recoil:

Felt recoil is dependent on a host of things, some of which are quantifiable (like gun weight), and some of which are not (like excitement level).  How much is too much is completely up to the shooter.  And how hard a line is that threshold?  You may want a soft shooter for the dove field, but are you willing to take an extra thumping for the one or two shots it’ll take to fill a swan tag?  I have shot some loads that actually hurt me, and I’d only ever use again in self-defense, but there’s a lot of space between those and my “normal” duck loads. 

Cost:

Cost in dollars, or cost in grains?  With a finite resource like Alliant Steel, does it make sense to think of value in dollar terms since it is essentially an irreplaceable resource?  As for myself, I’m not as interested in bang for my buck as bang for my grain. 

Powder at $50/pound = $0.0071/grain

Grains per shell	Cost per shell	Cost per 25	Rounds per pound
32	$0.2286	$5.72	218.8
35	$0.2500	$6.25	200
38	$0.2714	$6.79	184.2
41	$0.2929	$7.32	170.7

 

Increasing the cost of a box by a dollar seems trivial—that’s only $10 more a CASE.  However, decreasing the number of loads I can make with a pound of powder from 218 to 184 is far more attention grabbing.  (And though it isn’t in short supply, the same can be said for shot to a lesser extent.) 

Now, one man may be setting on 20 pounds of Alliant Steel, and to him the utility of the grain is much lower then the man carefully husbanding a half pound of powder.  If you’re powder rich, burning up a few extra grains doesn’t really cost you anything; but if your powder poor, every grain has a name. 

And this is the whole crux of the issue.  All the chart does for us is… nothing.  Because I can’t define the utility of a grain or yard, or ft/lb, or pellet for you.  I can for me, but you might have a completely different matrix your wired into.  For me, I get so few chances, I’m thinking about installing a Flakturm on the back of my property to make the most of an unlikely passing flock of geese—recoil and amount of powder used don’t matter since, most likely, I won’t be shooting anyway. 

Rust Slug

 I've heard many times about all the steel shot in a shell rusting into a slug, then someone blowing up a duck or goose with it.  I find this pretty hard to believe: rust is a pretty weak adhesive, and the actual surface area of the shot in contact is pretty small.  Generally, when two pieces of metal are rusted together so tightly they don't break free with a mild blow, it's a situation like a nut and a bolt--two tightly fitted pieces which are SUPPOSED to adhere to one another anyway.     

I've never seen a photo of a rust slug or any other evidence beyond stories.  But I refuse to call anyone a liar--I wasn't there after all.  Besides, how can I prove it could NEVER happen?  

So in good faith, I'm going to try to create a rust slug.

3.23.25

I started with seven Federal Speed Shok 12 ga 2.75", 1.1125 oz #2's.  All had a gentle rattle to them.  

A buddy gave me these about eleven or twelve years ago when he moved, and they'd been bouncing around in various ammo boxes for several years before that.  I set one aside as a control.  I opened up the other six.

Here's the shot from one of the shells--all nice and shiny.  I dumped the shot into a saltwater bath.  

I did not measure the amount of salt, just poured in what felt good.  Maybe an 1/8 teaspoon in 2 oz of water?  After soaking for a 30 seconds or so, I poured the wet shot back into the hull and recrimped.

I then set the shells (except the control, obviously) shot end down in the saltwater bath and left them there for a month.  

4.22.25

I stopped soaking the shells.  I hadn't intended to leave them that long, but merely forgot.  Though to be honest, I don't know how long it would take anyway.  

5.11.25

I carefully opened up one shell.  There was a hint of rust on the hull mouth, but none on the shot yet.  Kind of sludgy though.

I loaded the shot back and recrimped the hull.  

6.19.25

I opened up another shell. Similar results.

At this point, I forgot about this project as I started working on loads for the '25 season.  Which was just as well, because this was obviously going to take a while.  

10.26.25

Now, only the control still rattles.  So I pried open a shell, which felt a lot more solid and had way less give then a normal round.  When I tried dumping the shot, only about 105 g of shot fell out even with a gentle thwack on the head of the upturned hull.  

