How many bands?

[duckgumbo]

I have only picked up three banded ducks. They were all mallards . This year i took a snow goose with a neck collar and a band. I sent it in to see if there is a reward but i have not had any response yet. Hopefully it will be mucho money. LOL

[SilverBack]

I have killed 9 banded ducks so far in my duckhunting years.7were mallards and 2 teal. Hoping more will come in the near future for me and to all the duckhunters here on this site.

[ScottS]

I've duck hunted since 1965 and have never killed a banded anything! Seriously!

[Hammer]

15 bands in 30 years of hunting...Killed my first duck in 1971...No bands until 1980...First bander was a hen mallard so old that you could not read the numbers on the band...The band is paper thin....I had to send the band into FWS and they acid etched it to read the numbers...She was banded in Alberta in 1974 and hatched in 1973 or earlier...

I went from December, 1996 to January, 2004 without taking a band- exactly 650 ducks bagged between bands- when I took another banded hen mallard...My first USGS Certificate of Appreciation...Banded near Middle River MN on the Agassiz NWR and taken near Satartia in Yazoo County...That banded hen literally made my duck season, if not my whole hunting season...

My other bands have come from Manitoba, Sasketchewan, Ontario, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky and even Mississippi...A greenhead that was banded at the Pearl River WMA and that I killed on the Ross Barnett Reservoir 3 years later...Incidentally I took my last black duck at RBR back in 1988...I have not shot at a black duck since...

HAMMER

[Delta Ace]

I have been fortunate enough to kill 24 bands in my 17 years of hunting. 16 of them have come in the last four years. I consider myself very lucky, but thats nothing compared to a buddy of mine from MS. He is 24 or 25 and has been hunting for 16 years and guiding for about 10 years. He now runs a duck club in Tallahatchie (sp) county I think. Over that time he has killed around 70 bands. About 15 from Canada geese and the rest from mallards, wood ducks, pintails, teal, etc. Sounds like BS I know. Thats actually how we met. We were both hunting in Illinois about five years ago and I saw him and asked him if he bought those bands or if he stole them. After narrowly avoiding a fight with him he showed me his scrapbook with all the certificates to match his bands. I still thought he must be stealing all the bands his clients kill, but after hunting with him for a few years I learned different. I've never seen him even try to claim a disputed band, and I even once saw him give up a double banded mallard he obviously killed to a man that had hunted for 20 years and never killed a band.
His only secret is how much he hunts. He used to go to Canada for several weeks every year and basically migrate with the ducks to Mississippi and to Mexico in February. On the days he doesn't take anyone I've seen him sit in a timber hole all day watching for bands or work countless flights of geese looking for neck collars as they circle. He just hunts every day and always seems to find the birds.
I've been around duck hunters all my life and he is probably one of the best I have ever met, but he is definately the luckiest SOB I have ever met.

[Duck Sniper]

hunted 9 yrs, 0 bands. gosh, it needs to get better!