Interesting article:
Dead Hens Don�t Lay Eggs

I take the drakes first but I'm not one to let a hen passed me if I still have one in the chamber. There has been times I've been covered up and could take only drakes, but those days are rare.

I do not discriminate.

They all eat the same

I usually kill everything that comes in from lst-on so if its a good shoot I'm done before I can see more than silhouettes

I try not to kill hens. I aint a snob about it unless my brother is the one who shoots a hen. It only stands to reason, more hens make more baby ducks. Besides that it can extend the hunt longer in the morning. The older I get the more I just like sitting in the blind. If I kill birds then great. If I don't it is still great. Oddly enough, shooting a birds is the last thing I love about duck hunting.

i will shoot any that come in also!!! i hate all ducks!!

I only shoot breeding pairs.

I use to not shoot hens till I scotch doubled on this one!! Game on now

You do have a point! They band hens as well.

my vision isn't all that well so it's tough for me....been meaning to fix that for a while

"He did, however, find that the higher the overall population of ducks, the lower the survival rate. Harvest, in other words, is compensatory, not additive, which means that those ducks (or the subset of ducks) killed by hunters would have died anyway. Hunting mortality is not added to the other mortality factors."

Great article Love this part of it.

He is basically saying if we don't kill them they are going to die anyways. So as long as we harvest them in an environmentally friendly way we are gathering a resource that would otherwise be wasted.

Hippies suck a fat one.

I'll still gun for the drake if a pair is coming in but once he drops my bead is switching over to that suzie.

I always go for drakes, but I lose no sleep over shooting a hen. Mallard, easy go for the big green head. Gaddies I go for the big dark head. Pintail, drake always, even going for the long sprig. Love the drake widgeon, flying away and sun to their back, I look for white on the wing when they circle back and I lock on, good stuff..

I find myself looking for the drakes in the flocks. As an amateur taxidermist I like to pick through a bunch of "pretty" ducks vs a bunch of brown "hens". I've gotten to where I will land a flock and pick the best looking birds.

So it took a little extra time......sho makes for good pictures.

I don't shoot hen pintails for sure. Any species that has a 2 bird or 1 bird limit we really try hard. Last yr shot 100 pins out of my pit. Took a guy on his first hunt. He goes solo into first flock...,dang...shot a hen ..... Dang it .... Banded!

Pretty much just shoot drakes on mallards, woodies, and pins. Try too on others but gadwalls are hard to tell at times.

My gadwall at LST theory... shoot the biggest dux first.

And like I said, sometimes there are enough birds to take only drakes. On this trip we told the boys that the first one to shoot a hen was designated "beer wench" for the weekend. Not a drake was taken and still managed limits. Had to fetch my Shiner myself.. didn't expect to have to.



But those days are a lot more rare than I'd like.

i try to i wait for drakes. Any duck with a short limit (cans/pins) i would pass on an easy shot if both were not clear. they make more eggs=more duckies...

I like shooting drakes but can't stand it when folks chastise people about killing 5 ducklings with every hen on the strap. Need to get their facts straight.

You kill drakes because they have the color.

When you have a hole that's really holding birds. Best thing you can do is kill your limit early and get out no matter the color.

Then go back the next day.

If I could hunt every weekend I would not but since Im lucky to hunt 5 days, its first come first serve.