Now we have rust! And about 4/5 of the shot is stuck in the wad.  So I shot some paper.  I used a cylinder choke because 1) I didn't want to put extra stress on the slug beyond the firing process, and 2) I didn't want to screw up any of my chokes.  

Rust Slug #1 @ 30 yards

105 hits

As you can see, the shot did not stay in slug form.  I have 105 pellets on the 36"x48" paper, or about 70% of the shot.  There's no reason to believe the unaccounted for ~35 pellets stayed together.  But even if some of the shot stayed together or embedded into the wad, it'd hardly make a slug.  The wad didn't hit the paper (the two X's are marking tears in the paper where I dropped the staple gun on it before the shot), and much as I looked,  I couldn't find it in the tall grass.

But I have another five salted shells to go, so we'll try again in a few months.  

Hunter Ethics

 

We generally don’t think about the cliches and idioms we’ve grown up with; we treat them the same as simpler words.  But whereas words like “dirt,” “water,” and “run” translate easily into any other language, phrases like “it’s raining cats and dogs” needs explanation to a foreigner.  “it’s raining really hard,” doesn’t convey the absurdity and violence of the rain, nor man’s helplessness before nature, that are imbedded in “it’s raining cats and dogs.”  But then the translator must go on to explain that we don’t say “it’s raining cats and dogs” when it actually is raining that hard.*  Idioms are sandbars of meaning and sense shaped by, and shaping, the cultural watercourse. 

I grew up in a fairly traditional cosmos.  God had created the world, filled it with plants and animals, and called it Good.  His world had a defined hierarchy of creation with man as its crown and steward, and He had given us dominion over the land and its animals.  This didn’t give us a Nero-like carte blanche to cover a chicken in tar and use it as a torch, but it did confer on us the right and duty to keep animals for our own food and pleasure. 

My dad and grandpa were farmers who, purely out of a complete lack of interest, didn’t hunt.  That meant that when I started hunting as an adult, I carried with me the Christian farmer’s attitude toward animals, but without any of the sportsman’s vocabulary.  In other words, I had never heard phrases like, “respect the ducks” till several seasons on.  So being new to me, I had to think about what it meant.  On the surface, it seems hard to construe as a form of respect duping a bird into believing he’s found a safe place to feed and fellowship, then suddenly blasting him out of the sky.  Obviously, just like the cats-and-dogs bit, this cultural alluvium didn’t mean we are supposed to literally respect the ducks. 

As a teenager, I worked for a few summer weeks on a chicken farm.  Every year, the farm would replace the hens in one of its barns and would hire us kids to put pullets in the cages.  The barn had eight aisles between rows of cages six levels high and stretching for what seemed miles.  Each wire cage was about two foot square and held six birds.  For the next two years, these birds would barely be able to turn around, flap their wings, or dodge the shit from their overhead neighbors.  After that, they became McNuggets.  The job was terrible, not because of the heat, or smell, or noise—all unpleasant, but pretty standard for the kind of agricultural work available to teenagers—but because of what I felt it was doing to my soul.  I wasn’t troubled so much by the fate of the chickens (they’re just birds after all), but by the fact that we were doing it.  My own family kept a few chickens for their eggs or meat, but we didn’t stop them being chickens.  Was stripping these birds of their chickenhood and rendering them merely egg-layers what God really intended from the Crown of His Creation, a little lower than the angels?  By doing this, we were debasing ourselves; I watched my little sister accidentally snap a bird’s neck in a cage door then throw it down in the manure pile as if it were a wilted lettuce leaf.** 

When we say, “respect the ducks,” what we really mean is, “respect the tapestry of creation that deftly weaves creatures in and out of each other’s lives according to the Will of Divine Providence.”  Or, in deference to our deist friends, we might render it, “respect the Clockwork,” and for the atheist, “respect the ducks.”***  Are you hunting to maximize profit? or to destroy animals?  Or are you basking for a few hours in the world as it is meant to be?

