How rare is a Bufflehead?

Went hunting Sunday AM with bradybuck and some others and we shot a beautiful bufflehead drake. How rare are these in Texas? We have seen a few in the past, but never got one. I am considering getting it mounted. I read somewhere that Texas only holds about 4300 of these in the winter, if that is true then I would think they are pretty rare.

depends on the area... pretty common to shoot them on Big Tx lakes. But not that common. Iv only shot one.. he tasted good

Last year I got one off one of our private tanks near Austin.. only one I saw up here but there's usually a bunch down at the coast later in the season. Pretty good eating and they look great on the wall!

Never seen one myself

Beaver can probably tell you the exact amount.

Only shot one, myself. Have seen some on one particular North Texas tank but no other place. I mounted mine.

Current birdcount of buffelhead in North Texas is 658.
So yes, pretty rare. Havent had time to count them down the coast.

Just depends on where you hunt. I wouldn't call it a rare bird, but I wouldn't call it a common one either.

We have a tank in West Texas that has them every year. It is a large government tank that was supposed to hold about 15-20 acres of water when full but it never held. It is about 4 acres most the year and about 4-6' deep at the deepest points. For some reason, they love it...as does every other duck in the area.

I got one place we shoot them almost every time we hunt it. Cool little bird. If I ever kill one without clients im going to mount one.

We had 3 drakes in our decoys Saturday morning. We usually kill 10-15 a year.

Shot 1 around Coleman last year, wish I had gotten it mounted!!

We shoot at least a couple a week here around Brownwood

Have consistently seen tons of them west texas, and some seasons in NE texas. I shot a few over the years, but generally pass on them. I recall eating one that was surprisingly good, and tried to cook another one leaving the skin/fat on it, and it was dreadful.

A hen/drake pair mount would be cool.

Reminds me of steak gristle... I always cut that off too

A buddy of mine shot a drake this past SAT. First time ever me seeing one and only his second duck he ever shot. I'm trying to get him to mount it casue it was a beautiful bird.............

Saw 5 of them rocketing across Conroe last year. Only time I've ever seen any, although apparently we get a few out here in west texas.

We had about 25 total come in to our spread this weekend and my buddy had several come into theirs as well but out of all of those we only had 2 drakes. Didn't see hardly any last year but between me and 3 buddies we have already shot 6 and that was all last weekend.

From ducks.org

In 1992, the continent-wide breeding population was estimated at 1,390,000 birds. That may be more than redheads, but buffleheads are sea ducks and that is a continent wide population estimate, not a Texas wintering population estimate. Some barren looking big water areas I hunt in the north western Texas and Western Oklahoma, I often encounter buffleheads.

Lots of them on bays around Corpus.

A fat drake is my only goal this season! Came real close last season but didn't seal the deal. They are around, they just fly really fast about a foot off the water where I hunt. I want a fat little butterball drake laying on the shelf of my dead mount!

They are pretty rare....according to statistics out of 980,000 ducks killed in the 2010 season, 3700 were Buffleheads. So about .37 %

Some pretty cool stats here:

http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/NewRep...g%20seasons.pdf

You must be looking at Texas totals. Some of those other states are much higher. The United states total I see is 199,487 about 31,000 down from 2009.
2009+2010 harvest totals
Redhead 169,814 244,072
Canvasback 70,392 145,686
Lesser Scaup 222,066 287,907
Goldeneyes 88,644 80,859
Bufflehead 231,902 199,487

I think it all depends on where and how you hunt. In Michigan they killed over 30,000 Buffleheads in 2009 to our Texas total of 3737. In Texas we killed 207,963 Gadwall to Michigan's 4733.

Shot 2 Bufflehead and one Goldeneye Sat. There were about 50 Bufflehead on the lake but didn't see many Goldeneyes. I'm in Michigan in the snow belt and not that many ducks have come through yet.

Nice mount coot hammer. The one cdoz35 got was very nice! I scouted the place a few days earlier and we had about 20-30 out in the middle. Didn't think we would get any of them to decoy but one drake made the fatal mistake and came in by himself.

I've shot about half a dozen over the past 6-7 years... seems like there is consistently a group or two that roll in with the Redheads every year where I hunt. I had one mounted in 2010 and I'll tell you this... they look a lot better on the wall than they taste on the plate- that's a fact.

They aren't real common where we hunt, but we can set up closer to bigger water and see them occasionally. Shot a couple so far. I always consider it a great bird to add to the bag. My rule of thumb, if I haven't seen one shot before, it's goin on the wall

Alright so I have decided to have it mounted. Do ya'll have suggestions where I should send it? I want a quality job done, so I am not looking at just the price. This will be the first one I have had done, so I don't have anyone that I have used yet.

Isnt that a golden eye?

Yes.

OHHHHH you want one to go with those I gotcha... lol

This is freakin sweet!!!

I had mine done at Top Gun Taxidermy in Holland, TX. Randy Pistole did a great job and it is such a great memory!

Sorry for the confusion, that shelf there is gonna be the forever spot for the first drake I drop!

posted a pic

double from last year

They aren't rare, they just don't like to decoy. Makes it harder to knock them down when they constantly stay 10 to 150 yards off your spread. We used to see them all the time down on East Matagorda just sitting off our spread, and no amount of coaxing would get them to even pay attention to us.

I've shot a couple of them over the years. Wanted to get one mounted, but never got around to it and a tropical storm knocked power out at the duck camp and we had to toss it. Sucks, because it was a nice drake.

At this time I had seen few of them so we passed it off as a merganser lol

FIL and I saw a bunch of them on a lake right outside Greenville the other day. It's not a lake we can hunt though.

Yeah big water for sure. When I see them, it seems I see a lot of them. Otherwise, I never see them. They will typically stack up on big water as the season goes on. A local lake around here will have tons in December and January.

Oh I'd like to shoot one. What lake is that Gary?

Lake manigotapee... youll need some serious firepower

Lake Devine in Leander and Lake Pflugerville. Get there early those places fill up really fast.

Purtis Creek will have hundreds of them as well.

Thank you. I was thinking about maybe hunting Lake Yougottabeshittingmeman this weekend.

Shot them in Arkansas but on lakes. Never seen one in NTX.