If there's one thing that makes killing ducks look easy, it's plucking them - especially if you like to eat them skin-on, roasted whole. Getting that down off can be a real pain in the butt.
But a few years back, Hank hunted with a friend at a duck club that had a totally sweet operation for processing ducks, and the key feature was the wax pot.
After plucking off maybe two-thirds of the top feathers, hunters at this club would dip their birds in a cauldron of hot melted wax, then put them in a barrel of cool water to set the wax. After that, all they had to do was peel off the wax and voila! The down was all gone, revealing pretty skin, suitable for roasting whole.
We adapted this operation to work in our garage, and at long last, we've made a video that shows how to do it.
I wouldn't say it makes plucking ducks easy - it still takes time. But it does leave you with some really beautiful ducks to eat, and that's the whole point.
Some additional notes about what you see in the video:
The pot: It's a cheap aluminum tamale pot from a Mexican market. Cheap is important, because this thing will get grimy, and you probably won't want to use it for food in the kitchen anymore after you use it for waxing ducks.
The burner: Ours is a totally lame portable electric burner. We keep talking about switching to a turkey deep fryer with a powerful gas burner and thermostat, but we haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe there will be some on sale, now that the season of eating whole turkeys has passed.
Heating the water: We give the wax pot a head start by filling it out of a faucet right next to the water heater, so the water comes out blazing hot. It really does take a while to heat up, because it's two-thirds full. If I plan to pluck when I get home, I'll call Hank and ask him to get the pot started so it's nice and hot when I arrive 75 minutes later.
The mess: Yeah, it's super messy, which is why we do it in the garage. But it's way easier sweeping up clumps of wax than chasing tufts of down.
Got anymore questions? Comment here or on the video itself and we'll answer the best we can.
I know - blasphemy, right? I mean, I love duck skin, and my favorite way to eat duck is roasted whole with skin on.
But sometimes you get a bird that you know is going to taste "off." You know your mallards and pintails are going to taste great, but spoonies, gadwalls and wigeon can be a bit funky, depending on where you live and what those birds are eating there. Coots and sea birds? Stinkers, consistently.
The good news that all the foul flavor lives in skin and fat, so you can still make use of much of that stanky bird. All you need to know is how to skin it.
I shot this video on how to skin a duck a couple weekends ago after Hank and I went hunting for diver ducks on San Francisco Bay (San Pablo Bay, to be more exact). Then last weekend I went hunting at my usual Sacramento Valley spot without Hank and he sent me off with a grocery list: He wanted five coots if I got the opportunity to get some. He said something about recipe development.
I got him his coots (you can read that story here), and rather than make him do the dirty work, I decided to give skinning a try myself, based on the instructional video. I'll be damned if it didn't work - and it worked well! Cleaning went really fast. (It helped to have a quality pair of kitchen shears.) I may shoot coots more often.
Two notes on the video: If you choose to save the first section of wing, as shown near the beginning of the video, to get that meat, all you do is keep pulling off the skin, rather than stopping at the breast and clipping it off. You'll see what I mean. And if you don't want the wing, just clip it off at its base.
And if you like liver, go ahead and use the liver from a coot. The diver/sea duck warnings don't apply.
I was accused the other day of being a snob because I am a proponent of using as much of the animals we kill as possible. This means, most importantly, that I don't breast out ducks.
Not only does this position risk offending established hunters who grew up breasting out their ducks, I was told, but it risks alienating hunting newbies by holding them up to a standard that, basically, only the stupendous and amazing Hank could meet.
Well, Hank is a freak, and he'd be the first to admit that. He makes wild boar liver creme caramel, goose gizzard carpaccio and duck liver ravioli. And it's all good. I know, because I eat everything he cooks.
But, seriously, duck hunters, I don't expect you to cook like he does (though it would be nice if you ordered his upcoming book, Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast, which comes out in late May).
And I'm not going to start telling Yo' Mama jokes if your mama raised you to breast out your ducks.
I will, however, strongly encourage you to use more than just the breasts of the ducks you kill, because 1) there's a ton of tasty meat on the rest of the duck, and 2) you don't have to be a great chef to make it taste good.
Let's address Point 2 first. I do very little cooking in our house, because Hank is just way better at it. But I do roast my own whole ducks, because it's super easy.
