Ringnecks and spoonies...

Ringneck isn't a fish eater. Very good eating bird. Shoot them all day.

Dosgris/Scaup is a fish eater and can be very oily. Don't really care for them. Early season spoonies are fine to eat.

We used to pass on them, now I don’t. Not enough opportunities.

Spoonies really depend on what they’ve been eating. But if I’ve got a spoony or dosgris, it’s getting soaked in game tame overnight before cooking. All bloodshot and any fat is also getting removed. After that, I’ve never had anybody complain about it. I typically use them for my poppers and save the better ducks for other recipes. They do alright in gumbo too.


ETA: I should say that whether or not I’m going to pass on them depends on how many birds we’re seeing in the area.

Why don't people eat ringnecks?

quote:

---

Ringnecks

---

aka black heads

quote:

---

Spoonies are almost blue winged teal.

---

Yes, same genus, and I have had some really funky blue wings. Green Wings taste so much better. There are billions of snails and other invertebrates in our rice fields, and I think that may be why we hold so many blue wings and spoons after the rice is gone.

quote:

---

Spoonies hang out with pintail, gadwall, widgeon and mallards. Spoonies is good eating.

---

Spoons eat rice in rice fields right there along all the other species.

The old timer cajun crowd calls ringnecks "butter balls" for a reason, generally good to eat.

If you've not tried a black belly whistling duck, though, you're missing out, especially the legs.

Spoons taste fine to me. Don't see enough ring necks to have a real opinion.

quote:

---

I should say that whether or not I’m going to pass on them depends on how many birds we’re seeing in the area.

---

Agreed

Ringnecks are pretty good if, like all waterfowl, they are cooked hot and fast and not overcooked. Hell if you don't eat ringnecks in Georgia you ain't got not business going duck hunting because all we get are ringnecks and woodies and by the end of the first weekend of the season local woodies only fly after and before shooting time. If you hunt Georgia and want a traditional hunt over decoys ringnecks are the go to species.

The first time I hunted in Washington State a co-worker and I hunted a public, first come first serve blind, and we had young mallards and pintail and all manner of good birds in the decoys all morning. The second time we hunted that blind, 7 days later, you couldn't have got a mallard within a half mile of the place with a string of english callers and a couple of trained fliers....but the ringnecks, like they do everywhere, were POURING in the decoys. After about the 5th time a flight of mallards circled about 8 times before deciding they had business elsewhere I told my buddy the next time a damn ringer sat in the decoys I was taken them...he had no idea you could shoot them LOL. I hunted with him a good bit for almost 5 years and after that second trip we almost always shot a few ringnecks....the people in that area will pass up cans and scaup and redheads because they do have a frick ton of mallards and "good" ducks but like everywhere else on public land they get wary as frick without some weather pushing in new birds but divers do what divers do everywhere....

I eat bootlips pretty regularly and they ain't terrible....no where near as inedible on the same filter feeding diet of aquatic crustations as widgeon and pintails. I shot boatloads of all three all over New Mexico and the spoonies were consistently better eating. Nothing is as bad as widgeon that have been filter feeding crustaceans...mergansers ain't as bad. Pintail also get pretty nasty when filter feeding.....and they all filter feed in New Mexico because there is almost no other way for them to survive.

Ah yes, New Mexico. Where spoonbills are better table fare than pintail and widgeon. That's really hilarious