Duck

Duck hunting is certainly one of the most popular types of hunting in the world: pleasant places for your hunting trips, mirrors of water enriching the landscape and the silence sometimes broken by the squawking of these waterfowl. Although over the years the number of specimens has decreased and environmental constraints have become increasingly stringent, don’t give up: those left and allowed are the most elegant and the most prestigious ones to capture and show-off to your fellows!

As they are migratory birds, remember first of all that their habitat location may vary from day to day depending on wind, rain, the presence or absence of food and the confluence of other enthusiasts like you in the area. If you have already identified it and you can hear the squawking of the ducks in your mind, now it is the time to talk about the shotguns and the best chokes to hunt these majestic birds.

Everybody knows it is not so easy to sneak up on anatidae waterfowl. The body structure of these leathery birds with powerful muscles, hard bones and resistant skin covered with a thick plumage entails that there is a high risk of hitting the prey, wounding ... but without killing it. Besides the shooting failure this causes the bird to flee, also implying enormous pain for such wonderful waterfowl, which obviously it does not deserve. As you can see in the table below, for good measure we recommend a self-loading or an over and under/side-by-side shotgun equipped with a properly fitted gauge (12 or 20), a 71 or 76 cm long barrel along with ** or * chokes for the first ones and *** or * for the latter.

If your hunting session takes place in a Special Protection Area (SPA) what displayed in the previous table needs to be recosnidered. In particular, in case you use Internal and Ported chokes, which are also available on our shop refer to the following chart:

Accertatevi, inoltre, che gli strozzatori usati siano marcati “Steel Shot “ per assicurare un corretto funzionamento allo strozzatore stesso e alle canne del vostro fucile. Se invece ricorrete ai nostri strozzatori extended o IN/OUT, che sono anch’essi “Steel Shot” (anche ** e *), attenetevi a queste indicazioni:

If possible, to complete the picture, a good hunting dog becomes essential to retrieve the duck when it falls far from our position or into the water. Of course, if the coolness of the pond or the water mirror in which you immerse yourself gives you relief, this is a task that you can also perform by yourself, but those who rely on their four-legged friend, should be aware that the latter is waiting for nothing but recovering the hunting trophy to bring it back and be rewarded with a "plunge into the water". For you, however, the merit of having captured such a challenging waterfowl!

You have found our advice useful and are sure that you will put what you have learned into practice on your next hunting trip? Browse beyond this article! Learn how to properly use a choke and all the guides provided by Gemini , drawn up with the help of specialists, for hunting and shooting enthusiasts like you.

Our thanks go to Professor Simone Bertini and Diego Apostoli for their availability and the precious time they devoted to us for the drafting of these guides.