The short version is that you salt the duck, brown it all over in a cast iron pan, pop it in a 450-degree oven, cook it until the breast meat hits 135 degrees, let it rest under a tent of foil for five minutes, then serve. (Here are the detailed duck roasting instructions.)
Though teal and ruddy ducks are single-serving critters, I can usually get at least two meals out of a medium-sized duck (wigeon, gadwall) and three out of a large duck (mallard, pintail).
This is where we get to Point 1.
The first meal is slicing off the breasts. I did this for lunch just this Thursday with a fat little wigeon I killed in December, and here's how much meat I got from the breasts:
So, that's what you would've gotten off this bird if you'd breasted him out. That scale reads 4 3/8 ounces. And yes, these were like crack cocaine - after I finished eating the breasts, I wanted to go eat the rest of the bird, bones and all.
But I was saving it for this blog post, so I threw the rest of the carcass into the fridge to chill overnight. Then this morning, I picked off all the meat, fat and skin that I could get - this would be a lunch I could take to take to work.
Now, this wigeon was particularly obese, so I got a lot of fat. But apparently Hank really wrecked his wings when he shot him, because this pato gordito came out of the package looking like Venus de Milo - no wing meat for me!
(I know duck wings seem pretty insubstantial and are a total pain in the ass to eat on the bone. But when you're picking the carcass, there's definitely enough meat on the wings to make them worth the effort.)
When it was all picked, I diced up the meat so I could throw it into a quick fried-rice concoction: Duck bits (no added fat needed), chili flakes, garlic, salt, rice.
Here's what I got:
Yep, that's 5 1/4 ounces.
Now, if you're concerned about all that Fatty McFat Wigeon's fat clogging my arteries, don't be - I saved the fat from the frying pan, and it was still liquid at room temperature this morning - a sign it's good-for-you fat. (And if you'd like to read my smug blog post on my latest cholesterol test, click here.)
Now, people like my buddy Charlie would need two of those wigeons to make a satisfying meal (though he'd really prefer if they were two pintails). That's not the point here. The point is that if you think there's not enough meat on a duck to make it worth eating more than the breasts, you might want to reconsider.
What if you hate plucking whole ducks? I sure understand that - plucking is a pain in the butt, and it's the last thing I want to do with my stupid arthritic hands after a day in a wet and windy marsh (I prefer wrapping them around a glass of bourbon).
There is an easier alternative: pluck the breasts and legs and take them out together, each breast attached to a leg. My friend Brent, who hunts up at Lower Klamath, processes his ducks like this, then marinates and grills them. They taste outstanding every time.
The upshot? You worked hard to bring those ducks home. You might as well get all the meat out of them that you can. It sure can't hurt to try, right?
UPDATE: Since writing this blog post, I've produced three videos on how to handle whole ducks:
How to Skin a Duck: For sea ducks or other ducks with off flavors. Removing the skin and fat removes the bad flavors.
How to Pluck a Duck: For all ducks that always taste good (where we live, that's generally pintail, greenwing teal, mallard and wigeon; spoonies and gadwalls can be iffy).
I've been to a lot of duck dinners since I became a hunter, but the California Waterfowl dinner I went to Friday night was something special.
Part of what made it special for me was that I'd been working on this dinner for the past year, attending lots of early-morning conference calls, organizing, begging for items we could auction or raffle off.
But it would've been amazing to me even if I hadn't been involved as an organizer, because this duck dinner was about women - it was the Valentine's Daddy Daughter Dinner, celebrating women in waterfowling. The only thing that was cooler than all the women hunters in the room was all the little girls - dressed to the nines - who have already begun to join us in the duck blinds.
Check it out:
Special thanks to the folks at Alpen Optics, Cabela's, Prois Hunting Apparel and SHE Safari who came through and donated women's hunting gear for the auction and raffle. You helped Cal Waterfowl raise a lot of money, and you showed all the women at this dinner that there really is hunting gear for us.
When I woke up yesterday, I checked the forecast for Reno. Severe storm alert. Gusts up to 50 mph expected. The first storm of the year.
What a great time to cross Donner Summit! Somewhere in the back of my head, I remembered a history lesson. Something about silly white people trying to cross the summit as winter advanced. Didn't they end up eating each other for food?
