Some 20 years ago, in the White Lake Conservation Area marsh where I was participating in a lottery hunt, things were a bit slow. In fact, it was so slow that neither my wife, who accompanied me on the hunt, nor I, had a duck in the blind, and it was pushing past 8 a.m.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere came a single ring-necked duck and I raised up out of my seat to shoot. That’s when our guide, Roger Cormier, said, “Blackjack! Don’t shoot that. I don’t want that in my blind!”
Times have changed, and a generation later few duck hunters are passing up ring-necked ducks while they wait on perceived “quality ducks.” One only has to complete a thorough review of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries aerial surveys for the past several years to see that duck numbers in Louisiana have reached all time lows.
As a result, what waterfowl hunters have certainly conceded is, “beggars can’t be choosers.”
Essentially, ring-necked ducks are one species that have increased continentally the past two decades in both the traditional and eastern regions of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service’s annual Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey. The annual survey reflects an approximate 1.9 percent increase per year from 1966 to 2019. What’s more, the LDWF aerial surveys appear to reflect that as well.
According to Jason Olszack, LDWF Waterfowl Program Manager, ring-necked ducks as a proportion of our total aerial survey count on the coast have been creeping upwards for 20 years.
“They make up almost 20% of the birds we count on the coast in January,” he said. “There are similar trends for scaup and canvasback. Equally important here, are the declining dabbler numbers.”
Late season migrators
Bill Lake, owner/operator of Bayou Guide Service in Houma, hunts ducks in the marsh below Gibson. Lake is someone who journals and meticulously records each hunt by keeping track of the number of ducks he and his party kill by species.
During the 2023-2024 waterfowl season, Lake’s group of hunters harvested 929 ducks. Of those 929 ducks killed, 776 of them were ring-necked ducks, an equivalent of 83%. The next species of any consequence was blue-winged teal, which Lake said they harvested 75 or 8%.
“Last year, just four days after the season ended, we still had six to eight thousand ring-necked ducks on our lease,” he said. “I was bass fishing and couldn’t believe the numbers of birds. I don’t know why, but those ring-necked ducks have really zeroed in on our area the past 6 years.”
Ring-necked ducks are late season migrators. Essentially, the deeper it gets into the duck season, their numbers increase.
Last year’s (2023) November aerial survey estimated 37,000 ring-necked ducks in the state, of which 11,000 of them were counted in the Southeast. December’s estimate climbed to 159,000, with 128,000 in the Southeast. And January’s (2024) estimate was 191,000 ringers, with a whopping 141,000 in the Southeast.
Near-perfect habitat
Several years ago, a good friend and avid duck hunter, Hunter Andras from Chackbay, invited me on a hunt for ring-necked ducks well south of Gibson below the Intracoastal Canal. There was one stipulation. As a challenge, we had to shoot all drake ringers.
Andras, whose lease at the time happened to be on aerial transect line 20, said there were so many ring-necked ducks it was possible, and he’d call the shots. Sure enough, we killed a 3-man limit of ducks that included 16 drake ringnecks and two canvasbacks.
During the latter part of the 2023-2024 waterfowl season, Lake and I made a hunt on his lease in mid-January. We dropped off Lake’s son in one blind and we headed to another not far away. Lake and I limited, shooting 10 ring-necked ducks and two green-winged teal. His son limited killing four ringers and two green-winged teal.
Further east of Gibson, Olszak said he received quite a few reports that came out of the Delacroix-Caernarvon-Point a la Hache area being loaded up with ring-necked ducks as well.
So, what’s drawing ringers and some other divers to this region?
“The marshes in the south central part of the state are near-perfect habitats for such a species,” Olszak said. “Large, relatively shallow, water bodies with an abundance of both submerged aquatic vegetation and emergent seed producers, small clams, snails, and invertebrates are plentiful.”
Larry Reynolds, former Waterfowl Study Leader for the LDWF and now Director of Wildlife Protection and Conservation Management for the department, had thoughts that echoed Olszaks, saying, “Ring-necked ducks can be pretty flexible in food selection, eating chufa and delta duck potato tubers at Catahoula Lake, but mostly use rhizomes, seeds, leaves, tubers and associated inverts of sub aquatic vegetation (SAVs) like southern naiad, watermilfoil, sago pondweed and wigeon grass along the coast.”
There are 27 north and south transects that run west to east along the Louisiana coastline from the Gulf of Mexico to Highway 90. Each transect is a quarter of a mile in width and they vary in length from 8 to 48 miles.
Reynolds pointed out that there are miles and miles of marsh along aerial transect 20 that are solid SAV, and how aerial surveyors often struggle picking out sitting ring-necked ducks from the vast numbers of coots and gallinules while counting the flying waves of ringers.
A small diving duck
The ring-necked duck’s scientific name is Aythya Collaris. It’s not a gaudy duck like a wood duck or pintail, nonetheless, it is a handsome bird, especially in late December and January when drakes are in full mating plumage.
Its bill is a bluish-gray color that has a white ring around it. This is “not” where it gets its name from. It’s not until you have a full winter plumage adult drake in hand when you see the cinnamon-colored feathered band around its neck that it gets its name from. The cinnamon-brown-chestnut color band is something you’d not typically see while the bird is in flight.
Drakes also have a rich deep mix of black and iridescent purple chest and head feathers, and its eyes are a strikingly beautiful yellow.
Females by contrast have a sort of orange-rust-brown body with a mix of gray colors and white cheeks.
Ring-necked ducks are a smaller species that weigh roughly between 17 to 32 ounces. They’re a stubby bird with a 2-foot wingspan and a body length of 15 to 18-inches. You don’t need extreme heavy loads of steel No. 2 or 3 shot to knock them down. Number 4s or even No. 5 and 6 teal loads will do the job nicely.
Ring-necked ducks also don’t require a whole bunch of calling other than to perhaps get their attention. One of their faults is they decoy well, especially if there are a few dozen coot decoys in the spread. And even if they don’t commit to landing in the spread, usually they come close enough to shoot.
Great table fare
Ring-necked ducks also don’t get a lot of positive press when it comes to table fare, when in fact they are a good tasting duck. If they have a negative, it’s that they are hard to skin.
Lots of waterfowl hunters typically breast out the meat of ringers, wrap them in bacon, and then toss them on the grill or frying pan. However, if you’re willing to put in the effort to skin and cut them up like you would a chicken into pieces, they’re delicious pot roasted and excellent in a gumbo.
“There are many locations in Southeast Louisiana where ringnecks are providing the major portion of the harvest,” Reynolds said. “I find them a vastly underrated gamebird in the field and on the table.”
If you’re a Louisiana waterfowl hunter, there’s no doubt over the past couple of decades you’ve seen and experienced changes when it comes to overall duck numbers and likely various species as well. However, there’s one duck whose ringing total has been putting smiles on the faces of hunters in the Southeast — that lowly diver — the formerly snubbed ringed-necked duck.
