John (JB) Byers

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Posted by John (JB) Byers on June 23, 2003 at 5:37 a.m.:

Hunt ducks DownUnder is what I do... my passion. I also do a bit of decoy carving and sell the odd block, a skill(?) I learned from a US 'Duck Boat Forum' member who was resident in Aussie for a while. He is a regular contributor to the forum.... guess who it is???

I've monitored the Forum for a while and thought it was time to contribute.

I live in Gippsland area of Victoria, Australia. The south-east corner (bottom right-hand) of the country. We have a lot of freshwater swamps (marshes as you call them), dams (potholes) and salt water lakes and estuaries that generally hold good numbers of ducks. Australian ducks are not set route migrators like you have in the States, they are more random migrators who are influenced by drought and floods as opposed to ice & snow. If there is food and water, they stay there. If there is none, they may fly 2000 - 3000 kilometres to get to some.

Our premier duck is the Pacific Black Duck, not unlike the US Black Duck. Would you believe that Mallards are declared noxious vermin and are to be destroyed on sight? The reason is, they breed with the native Black Duck and produce a sterile cross breed. Mallards are generally only found in small lakes and parks in the major cities and not really the problem the scientists believe.

That's a little bit about me and what I do. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me.