I threw tire chains and an extra jacket in the back of my car and headed up anyway. I was on a mission: a pilgrimage to Cabela's.
I've been meaning to take the 117-mile journey to Cabela's since the store opened 11 months ago, but dangit, they opened in the middle of duck season, and my weekends are taken that time of year.
When the Sacramento Bee wrote about it back then, I was smitten. A company spokesman had told the Bee, "We know that the fastest-growing hunting and fishing population is female, and we have clothing, for instance, actually made for women, not just made for undersized men and sold to women."
Finding hunting clothing that's sized and cut for women is a big deal. Most stores don't carry much for us.
And with duck season just two weeks away, this is an issue for me right now.
The Gamehide duck jacket I've been wearing for the past two seasons is a men's jacket. I loved it at first, because it has great features - water-resistant Hushhide shell, removable fleece liner, nice pockets. But by the end of last season I realized a men's medium is too big for me - the over- sized collar and unneeded extra fabric was getting in the way of a smooth gun mount. I'm sure I could make a men's small work, but none of my local stores ever carries men's small. (And don't even suggest kids' sizes - I'm tall, and I have long arms.)
I've seen women's duck jackets in the Cabela's catalog, but I've never bought them because I'm the kind of person who needs to try something on. That's why I needed to go to Cabela's in person. Even if I didn't like the women's jackets, I figured a company whose motto is "World's Foremost Outfitter" would at least have some men's smalls in stock.
So I hustled up to Reno yesterday, where I would meet up with some friends who were attending the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy. Bernadette and I were hunting for jackets and anything else we could get. My friend Sarah was hunting for waders, and her boss, Bob, wanted to find some waders for his daughter too. Tracey came along too, eager to see the Mecca of modern hunters.
We arrived in two groups that somehow never met up in the enormous store. Sarah, Bob and I stocked up on ammo and then meandered to waders, where we immediately saw, of all things, Cabela's women's waders!
These waders were brilliant. Why? Men's waders are often too long for us, so those big plastic buckles for the straps usually sit right about where we need to mount our guns. Bad news, man. I've just taken to hunting with my left strap unbuckled, hip-hop style, to avoid sloppy mounts and painful recoil problems.
These waders? They had Velcro straps, so there was no buckle problem at all. It also looked like they'd provide some recoil protection!
But they were 5mm neoprene, which is way too thick for the kind of hunting we do in the Sacramento Valley. If you're not lucky enough to hunt from a boat or on some chi-chi private property where you can drive right up to the blind, you usually have to walk anywhere from half a mile to a mile and a half to get to your spot. And with lows that rarely dip more than a few degrees below freezing, 5mm neoprene would make that feel like walking in the Sahara.
OK, so where's the 3mm ... ?
There was none in this model. There was another women's model, but it had the infernal buckle. Why on earth would they get it right for the 5mm model, but not the 3mm model? The latter was exactly what that Cabela's spokesman promised the store wouldn't carry: a scaled-down men's model.
Sarah reluctantly put the inferior waders in the cart, and on the way to the jacket section, we talked about breaking out our sewing machines to customize our waders.
Meanwhile, Tracey had called my cell phone to let me know she and Bernadette were leaving. "It was a bust," she said. "We're disappointed."
When I went to the big hunting camo section, I saw why. We found help, and I told the man what I was looking for: if not a women's duck jacket, a men's small - the slim-line type that you can easily tuck into waders.
They didn't carry any women's duck jackets. "And I don't think you're going to find any men's smalls," he said.
What? We were at the World's Foremost Outfitter. Don't tell me every man who walks in that store is huge.
But it was true. Not a small in sight.
"Just try this medium, just in case," he said.
"I have a men's medium jacket at home right now. It just doesn't make sense to buy another," I said as I tried on, and rejected, several jackets. "What about gloves. Got any men's smalls?"
"That I know we have," he said, happy to come up with something I needed.
I've had the exact same problem with gloves that I've had with my jacket. You can never find men's small. Men's medium is huge, which is not a good thing in gloves you wear while handling a shotgun. I've suffered for two seasons now with some uncomfortably tight children's large "glomitts" - the glove/mitten combo - and I really wanted to find something that fit.
