Justin Marsh holds a wood duck taken on a walk-up hunt along a coastal creek. Good jump-shooting can be had on any waterway where the banks are high enough to hide the hunter's approach. Photo by Mike Marsh.

We were walking home after a backyard dove hunt at the old J.P. Morgan hunting lodge in southern Guilford County. My companion was Paul Pell and we were just "tweenagers." In the early 1960s, youth hunters hunted on the licenses of their parents, without having to buy their own duck stamps.

"Look at those geese," Paul said. "Duck!"

Duck we did, right behind a big oak tree in the garden of the 4-acre yard. A trio of waterfowl banked around the tree and fell to a volley of No. 7 1/2 lead shot.

The waterfowl weren't geese, but wood ducks. As we picked our first waterfowl, the feather pile building high in a cardboard box, I marveled at their beauty and the warmth of their snowy undercoats.

Added to a double bag-limit of doves roasted in an oven, the wood ducks proved delectable. It was the start of my obsession with waterfowl hunting. The next order of business after the feast was investigating where the ducks originated.

The nearest pond was a mile away. But there was a harvested corn field on adjoining property where the dove hunt took place. Through the field ran a small stream that filtered into a hardwood pocket. The dozens of mature oaks in the yard of the old Morgan Place had potential nesting cavities, and the corn field and acorns were preferred wood duck dining.

Lack of standing water remained a puzzle until the following spring when a fledgling wood duck fluttered from a tree cavity, practically landing on the porch steps like a foundling child. Later, I jumped wood ducks from a stream so small I stepped across barely 100 yards away.

I learned wood ducks are backyard ducks. Although higher mountain counties may see wood ducks nesting in low numbers and leaving very early in the season, and although sea-level counties with mostly saltwater may host fewer wood ducks than other waterfowl species, on a state-wide basis, the wood duck is the most likely duck for waterfowl hunters to bag on any given day.

Wood duck limits varied over the years, as their numbers flourished with spreading beaver ponds, private waterfowl impoundments and nesting boxes erected by benevolent groups, from Scout troops to Ducks Unlimited chapters to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. The basic limit had been two ducks for decades. But when an early season was established aimed specifically at surplus woodies on the first of October more than two decades ago, the regular season duck limit of five was applied to wood ducks during the early season.

When the regular season limit diminished to four, then three, the early-season wood duck limit shadowed it -- until recently, when it reverted to two woodies under pressure from Northern states and provinces. But studies proved most of our early-season wood ducks are raised within Tar Heel State borders. So, for the 2008-09 season, a season-long wood duck bag limit of three was established, bringing smiles to the faces of Tar Heel State hunters.

Nicknames for the wood duck include French duck, for its gaudy plumage, and Carolina duck, for its stronghold. But most hunters refer to them in the familiar form, "woodie."