Diving down? Does it happen?

[nomsduckhunter]

I might as well tell my side..This has happened to me twice. I agree woodies are the worst at diving and will get right in the middle of tangles. I had this happen and also a mallard I shot in the middle of a flooded grass field. He went under and we searched for about 15 min. I knew where he went under so I started kicking through the grass and all of a sudden he popped up
right in front of me. I hunted a spot where I knew there was nothing under the water and he kept diving and then he would come up a little further away. I know this happens in Mississippi anyway. Ya gotta remember, by the time we get these ducks their purty smart. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[BrianB]

Who knows if they do it on purpose. I think their sympathetic nervous system kicks in and they just run or dive as the case may be. You can see a badly hurt bird try to dive and it can't stay down or even get under at all. But if they can dive down at all, they try so hard to avoid capture, they lodge themselves under something to keep themselves down. Now did they lodge themselves to commit suicide or did they lodge themselves fighting to the end and just couldn't or wouldn't come back up. Who knows, but the end result is the same. A lost duck, which is the saddest and worst part of hunting.

[Anatidae]

We can all agree.....ducks dive, right?....(provided the body parts required to do so, still function). Now, what they do when they're down there depends on the duck, and if he thinks it's worth the risk to surface and find out what's up there, waiting on him. They CAN hold their breath a long time. If they dive under a bed of water hyacinths, you'll have a hard time picking-out a green bill and one eyeball.

I lost a greenhead last year. 'Actually spotted his head and tried to get the boat close enough to grab him. HA!!... [img]images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img](shoulda shot what I could see) [img]images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

It took him a second to get thru the hyacinths. I just missed.....'got a couple o' tail feathers. 'Spent the next hour, chopping up that weed bed with a 40 Evinrude.......'was determined I was gonna eat that duck, even if he ended-up in spaghetti sauce. 'Never found him. [img]images/smiles/icon_sad.gif[/img]

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Anatidae ]

[RedEyed Duck]

RedHead, I am with you. I have returned a day or two later to find them in the buck brush or just under a stump the was previously submerged. It's a fact! I have also lost them in a flooded bean field that was not harvested and uncut only to find some of them at the end of the season.