I found it - the MT050 Windstopper Glomitt with 150-gram Thinsulate. Water resistant. The day wasn't a total bust. Perhaps I could forgive Cabela's. Perhaps it really did care about huntresses.
Or perhaps not.
When we went to the checkout stands, we split up to make our purchases. As I finished my purchase, I heard the clerk talking to Sarah behind me as she rang up Sarah's waders, some gloves and a box of Kent Fasteel.
"So, is your husband going waterfowl hunting soon?" the girl asked Sarah.
Oh no she didn't!
"No," Sarah replied calmly. "These are for me."
"Oh, do you go waterfowl hunting with your husband?"
Sarah's husband doesn't hunt.
"No," Sarah said. "I hunt with my girlfriends."
"Oh, that's nice," the girl said.
Sarah and I pushed the cart out of the store, speaking to each other through gritted teeth. "What the #@&*!!?"
We'd had such high hopes walking into that store. Not only were we sorely disappointed in the offerings for women, but a female checkout clerk had committed the cardinal sin of assuming a woman couldn't possibly be a hunter.
I wouldn't have expected that of any hunting store, much less the World's Foremost Outfitter.
We headed back out to our cars. The wind had picked up, and the rain was on its way.
Oh well. I hear there's a Bass Pro Shop going up soon in Manteca. That's only 77 miles away.
POSTSCRIPT: Click here to see what happened as a result of this blog post!
Man, there is something fantastic about being involved in a special event.
I've been working all year with California Waterfowl's Women's Outdoor Connections, a group developing programs designed to get women more involved in the outdoors, and Saturday was our first major event.
Picture this: Forty women and kids took up arms for a day of shooting, conservation, hunting and cooking lessons at Coyote Valley Sporting Clays.
It was a blast. I could've just written about it on Sunday morning, but it was really fun, and I think this little slideshow I put together captures the spirit of the day much better (despite my extreme amateur status with this stuff). Check it out:
And oh yeah, in case you're wondering: Yes, the guy doing the cooking lessons was none other than Boyfriend. He rocked!
And did you notice those pink duck calls? They were made especially for this event by an Oregon Company called KumDuck. The owners came down to do the demo personally.
I know you folks in the Other 49 are watching in fear as California implements a lead-ammunition ban in the state's massive condor region.
That region happens to be where Boyfriend and I do most of our big game hunting, so you are cordially invited to live the fear through us vicariously as you wait to see if your state falls in line.
With deer season in that area beginning Aug. 9, we are doing our best to get ready, and that means shelling out for spendy ammo, and sending it flying into paper targets over ($2) and over ($4) and over ($6) and over ($8) and over again ($$$$$).
Wanna see what it's like? Just click the play button below. But be warned - I'm new at video and I haven't figured out how to "bleep" yet...
At the end of each January, every duck hunter I know recalls every missed duck and swears he or she is going to hit the shooting range a lot during the off season.
Then life takes over. We get busy, and the "twice a month" goal turns into "once in a blue moon."
For me, yesterday was that blue moon. Or maybe I should call it a pink moon. A group of women I've been working with on some programs for California Waterfowl got together with some non-hunting, non-shooting friends for some sporting clays and trap action at our local range, the Cordova Shooting Center.
We started out a bit rough. Few of us had done five-stand sporting clays, and let's just say there wasn't much cheering at the start. Every once in a while I'd look back at the newbies waiting for their turn, and they had these stricken looks on their faces. Geez, if the experienced hunters can't hit these things, what hope do we have?
But we all warmed up soon enough, and everyone ended up having a good time after all, slaying clays and cheering each other on.
Of course, I couldn't go out there with just my gun - I also had to haul out my camera, audio recorder and camcorder. Twenty-four hours later, here's what I've got to show for it - enjoy!
Holly A. Heyser is a former newspaper reporter and editor who went on her first hunt at age 41 and immediately fell in love with the honesty, grace and humility of acquiring food the hard way. She is a partner at H&H Books, the photographer for Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, and a writer at To The Bone. Click here to contact her.
WHY PUT UP WITH MISSING? Your shotgun needs to fit your proportions for you to shoot consistently well. Click here to learn about what a Dale Tate gunfitting can do for your shooting. And if you go see Dale, tell him Holly sent you.
