Montana Mojo

My love of duck hunting returns

Duck carne asada tacos from the Montana hunt. So good!

I get compared to Steve Rinella, the creator of the Meateater brand, quite a lot. I’ve even been on his TV show. And always I get the same question: How are you two different? Truth is, we’re different in many ways. But I always answer, “Steve is a hunter who cooks. I am a cook who hunts.”

There’s a huge difference, and it manifested itself recently when I was in Montana doing one of my culinary hunts. This one was a duck hunt, and that matters.

Of all the hunting disciplines, I am best at duck hunting. It is the only sort of hunting where I feel comfortable guiding others. I can call most waterfowl (still working on Canada geese), have the gear, the knowledge and the shooting ability to come home with ducks more often than not.

When Holly and I were together, we’d collectively kill upwards of 200 ducks a year. We’d spend damn near a month in the marsh over the 100-day season. Once home, we developed a plucking and cleaning routine that punctuated our fall and winter.

We ate a duck-based diet those months, dining on duckies three or four times a week.

Those days ended even before we split in February 2023. I’d felt, just… done. Too many ducks, and Holly loves the hunt so much I wanted her to bring home the (duck) bacon, not me. And when we split, I soon learned that California really is that special, at least in terms of the quality of its wild ducks.

I did hunt a little between when I left California and this Montana trip, but during that time I cooked a lot of other people’s ducks. Skinny, vaguely stinky, in some cases poorly handled. It didn’t encourage me to shoot more ducks.

So when we started plucking the mallards, teal and wigeon from the Teller Wildlife Refuge in Corvallis, Montana — where the culinary hunt was held — my eyes widened: Oh my God! This… this! THIS! This is what I’d missed!

Big northern mallards, some the size of a store-bought Pekin. And almost all were so fat they could be featured on “Biggest Loser.” What’s more, we’d shot them well, meaning head or wing shots, so the breasts were clean.

It was a joy to pluck those birds, and to clean them afterwards. My excitement spread to the guests, who all chipped in once I showed them my methods. I came home with four gorgeous mallards, and, after I got my fridge working again, fell into my old routine.

I played my greatest hits: Duck consomme with the carcasses and tenders, I chopped up the stray fat and skin to get more than a half-pint of rendered duck fat, used the cracklins’ for chicharron en salsa verde, and made a batch of Buffalo duck wings.

I kept one perfect drake mallard whole for roasting later — for whom remains to be seen — and broke down the others, plus I salvaged the legs off two plucked-but-breasted birds I’d brought home. That’ll likely be a brand new recipe to be determined. Stay tuned.

The pressure canner is jangling now, a gallon of duck consomme inside. The smell of roasted duck bones lingers in the house, and the ducky aroma of the fat clings to the stove because I am waiting to fully clean it; I am sensitive to scents — some make me gag, others can send me into a half-conscious, ecstatic state. Sweet duck fat is the latter.

I missed these little rituals. They are important parts of my life. But I will not be going back to the way I used to be. I will likely never feel the need to kill so many ducks ever again, or to have a duck-based diet. I know, never is a long time, but I just can’t see it, living where I live now.

Stewing on this, I came to the conclusion that the little line I’ve been telling people about Steve and me goes deeper than I’d thought: I am only comfortable killing when I am genuinely excited about eating that which I killed.

So not just ducks, but quality ducks. And geese. And deer. I’d much rather kill young deer, as I did last year, or if not, take the time to dry age older animals. A perfect elk hunt for me would be for spike bulls — young animals still tender, yet larger than most cow elk, and while I dearly love sharp-tailed grouse hunting, I can get my annual fill with a couple days’ worth of limits, which is just six birds.

Cooking, eating and most of all sharing the results of my hunting and fishing adventures is what drives me. I can cook basically anything. But catch me when I am excited about cooking a bird or a haunch of venison or a fish and you’ll catch me at my best. Because I’m getting a chance to feed you. And that’s what I love best.