Duck Hunting

Hunting waterfowl is a fall sport in many western countries. Ducks and geese often share the same habitat, have overlapping hunting seasons, and can sometimes be hunted together. It's possible to hunt them in field crops, where they feed, but it's more common to find them on or near ponds, rivers, lakes, swamps or near the coastlines of oceans.

Early European settlers to America eagerly hunted waterfowl, which came in seemingly unlimited supplies to the Atlantic coast. During the fall migrations, waterfowl filled the skies and waterways. Places such as the Outer Banks, Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, and Barnaget Bay became a duck or geese hunter's paradise. And, of course, duck hunting moved west with the settlers. Hunting waterfowl became popular all across the United States.

In the late 1700's and 1800's, the need for food increased, as more and more people immigrated. Some men started market hunting to supply the Atlantic coast's population with fresh ducks and geese. Hunters would go out in wooden boats and bring back wooden barrels of ducks. They used live ducks as decoys and corn or other grains as bait. Although edible, swans have never been hunted in the same way as ducks and geese in most of the Western world, because they've traditionally been reserved for royalty and more tightly regulated. They're more widely hunted in Arctic regions.

This rise in waterfowl hunting is directly tied to the shotgun, which uses a multitude of pellets, making it easier to hit a moving target. In the 19th century, hunters even began mounting large shotguns, known as punt guns, on their boats. These massive guns could fire a half a pound of lead shot at a time and kill dozens of birds with a single blast.

Late in the 19th century, John Browning invented the semi-automatic shotgun, which expanded duck hunting. Even during the Great Depression, restaurants would buy a brace of ducks. However, with the over-hunting and lose of waterfowl habitat, legislators began to push for reforms and tighter enforcement of the regulations in place. Yet, duck hunting has persisted through the ages, from prehistoric times to today.

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