Originally Posted By: BrentD
Originally Posted By: JDW
Once it is banned for one type of hunting, then it will only be a matter of time for the rest and most likely a short one.


Sort of ridiculous statement given that lead waterfowling has been the lay of the land for what? Two decades at least.


And how many people have given up waterfowling becase of it? And how many in the next generation never started because the people who would have sarted them on it, quit because of steel and/or increased cost?

Two of my friends - manic duck hunters on Barnegat Bay in the past gave it up because of the combination of steel (they'd have had to have replaced their shotguns), cost (of steel, gas, licenses, etc.) and limits (one black duck per day, and b/c 90 percent of the black ducks winter there, it seems all you see are black ducks). Another friend, a local gun store owner here in Maine, says it's been years since he went duck hunting - because of steel, cost and "all that for one duck" limits.

These guys all have kids, who've surely never gone duck hunting because their dads don't.

I don't, because my duck hunting would be incidental to upland hunting and I don't want to have to ditch the lead shells (and hope I could find them later) to shoot a duck legally. In the days of "Duck and Pheasant Loads" (I picked up a box of them at a gun show last year - nostalgia in a box), you could go down to the swampy part of the cornfield, maybe get lucky and bring home a nice mixed bag. Now, if you were to be stopped with a mallard and a pheasant in your gamebag, you'd better only have steel or no-tox, even if you'd have legally shot the phez with lead.

Last edited by Dave in Maine; 08/26/11 12:52 PM.
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