The world as it was meant to be—and your place in it as a hunter.  A hundred and fifty years ago, the majority of Americans lived on farms, and most of those who didn’t still lived with horses, chickens, cows close by and with hunting as a common pursuit.  They were intimately familiar with the life and death of animals.  But since 1920, most Americans have been urbanites, and as technology has advanced, our experience has become increasingly more isolated from the realities of the food chain.  To most of us, “keeping animals” means having pets, pork comes from a package in the cold case, and hunting is something Elmer Fudd does.  Weirdly, this unfamiliarity and related squeamishness has affected the way hunters talk about hunting.  For fear of offending gentler sensibilities, we speak of, “outdoorsmen who harvested game in an ethical and humane way,” when we really mean, “men chased down and killed animals as quickly as possible, by whatever legal means, for pleasure (and possibly for food).”   We have an interesting situation where the anti-hunting crowd has a clearer idea of what hunting is then most hunters do. 

Catholic children are taught to perform an examination of conscience with some sort of regularity.  Did I use bad language, disobey my parents, fight with my sisters, steal anything…  Whether you’re religious or not, it’s a good practice to look in the mental mirror and review yourself.  As Socrates (or was it Ted Logan?) said, the unexamined life is not worth living, etc.  As adults, we can expand beyond, “I did this,” to asking, “Why did I do this?  And why is it wrong?”  Answering these questions, and the questions that follow from them, provides us with the understanding necessary to make the next set of moral choices.  For example, determining what it means to be rude and why it is wrong, can help us decide when it’s appropriate to cut in line.     

Life is full of choices embedded in circumstances that require hashing out; for example, laughing at someone’s parallel parking, tripping your enemy at the top of the stairs, or lying to a child.  They vary in gravity and complexity, but all these choices have some sort of impact on another person, and therefor are easily identified as ethical choices.  But what about our interactions with animals?  Taking an extra duck might mean shortchanging the next hunter out of an opportunity, but it isn’t hard to conceive of a “victimless” wildlife violation.  What if I adhere to the season and bag limits, but don’t purchase a license?  Is another human really being harmed if I don’t have a license?  Well, the revenue from sales of licenses pay for… wardens’ salaries.  Sorry, habitat.  What if I don’t buy a license before shooting a dove (which isn’t reliant on the DNR’s habitat saving programs)?  How is that unethical? 

There’s a decent amount of subjectivity and double speak in conversation about ethics in general, but when it comes to hunting, it seems to get worse.  I think it’s probably because when we say, “hunter ethics,” we actually mean “sportsmanship.” 

We can all agree that the “ethical” shot is one which has a high probability of killing the animal quickly and leaving it in a retrievable place.  (I’ve never heard anyone suggest what that actual probability is, but it’s certainly better than 50%--maybe 75% would be acceptable?)  But by that measure, the ethical shot would be with a scoped .22 LR on a stationary bird.  Yet we all know that shot is unethical.  Why?  Because there’s another axis in the ethical cartesian frame: fair chase.  A 100% guarantee of a kill doesn’t leave the bird a chance to survive (just as an NBA team playing a bunch of middle schoolers wouldn’t be a real basketball game).  But it can’t be a truly fair chance, because, as any hunter will tell you, a 50% probability of a clean kill isn’t an ethical shot. 

The fact is, we hunt for the fun of it.  No one in North America must hunt to survive.  Sure, there are lots of people who use game to supplement their groceries, and there a few folks who chose to lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  But that is a choice, and they could just as easily choose to use SNAP, WIC, and food banks.  Cooking simple, nutritious meals from scratch is fairly inexpensive and takes far less time and money than hunting.  If duck meat were my main motivation, I’d raise ducks—it’d be far more efficient, and I could control the quality of the birds (All ducks are NOT created equal.  Can you tell on the wing which mallard just flew in from up north and which spent the summer eating cheetos in the park?).  But though raising meat birds may be rewarding, it isn’t sport; and hunting ducks may require a lot of effort, but it isn’t work.  We enjoy chasing and killing animals.  It’s a sport.  it’s a game. 

