CowboyLeroy
Well-known member
Two runaways had us two birds short of a three man limit
Waterfowl, let’s see them!
- Thread starter BoomerUSAF
- Start date
I think they winter here. We see them every January. Today we just happened to be in the right place to have waves of teals.
Nick87
Well-known member
Fun to shoot, by far my favorite table fare as far as ducks.
Recommendations? We have enough for a couple family meals.
I was going to pluck them tomorrow.
Nick87
Well-known member
Plucking all of them?
Yes if they’re not shot up. It shouldn’t take too long. I’ll worry about the mallards another day.
Nick87
Well-known member
Hopefully @JShane will chime in. He is a culinary genius with ducks, especially whole plucked. A search with his name in the recipe.section might be worth it.
Whole birds I like to do in a Dutch oven
Stuffed with either cherries or pineapple. In Dutch oven add 2 sticks of butter, remaining fruit and juice, couple table spoons of mixed garlic. Put birds breast side down and baste every 40 min or so. Should take about 5 hours at 225 iirc. It's done when you push on the leg, and it almost falls off. You can crisp up skin with a torch if you like. Serve over a bed of wild rice. It's not your traditional medium rare duck recipe but it's good.
Anything breasted I like to cube up and marinade in a combo of A1, worcestershire, little minced garlic and a splash of hot sauce then on skewers with garden fresh veggies for shish kabobs.
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We’re having mallard breasts tonight for a late dinner. Duck gumbo tomorrow made from widgeon, gadwall and shovelers.
We’re under the procession limit but we need to eat some ducks if we want to keep shooting before season end.
We’re under the procession limit but we need to eat some ducks if we want to keep shooting before season end.
Wife made duck carbonara for the second time. Its amazingly rich and delicious. Duck is cooked meat side down in a dutch oven for 1.5 hrs at 285*. Remove meat and set aside, skin can be crisped separate or tossed after its cooked. Use the oils to make the sauce with parmesan (make sure theres no caking agents in it) plus cream. Mix in cubed duck meat and serve over pasta. Can add a green veggie like peas, asparagus, or spinach.
JShane
Well-known member
Whole green wings are a delight. If you have the means try cold smoking a few for a half hour the broil in the oven on High to crisp the skin.
If you breast them out save the legs and braise them then toss the legs in a wing sauce and bake for 10 minutes.
Green wing teal breast little but versatile. I've taken to broiling fat, skin on breasts skin side up. By the time the skin has gotten crispy the meat is medium rare. Salt,pepper, garlic simple let the birds flavor shine.
If you really have time, spatchcock all the fat ones. Score the skin and grill on high heat. Make a chimichurri sauce to baste them with
AlaskaHunter
Well-known member
Even more so in interior Alaska where the season starts Sept 1 and most ducks are "brown ducks".
Daily bag limit is 10 "brown ducks" including pintails.
We typically don't see green heads on mallards for a month.
Teal are awesome and hard to screw up, unless you overcook them. I usually split them in half and grill them, watching for flare-ups. Here's a video with same Prep but pan frying them.
This picture popped up today as a memory from 12 years ago. Back then my "pintail spot" was more reliable and limit was often 2. Coincidentally the canvasback in this picture was the last drake I had shot until I killed one there last Monday.
Doublecluck
Well-known member
Put the season away with a bunch of great hunts over the last week. Prolly put a couple thousand birds in the kill hole just this weekend alone. Been a great season.
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Awesome pics, especially the dogs.
Nick87
Well-known member
Hating you right now.
Doublecluck
Well-known member
You should see all the birds that just arrived here in the last week. Saw 10-50k mallard and honker feeds in fields we normally hunt from December on that never shot a bird this season. Pacific flyaway closed before they got here along with most of the central. only geese open in region 2 of the central and that closes this week. Entire migration must of been held up in Canada and I’m pretty sure most of their seasons closed early December. So basically the entire migration of canadas and mallards was held up and not hunted for a month of what it would have been. Be interesting to see how it affects next year or whatever year we get winter back. lol.
Nick87
Well-known member
Same thing here and I wondered the same.
After the extreme cold and wind let up a bit, new birds definitely moved in with another push. Had a lot of fun shooting a three man of mallards with a bonus pintail and some geese on Saturday and then a three man limit of geese Sunday morning. I had not yet seen a single Quill Lake goose this season and saw three on Sunday. Two in the flock in the photo of geese on the meadow and another that came by when we were picking up decoys after shooting a limit 75 miles away earlier that morning.
