Brannen Luck

A couple different hunters have told me that under normal circumstances, a duck hunter should get a banded bird about every 100th duck that he kills. They say that is what statistical data reveals. Of course that whole equation gets knocked out when you hunt near a banding facility. I knew some guys who hunted in Canada for several years and only had a few bands to show for it. Then a big banding effort went into action about 50 miles north of them and they killed a couple hundred banded birds in 2 seasons. Then the banding operation moved away and they are back to normal percentages. I imagine that there are parts of the country where no one ever gets a banded bird because nobody bands in the migratory corridor north of them. I prefer to move around a lot so as to avoid banded birds :-)

In most everything that I do in life, I refer to the 'Brannen Luck'. It is pretty much a total lack of good luck. Not necessarily bad luck, but not good luck. That certainly extends to my success at bagging banded birds. I not only jinx myself, but pretty much everybody I hunt with. Besides the small handful of bands that I have, only 4 of my partners have ever shot a banded bird while we were hunting together.

I killed the majority of my banded birds back in Ohio. The banded geese I've gotten were banded just 40 miles from where I killed them at Indian Lake. A Mallard and a Wood Duck that I killed there, were also banded close by. I killed a BW Teal banded in Saskatchewan and a Redhead banded in New York. Certainly nothing to get excited about, but at least they had flown in from out of state.

Here in Carolina I have killed 2 banded Bluebills. They were banded the same day up on Chesapeake Bay and I killed one of them the following Winter and the other one exactly a year later, both out of the Hospital Point blind. Then I went one day short of 20 years until I killed a banded Brant up on Chincoteague Island, then I killed another the next day. I've not killed another banded bird since then. My son Mike has killed 3 banded birds, my other son Kevin has none. My steady hunting partner for the past 10 years, Kelly Murphy, has 1 banded Brant and no ducks.

So back to the theory of 1 banded bird for every 100 killed. If that worked out, I would have 100 bands and my hunting partners would have another 100. Brannen Luck is strong.