How many of you have actually shot a banded bird?

[Casey]

Shot a banded dove in Frio County a few years back. It was banded in Fort Hayes, Kansas. I'm not sure I've heard of one being killed that far from where it was banded. I need to find the band!

[gonehuntin]

I have 5 duck and 3 geese. 2 hen mallards, 1 drake teal, 1 mottled hen, 1 hooded merganser and 3 specks. All back from to 80s. I was lucky, uncle was a rice farmer back then and we hunted alot.

[K. Lane]

Out of the 40 years or so a Killin waterfowl....I have killed countless neck banded geese and even a few “bounty bands”
In that time I have killed exactly 1 banded duck. An old pintail hen that was so old she probably was just lookin for a place to give up the ghost and therefore made it easy for me [emoji16][emoji16]




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[Dugie]

I have one, mallard hen shot just off the Sabine river.

[No-Tox]

I've got 4. First one I ever got was from a pintail that a hawk had taken down by a pond.

[futureagg]

Man these are a lot more common than I honestly thought. But it does sound like a lot of older bands, mainly in East texas its wood ducks and a few mallards 70-30 split

[offthemap]

I have 1 band from a mallard drake I shot off the Neches River several years ago. It was 9 years old and banded way up north.

I have a few others I inherited from my granddad with the most coveted being a band from a Harlequin duck he shot in the 60's either off the Trinity river or Neches, I can't remember right now. It was banded by a private party in either Maryland or Michigan (again, can't recall exactly) and just has an address on it. So, my granddad sat down & wrote a letter and I can imagine has asked something along the lines of "what kind of hybrid wood duck wizardry is this?!" The man wrote back saying that it was actually a Harlequin duck and they only banded somewhere less than 100 over a couple years.

I still have that 60+ year old hand written letter from the guy who banded it.

[Passthrough]

2 mallard drakes 1 pintail drake and 1 WW dove. Was with my son and he shot 2 banded mourning doves on back to back hunts.

[Hawkpuppy 1]

Been chasing ducks and geese for 33 years now and have 4 duck bands and 3 goose bands. Ducks were 3 mallards and one pintail hen. Geese were two snows and one Speck with a bonus Tarsus band.

[zztex]

1 whitewing dove shot on a WWA hunt in Mercedes. Our group got about 3 bands that day. They were banded less than a mile from where we shot them. 1 teal in Anahuac, and 1 snow goose in Anahuac

[Dusty Britches]

I shot a banded dove several years ago. My husband has shot lots of banded ducks many years ago when he used to duck hunt a lot.

[Bayouboy]

Fairly regular occurrence back in the mid 70's in central Louisiana. Mostly mallards in the rice fields. Few doves on occasion.

[Landrover]

Not a one...……...YET!!

[WinslowBoy]

Got 1 - a hen wood duck from the Katy Prairie of all places. On that lease for over 10 years and it was the ONLY wood duck we ever shot out there. Property I shot her on is just west of Katy and surrounded by the airport and soon to be houses. Sort of sad.

Cool thing was when I got the certificate back, it said she was banded at a refuge on the Missouri River in Nebraska that spring. Looked at my big US map on the wall and you couldn't have drawn a straighter north-south line with a ruler. When she headed south for the winter, she headed straight south.

[Smart]

How many of you have actually shot a banded bird?

7 bands for me.....5 mallards and one pintail....all drakes...and one green wing hen.

Couple of missed opportunities I remember vividly. Only two times I have flipped for one on a same bird shot between two guys I lost them both. Another time, we had a single mallard drake come in floating from my side on a slow day. Guy who owned the placed said kill that bird to my buddy...he popped up and folded it first shot and it was banded. Only duck we killed that day.. Also had a single snow come to my right and I was on the end and I killed it. Guide grabbed it and put it into the pile behind a guy next to me who couldn't hit the broadside of a barn standing inside it with the door closed. We had pretty good action so I guess he wasn't checking for bands. That guy had two specs, a canada, a "blue" and a snow in his pile at the end of the day. Snow was banded. Didn't want to be THAT guy. He was ecstatic and he ended up mounting it as it was his first band .......so it was worth swallowing my tongue.

Used to hunt with 2 buddies that were flooded timber mallard purists and they had a lot more than me.....


Couple of pics on my computer through the years.....