Is it ok that we enjoy chasing and killing animals?  Isn’t that a marker of a disturbed mind?  “Neighbors said he was a polite, quiet man who kept to himself…”  We all recognize the difference between the man who is dedicated to the procreative act and the rapist.  They both are enjoying sex—an act for which humans, whether by God or Nature, are designed and destined—but one is normal and the other twisted.  Since it’s only fitting that man should take pleasure in the necessary steps for survival, we can say it’s not the enjoyment of killing the animal that defines a man as a sadist.  I put forward that what differentiates the hunter from the psychopath is that one maintains an attitude and worldview that resonates with Creation as it truly is, and the other has turned the world upside-down and stripped actions of meaning.  “Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.”

So if it’s in our nature to kill, and if it’s in our nature to enjoy killing, why are hunters so embarrassed about it? 

Just as we use “harvest” to whitewash “kill,” we also speak of “ethics” when we really mean the “rules of our game.”****  The proof that it isn’t a matter of ethics is in the inconsistency of it all.  Shooting a bird on the wing is preferable (in some cases mandated)—except with turkey, in which case, it isn’t fair at all...  A turkey isn’t to be shot with a load of shot big enough to penetrate the body cavity and disrupt the vitals like you’d use on a goose.  And obviously, a rimfire rifle is completely unacceptable for birds—except for forest grouse in certain states.  Not making a reasonable effort to retrieve birds is wanton waste—except for crows and starlings, which are good sport but not good game.  Last fall, it was unethical to kill two pintails in one day, but this year, we can kill three without scandal.   And so on…   You can’t build an ethical system on such a waterbed of principles. 

But that’s ok, because it isn’t a system—it's a sport. We are sportsmen, and we make animals the object of our sport.  Like all sports it has rules, and when people don’t play by those rules, it isn’t fun anymore.   When you cheat, I enjoy killing animals a little less. 

NOTES:

* Is our habit of using too much word born of mankind’s subconscious pessimism?  Or are we being flippant in an effort to gain agency? 

** This could lead to a long tirade about farmers tearing out fencerows and tilling right to the ditch edge, but I’ll save that for later. 

*** I suppose one of the worst crosses the atheist must bear is that of language: he can say whatever he likes, but the more colorful it is, the less conviction he can say it with.  To “goddamn” something doesn’t have the same punch if you don’t believe in a god or a hell.  I suppose this ties into why I love Peter Pan so much—for a few minutes, disbelief is suspended, and I can live in a world with ferries.  Then the movie ends, and the portcullis of the adult world comes crashing back down.  “Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the world’s more full of weeping, than you can understand.”  And all that.

****Of course, most matrices that we humans place on our world serve more than one end, and the usefulness of Hunter Ethics doesn’t stop at providing a smoke screen for our primitive inclinations to enjoy hunting and killing.  It also can be a cudgel and a set of heel lifts to beat down others and raise our standing in the hunting world.  A member of a duck hunting forum recently stated, “When you think about it, if we all took ethical shots, we would not have a need for all the gadgets, trinkets and baubles.”  Is he saying that he doesn’t take ethical shots?  Does he fall prey to the promise of gadgets?  When decoded, what he’s saying is, “I have invested the time, energy, and discipline to acquire hunting skills, and therefore, moral high ground.  If everyone would simply recognize this and try to be like me, we’d all be better off.”  This jockeying for position is itself another hunter-gatherer instinct. 

Notes on Current Waterfowl Hunting Regulations in the US.

 

Waterfowlers pursue their sport under a thatch of regulations.  We’re accustomed to them and I doubt many hunters really ponder the why, how, and when of the hunting regs.  In the past, none of the rules were in place, and anyone could kill as many ducks, geese, and swans as he wanted any way he wanted.  Bird numbers declined, and the blame was put on the market hunters lugging in barrels of birds (blame no doubt deserved… though it is interesting that the decline in waterfowl coincided with the settlement, drainage and conversion to farmland of huge swaths of wetlands across North America, especially the Great Plains).  So, starting in 1900 with the Lacey Act, and continuing with the Weeks-McLean Act of 1913, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, and the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act of 1934, efforts were made to “save the ducks.”  Market hunting was big business in 1900,* and though the rules applied to sport hunters as well, the professionals were the real target of the early laws.  Over the next couple generations, Americans’ taste for wild duck and goose wanned, and now you’d be hard pressed to GIVE away a dead wild duck.  However, the anti-marketing rules are still in place and form the structure for waterfowling in the US. 

