In my experience all wild ducks can be great eating if handled and cooked properly...but the Canvasback is the best of the bunch. I can hardly wait!

Moosetrot

Correct Moosetrot. Has a lot to do with knowing how to cook. Another factor is culture and how a person grows up. Around here sea birds (lots of them not even ducks) are eaten a lot but most people outside condemn them. E.G. Mergansers good birds especially young fat ones later in the fall. Tastes have to be acquired at times is another way of putting it. Imagine some coastal Alaskan people who eat more traditional understand. A lot of it dying out now though as the world moves to universal global village habits.

Got that right Crosspatch;

some of us want Turkey for Xmas, but anyone off the Rock wants a salted turr for table fare as a Xmas present sent to them.
a molting Canvasback eating tubers of Richardson's pond weed has been set for some nice table fare; ever wonder why it was the market gunners selection to get

lovely picture with so " pants down" as every waterfowler should know the phrase

There is a lot of stuff the natives eat up north that has to be acquired tastes. LOL
I can’t even get past the smell of a fresh merganser to make me want to eat one, can’t imagine the smell of them cooking.

Common mergansers spend 2 plus months feeding in the wild rice lakes north of you so anything coming down past the 11 November, are the best grain fed birds there is, but you need a large roasting pan for their size,
Anyone for some wild rice flavoured gravy from the one inch rendered breast fat?
Cooked @ 275* F for 4 hours so you don't volatize the fat and get that burnt taste.

Good luck hunting.First day here in northern Maine is September 28th.I have the first 4 days of the season off.

Seeing alot of black ducks around this year.

common merganser are good , no one would eat them around here ,till they found out I had been feeding them it for year's , lol

Good luck, we still have to wait another week.