Photo by Brian Strickland.

Anyone who has ever shared a picnic in a big-city park, played a round of golf or floated a small stream in a canoe knows that puddle ducks don't need expansive bays or sprawling marshes to thrive.

Species such as mallards, teal, wood ducks, ring-necked ducks, hooded mergansers and buffleheads are particularly common on small bodies of water.

And while ducks on ponds and creeks are typically found in pairs or small flocks of a dozen or fewer -- compared to the tens of thousands that gather on big water -- they tend to be available throughout the hunting season. And hunters often have little competition on them.

For example, take the afternoon I had on a beaver pond last year.

Half an hour before the close of legal shooting time, the first mallards broke over the tops of the fir trees.

Through the thicket of tules between the water and me, I could see them circling the marsh in large, high gyres. I blew a pair of high-ball calls, trying not to sound too loud in the timber-fringed valley.

They approached slowly, in lower and tighter circles. I saw them crane their necks, inspecting the mallard blocks in front my blind where I hid with my yellow Lab, Lily.

Soon, two drakes braked toward the water. I could hear their wings and saw their white bellies and orange feet. I swung on the lead bird.

It fell heavily, tumbling. Lily was after it before I could say a word.

I got another mallard 15 minutes later, then hiked the half-mile through the woods back to my car.

That pond isn't listed on any maps. Even the area's topographical map shows only a large marsh.

I've never seen another hunter there, nor seen any trash or tracks to indicate that anyone else bothers to visit it.

But if they did, they'd find a pretty pond covered in lily pads, surrounded by tules and cattails, in the middle of a large marsh.

The size of the pond has varied over the decades, depending on the activity of the beavers, rainfall and storms. One thing that doesn't change in small-water duck hunting is the ducks.

Where I hunt, mallards and green-winged teal nest in the dense vegetation upstream of the open water. When the sedges turn golden, migrating birds drop in. From time to time, I see buffleheads and hooded mergansers. This particular pond lies only about five miles from the coast, where tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl trade between the big tidewater bays and estuaries.

Not surprisingly, these large concentrations of ducks attract hundreds of hunters. Most of the activity takes place on public hunting areas or a handful of zealously protected private duck clubs. Those public areas bristle with hunters, and the private ones cost a lot of money.

To hunt on this beaver pond, the only thing I need to spend is energy. Even better, the ducks here usually stay put through the season, unlike the coastal birds, which move around with the tides and in search of food.

During extended bad weather on the coast, when wind and big waves make thing uncomfortable, many of the saltwater birds fly inland. When that happens, I often encounter waves of ducks seeking refuge on the pond.

A FUN WAY TO HUNT
The late Charlie Waterman -- widely regarded as the most eloquent and sensible outdoors writer of his generation -- once summed up his duck-hunting philosophy this way:

"You can only shoot one duck at a time."

In other words, while it may be thrilling to see thousands of ducks rising in unison over a coastal bay or interior rice field, you need to single out an individual bird when you raise your gun.