Season dates.

Spring hunting was banned in 1913.  And though it only seems reasonable to leave game birds alone as they’re sorting out their domestic situation (except for turkeys for some reason), I do wish they’d stop dinking around with splits and such.  The Feds allow the states to pick a certain number of days within a block from September 1^st to March 10^th.  Here in Michigan, the state divides itself into three zones so it can select dates that line up with waterfowl migration; that way we normal folks don’t have to fight with the UPers about the opener.  But does it really matter?  If the whole state used the North Zone’s opener and the South Zone’s closer, would the UPers kill more birds?  Well, only if they followed the migrating ducks to the southern part of the state… which they can do as it is anyway.  Even if the season were open in January, we wouldn’t be shooting any birds because the state is frozen.  I say simplify the dates and have a big window.  The birds will take care of the real season dates. 

Bag Limit.

We’ve all seen the black and white photos of turn-of-the-century hunters with piles—literally piles—of ducks.  I’ve even read of one market hunter who bagged 1,000 ducks in a single day!  And sport hunters would shoot till they got tired or ran out of shells (or schnapps).  This was fine for Daniel Boone, but with the population we have, limiting the number of birds each hunter can take in a day is only common sense.  It doesn’t take much for me to start going on about why is it that I can fill the bag with six hen Gadwalls (or Teals, or Wigeons, or Whistling Ducks), but I can only shoot two hen Mallards, which is the most common duck on the planet; or again, if the Red Head population is so low that I’m only allowed two in the bag, why do they allow both to be a hens? [See Appendix A for a longer tirade]  The details of the bag (who sets it, how they do so, what species it can include, etc.) make more or less sense to me, but the idea of a bag limit is a Good Thing. 

Lead shot. 

This one makes sense.  Most birds are killed by one to four pellet strikes (my own experience, albeit with steel shot), but a typical lead duck load has between 170 and 340 pellets (1-1/4 oz of #4 to 1-1/2 oz #6 lead).  Even if you put 20 pellets in a duck, that leaves at least 150 pellets broadcast into the marsh.  Old hunters hate to admit it, but lead shot keeps killing ducks long after the season ends. 

I wouldn’t oppose a modification of the lead ban.  Allowing field hunting, or over deep water for example.  Or even in low use areas—a duck hunter could go all season without shooting a shell in my county.  Then again, complex rules make for confusion, encroachment, and even more rules.  Maybe this is one place where California is doing it right…

The bag limit, a season, and banning lead shot (at least under certain circumstances) are the three rules that actually protect waterfowl populations.  While some of the others may have philosophical appeal, none of the rules listed below solve any problems if we observe the season dates and bag limits.

Possession Limit.

I have quibbles about the bag limit, but I completely fail to understand the possession limit.  I can only possess three times the daily bag limit at any given time.  Meaning, if I shoot a limit on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I am not allowed to shoot any ducks on Thursday.  I have to somehow divest myself of the dead bird; either eat it or give it away.**  Processing into sausage doesn’t count, since I still possess the meat in the casing.  This is stupid.  The only reason for this rule is to provide Game Wardens something to nail market hunters on.  Two weeks into the season, they catch a suspected (or even known) market hunter with eighty-four ducks on his front porch, but they didn’t see him shoot all eighty-four and thus can’t disprove his claim to have shot only six on each of the past fourteen days.  However, since he isn’t allowed to possess more than eighteen ducks, he’s in violation.  But again, we don’t have a market for duck meat anymore, so what’s the point now?  Why can’t I save all my birds from the whole season for a feast in the spring?  Or to make a huge batch of sausage?   This is stupid.

Shooting hours. 

