A few generations ago, if you grew up duck hunting in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or anywhere in the Great Lakes region and probably beyond, there’s a good chance you got your start hunting diving ducks.
From Field & Stream to Sports Afield, the outdoor magazines of the era glorified the hunting of rough-water bluebills, redheads and canvasbacks and their numerous shotgun-shooting followers. The slow nature artist Les Kouba painted his childhood memories of waterfowl, which included many evocative diving scenes, from flocks of canvasbacks soaring over mist-shrouded marshes to crashing bluebills migrating into high winds and spitting snow.
Diving duck hunting: Three places to go when the north country’s waters freeze
