That’s how we capture Blue-wings for banding.

There was a study here two years ago where they trapped broadbill in these round covered traps like said, This was tidal water so not sure how the funnels were set. But ducks are a sucker for corn, once you have them coming they're easy. These traps weren't very big, maybe 8' round, and they'd be full...

One of my older friends - his grandpa market hunted ducks. The days of punt guns were over then, so it was kinda traditional duck hunting but with no attention to bag limits. My friend remembers going with as a boy. He told me once "I was 15 before I realized that all hunters didn't hide their ducks in a concealed hole 100 yards from the blind, while hunting. He told me that it was his job to tote the ducks to a hiding spot. Good days necessitated several different caches of ducks otherwise a trail would be evident to gw.

Interesting times.

The Wildlife Technicians that band ducks here use duck traps like those described above. I and the All Purpose Boy have helped our local bander band ducks. Those traps are VERY effective at catching and holding numbers of ducks. As for Punt guns, well, I never fired one, but an old friend of mine, now deceased, made one with a high school pal and used it on Bear lake over in Manistee County. This was around the beginning of WW2. They made it from a section of pipe(2 inch or so I.D.), loaded it with nails and etc., and used some sort of double nail battery sparking ignition to touch off the beast. The breech end was poked down inside a good stout section of log. They sculled their rowboat up close to a big raft of divers late at night, touched off their homemade pipe bomb.....er, I mean Punt Gun............and half the lights in the village of Bear Lake, Michigan came on when the contraption literally exploded with a tremendous roar! It is more than miraculous that both of these teenagers weren't killed on the spot. They rowed home and hid under the bed for the rest of the night. They don't know if any waterfowl were harmed by the explosion because they were too scared to look!