Is it really hunting to shoot sleeping birds?  Well, of course it’s hunting: you have to find them in the dark (just like hunting for your slippers at night).  But is it sporting?  If “sporting” is defined as giving the game at least an even chance, then a strong argument could be made that it is, since it’s safe to assume the waterfowl roost in a place that makes it very hard for land-based predators to sneak up and nail them.   As stated, you have to find them in the dark, you have to be very quiet so as not to awaken them, your shooting will be in poor lighting conditions (even with a spotlight, which could just as easily disorient you), and you’ll only get one or two shots off before they flush and are back into the dark and gone.  Honestly, it sounds like a good way to drown.  Market hunters killed a lot of roosting birds at night, but only because they put the time and effort into learning the marsh, their boat, and the duck’s behavior—and because they were willing to take the risk. 

I don’t think most hunters would bag more birds if they could hunt at night.  However, the half-hour or so around when shooting starts is another matter.  That’s when it’s light enough for the birds to start moving around, but still dark enough to make concealment and decoying easy.  That’s the unsporting shot.      

Sale of dead birds.

This rule was clearly aimed at the market hunters.  To be honest, I don’t know that anyone pays it much mind since there isn’t a meaningful market for the meat or feathers any more.  About the only time you see waterfowl for sale is taxidermy at garage sales and antique stores.  Most hunters don’t know this is illegal—I doubt most game wardens know it either.  (However, you can sell “captive-reared migratory waterfowl” with a permit.  But I’m not sure how you legally get the parents or the eggs into captivity in the first place…)  At this point, it’s a meaningless rule. 

Baiting. 

Depending on what state I live in, I can bait deer, coyotes, bears—that’s sportsmanlike.  But not waterfowl, which would be unsportsmanlike.  Obviously.  I can hunt standing crops, harvested fields, grain spilled as part of normal agricultural practice.  I can even hunt over food plots planted by the state specifically to attract waterfowl to managed hunting areas.  But I can’t spread corn on the field to attract waterfowl, because it’s unsportsmanlike.  Now, I can spread the grain to attract waterfowl, provided I’m not hunting them.  In other words, I can feed them, I can kill them, but I can’t feed and kill them.  But I can plant corn and flood it so the ducks can feed—and then kill them.  Stupid. 

Live Decoys.

I can get behind a ban on tethering or wing clipping of wild birds.  That’s just mean.  But I don’t see why it’s okay to train a dog to toll, locate, and/or retrieve downed ducks, or a falcon to do all the hunting for you, but you can’t train a Rouen duck to swim around in front of your blind.    

Trapping waterfowl.

Trapping waterfowl has no appeal to me… just like trapping fur-bearers.  All of the work, but none of the pleasure; I’m not really sure how it’s different from farming.  Sounds un-fun.  But unsportsmanlike?  How is it any different from trapping crabs, racoons, beavers, etc.?  Would it be ok if we had to buy a special permit?

Hunting from a vehicle.

Thou shalt not hunt ducks from a boat unless the motor is turned off or the sails furled and it is no longer moving from being underway.  This includes dispatching a cripple.  This is another one that makes sense if you only pay attention to the spirit of the law.  Screaming into a raft of ducks in a ski boat with Van Halen blaring and half-drunk baristas from the local bikini coffee kiosk making that party girl sound while you unleash your cloud of Hevi Metal is clearly not sportsmanlike.  Unfortunately, the law casts a wide loop which encompasses not only the above described tool, but also the guy sneaking around the marsh in a canoe with a mud motor.  I would hope most wardens are guided by the spirit when enforcing this one. 

I can use a stationary water vehicle as a hunting platform, but unless I have a disability, I cannot hunt from a car or truck.  Why?  Assuming it isn’t on the road (which raises some obvious, and potentially hilarious, safety issues), what difference does it make if my blind is made of wood and chicken wire, or sheet metal and plastic?***  Besides, unless I am making a permeant installation, to get within range of ducks, I’d have to be real picky about where I set up my Kia-blind.  The chances of it being worthwhile are pretty slim (except for field hunting I guess).  Honestly, there is no reason not to amend the law to line up with boats.

And we should apply the same paradigm to aircraft if only for the sake of completion.  You should only be able to hunt from an aircraft if its motor is turned off and it has ceased forward motion from being underway. 

Sinkboxes. 

