Double Banded Duck is Hunters Reward For Sticking out a Tough Day

Band Tales: Summer in December. A late December forecast for highs in the 70s almost coaxed Kenneth Mullins to turn off the alarm clock and go back to sleep rather than duck hunt. “It was the last day of Arkansas duck season before the Christmas split. So, reluctantly, I got dressed and drove the two miles to the duck club,” Mullins said. Given the expected warm conditions and a possibility of thunderstorms, Mullins chose to go it alone. “It had been productive earlier in the season.” After setting out the decoys and seeing very few birds by 8 a.m., and with darkening skies and approaching thunder, Mullins decided to pick up and leave ahead of the storm. “I picked out the lead bird, which seemed unusually white, and as I shot, it folded.” Upon retrieving it, he was pleased to see he had shot a drake goldeneye, a rare encounter in the flooded woodlands of southwest Arkansas. 17 was over a half-mile and just as Mullins was approaching the blind, a group of a dozen mallards flew directly over him. It also happened to be his 40th banded duck and the third double-banded mallard drake he’s shot in 50 years of hunting. Simply fill out your information (here) and since luck’s already on your side, you could end up in the Passages or Band Tales section of Wildfowl.