Maryland Sea Duck Hunt

[CharlieNY]

My son and I and our 2 hunting buddies are in Maryland for a 3 day sea duck hunt. Today was our first day and we limited out. We had plenty of shooting and are having a great time. I hope the next 2 days are like today and I can post more pics. We planned this hunt 1 year ago and this is the first sea duck hunt for each of us.

[bruno1]

I love shooting scoters. Is that a Duckwater your gunning out of

[CharlieNY]

Yes. 32 footer.

[CharlieNY]

Today was Day 2 and we scored on 11 birds. It was a rough day on the ocean but we did good. Another boat that launched the same time as us had 4 hunters on it. All 4 of them got seasick and they had to quit early. It was definitely a challenge shooting at flying birds just above the water from a boat bobbing up and down in the swells and waves.

[Grouse]

I hunted divers and sea ducks in Raritan Bay off of Staten Island many times in my youth.  Those were some of the coldest hunts I ever had.  Wet and windy many times. That's tough hunting and the salt spray is tough on firearms.  That being said, it was a lot of fun when the ducks were flying.

[CharlieNY]

Today was our 3rd and final day of our 3 day hunt. It was another 11 bird day. We had a great time. Now it's time to clean all them birds. Last pic was total take minus 6 birds that are being mounted.

[airedale]

That is a pretty nice haul you boys took in, congratulations.

Al

[CharlieNY]

4 minutes ago, airedale said:

That is a pretty nice haul you boys took in, congratulations.

Al

Thank you. It was something none of us had ever done before and we will probably do it again in the future.

[Enigma]

Very nice! I'll be hunting Maryland next week, Thursday-Saturday. Ducks in the morning and sika deer in the afternoons. A buddy from PA set up the hunt last minute so I don't have a lot of details but I'm pumped to get down there!

What size shot were you using? Choke? Average shot distance? Shot two of my shotguns this morning and wasn't really happy with any ammo/choke/gun combination I had. Ty. 

[jperch]

I used to hunt sea ducks in Lake Ontario off Rochester from a small aluminum boat.  It was amazing, hundreds of thousands of them.  You could sometimes attract them by waving a boat cushion, we used plastic gallon jugs as decoys sometimes.  They were feeding on crabs, like we would use for bass bait.  They would be just stuffed with them.  They must be able to dive to significant depths.  I thought they were fair table fare, kinda beefy as I recall.  I don't see those massive rafts of ducks these days.  I suspect the zebra mussels have reduced the crawdad population.  That is just my observation as a SCUBA diver.

[CharlieNY]

35 minutes ago, Enigma said:

Very nice! I'll be hunting Maryland next week, Thursday-Saturday. Ducks in the morning and sika deer in the afternoons. A buddy from PA set up the hunt last minute so I don't have a lot of details but I'm pumped to get down there!

What size shot were you using? Choke? Average shot distance? Shot two of my shotguns this morning and wasn't really happy with any ammo/choke/gun combination I had. Ty. 

We were all using 12 gauge guns with #2 shot. We all had long range Carlson's choke tubes. Average shot distance was 30-35 yds.

[bruno1]

On 1/19/2023 at 5:51 PM, CharlieNY said:

Yes. 32 footer.

Oh ok, you were hunting with Jeff Coates I assume 

[CharlieNY]

6 minutes ago, bruno1 said:

Oh ok, you were hunting with Jeff Coates I assume 

Correct.

[jjb4900]

11 hours ago, CharlieNY said:

Today was our 3rd and final day of our 3 day hunt. It was another 11 bird day. We had a great time. Now it's time to clean all them birds. Last pic was total take minus 6 birds that are being mounted.

Looks like some good eating, how do you cook them?

[CharlieNY]

1 hour ago, jjb4900 said:

Looks like some good eating, how do you cook them?

We breasted out all of the birds. I soak the breasts in brine in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours before cooking them. I personally like to make duck stew in a crockpot with the breasts but there are many different ways to cook them.