This one is just stupid.  I can hunt from a pit blind.  I can hunt from a floating blind.  But I can’t have a floating pit blind.  I can build a pit blind in a place where the water will come right up to the lip of the pit, so that it has the effect of a floating pit blind—but it can’t actually be a floating pit blind.  Stupid.  Fortunately, they haven’t outlawed waterfowling while swimming.

Shell limits.

As long as I don’t exceed the bag limit, does it really matter if I bag all six ducks in one flight?  Honestly, who cares except the hunter?  But what about the argument that more shots in the gun would equal more wounded birds as undisciplined hunters blasted away at fleeing flocks?  First, that wasn’t the intent of the law; it was written to make it harder for market hunters to make hunting pay, and also to provide law enforcement one more way to catch the illegal professional.  But be that as it may, anyone who has spent any meaningful amount of time in the blind can tell you the third shot is almost always a waste.  First shot, at 30 yards, miss.  Second shot (duck has wheeled) is at 40 yards, miss.  Third shot (duck has speed now) is at 55 yards, miss.  Fourth shot?  Come on…  Let the hunters use more shells and stimulate the economy. 

Gauge limits.

I am no scholar of the 8 gauge, but this is a summary of what all I’ve read; a lot of it is also summarized in Phil Bourjaily’s article, 

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (or was it the Weeks-McLean Act of 1913?) banned the use of the 8 gauge shotgun for waterfowling.  This one is sort of a head-scratcher.  At the time, the 8 gauge wasn’t a particularly common gun—I read that only a few hundred were made in the US before the ban—and it certainly wasn’t the market hunters’ choice.  The professional was far better served by 12 gauge repeating shotguns which had started hitting the market in the 1880’s.****  At that time, the standard 8 gauge shell was 3-1/4” and held 2 to 2-1/2 oz of shot, and the lawmakers must have thought of it as a baby punt gun.  But the ban was rendered meaningless in 1932 when Western and Ithaca teamed up to introduce the 3-1/2” 10 gauge which could hold 2 to 2-1/4 oz of shot, just like the 8 gauge.  By the early 1980’s you could get a 3” 12 gauge with 2 oz of shot, and in 1988, the 3-1/2” 12 gauge with 2-1/4 oz.  In other words, the “baby punt gun” was really only effectively banned for 14 years… Where there’s a will, there’s a way. 

But as most hunters who’ve tried it will tell you, flock shooting is far more hopeful than it is successful.  Far more effective would be a Browning A5 or a Winchester 1897 with 5 or 6 shots—two guns not effected by the ban.  And of course, the same argument I made above about shell limits applies here.  If I don’t exceed the bag limit, what difference does it make if I shoot all my birds with one shell?

Electronic calls. 

This is a law I’m entirely in favor of.  Not because e-callers are unfair to the birds, but because it’s insulting to our humanity.  I see no place for electronics in hunting; I’d be in favor of extending it to include electric powered motion decoys.  Otherwise, why not go all the way: how about a computer-controlled firing system for you gun that uses a camera or radar***** to monitor target speed and range and fires when the proper lead has been established.  Perhaps we can rig it up with some sort of Poly-Choke type device that will adjust the choke in real time to provide the best pattern on target.  The great thing is the system won’t fire if the situation doesn’t provide a certain likelihood of success percentage, meaning fewer cripples.  You know, Respect the Ducks.

 

NOTES

* Big business: meaning, a way for poor folks to survive by working hard, scrabbling natural resources to sell to affluent city-dwellers, like crabbing, fishing, trapping, logging, mining, etc.  The main difference is that rich businessmen didn’t enjoy mining or join exclusive logging clubs.  Hunting has always been the sport of kings, after all, and though this is the America of Davy Crocket and his long rifle, Betsy, it’s also the America of Daddy Warbucks and his Mid-Atlantic Lockjaw.

** I can’t throw it away since this would be wanton waste of a game animal.  But what if it spoiled?  How freezer burnt does it have to be to count as spoiled?  That goose I shot last February that’s still in my freezer still counts toward my possession limit.  This leads to another tirade I have about wanton waste.  As long as I don’t exceed my bag limit, what does it matter to ANYONE ELSE what I do with MY dead birds?  A lot of hunters only take the breasts and don’t save the livers for pâté or the bones for broth.  Philistines.

