Ben Brettingen was sitting on the edge of a levee, staring into a wall of dark timber, when it finally hit him that he was definitely not in North Dakota. He grew up in Minnesota and spent his college years in the Dakotas, where duck hunting meant open marshes, prairie winds, and birds that hadn’t yet earned a PhD in avoiding hunters. Back then, if you were hidden halfway decent and pointed your decoys the right direction, ducks did the rest. Then a job with Primos Hunting dropped him straight into Mississippi, surrounded by flooded woods, slick water, and ducks that had already seen every bad decoy spread and questionable calling routine from Canada to Arkansas.
Down South, the rules changed fast. Calm mornings that once screamed “limits” now meant watching birds flare and land somewhere else. Spinning wings went from magic to menace, motion became mandatory, and calling stopped being something you did out of habit and turned into something you actually had to be good at. Add crowded public land, private clubs, and birds that had survived a thousand miles of pressure, and the learning curve got steep in a hurry. It was frustrating, humbling, and exactly why chasing the same ducks across completely different worlds is what makes waterfowling so addictive.
Check out Ben’s full article that has “everything you need to know about duck hunting” at Gun Dog magazine HERE.
Photo credit: Steve Oehlenschlager from Getty Images