*** I saw an article about some guys using an abandoned house as a goose blind.  What about a dead truck?  My Grandpa used to use dead cars as storage locations for feed and tools.  They were up to their axils in the soil and half covered in brambles etc. by the time I came along.  It would have taken an act of God to get them moving again--would these still count as vehicles? 

**** List of repeating shotguns available to market hunters:

Spencer, Model 1882 12 ga, 5 rounds
Bannerman Model 1890, 12 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1887/1901, 10 ga & 12 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1893, 12 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1897, 12 ga & 16 ga, 5 or 6 rounds
Browning Auto-5/Remington Model 11, 12 ga, 16 ga, & 20 ga, 4 rounds
Remington Model 10, 12 ga, 6 rounds
Winchester Model 1911 SL, 12 ga, 16 ga, 20 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1912, 12 ga, 16, ga, & 20 ga, 6 rounds

 

***** Though a camara would allow the computer to determine if it will fit in your bag.  In fact you could program preferred targets.  Haven’t you always wanted a limit of banded drake shovelers?

 

Appendix A

The case of the Dusky Canada Goose… There are something like five to seven million Canada and Cackling geese in North America made up of twelve (or eleven) subspecies.

    • Atlantic Canadá goose (Branta canadensis canadensis)
    • Dusky Canada goose (B. c. occidentalis)
    • Giant Canada goose (B.c. maxima)
    • Interior Canada goose (B. c. interior)
    • Lesser Canada goose (B. c. parvipes)
    • Moffitt’s Canada goose (B. c. moffitti)
    • Vancouver Canada goose (B. c. fulva)
    • Aleutian Cackling goose (B. h. leucopareia)
    • Bering Cackling goose (B. h. asiatica) probably just an Aleutian, but extinct since 1929 anyway.
    • Richardson’s Cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii hutchinsii)
    • Small Cackling goose (B. h. minima)
    • Taverner’s Cackling goose (B. h. taverneri)

Up until 2004, the cackling goose was considered a subspecies of the Canada, and even now, there’s a fair amount of overlap between large cacklers and small Canadas.  I myself, in 2012, was taught that the Aleutian and Taverner’s were Canadas by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW).  As a whole, the species are not in danger.  However, some of the subspecies are, most especially the Dusky.  Up till the early 1960’s, the dusky lead an idyllic life frolicking between its summer range in the Copper River delta of Alaska and its winter range in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  But in 1964, an earthquake shifted the land that makes up the Copper River delta up by as much as four feet.  This change in landscape was followed by a change in plant life which provided more cover for predators.  Suddenly, the Duskies’ nesting ground went from being a Garden of Eden to a deathcamp, and the population has been declining dramatically over the last sixty years.  The Smart People have tried creating new nesting grounds like artificial islands, requiring hunters pass a goose ID test, check stations, smaller bag limits, season quotas, etc.  But… the population is still dropping.  Turns out the Duskies are just too stupid to fornicate somewhere else.  They’ve had to close the Dusky season all together, so now it’s like shooting a swan.  All this while the overall population of Canada and cackling geese has been increasing—the Willamette is crammed with geese right now. 

Now, the funny part of this story is we were told by ODFW to avoid shooting any darkish, medium sized geese because a game warden at the check station might identify as a dusky what a biologist would identify as a darker lesser (and vice versa).  In other words, the characteristics that make this subspecies unique (plumage, size, culmen length) are, in fact, found in other subspecies.  Remember the bit about overlap between the subspecies?  If the Dusky does go extinct, what sort of impact will it really have on the world?  We’ll have just as many geese, and we’ll even have some that are medium sized with dark plumage; the same traits that mark the Dusky could be selected back into the fore of the gene pool.  Heck, another earthquake might lower the Copper River delta and allow for a successful nesting site again.  An asteroid might hit North America and kill all the Canada geese—and the cacklers too. 

So does it really matter?  Or is it all sound and fury signifying nothing (but providing an income to a raft of biologists and game wardens)?