Some of my friends -- the diehard duck hunters who own 200 decoys, camouflaged boats, a dozen square yards of camo netting and 100 pounds of Labrador retriever -- make fun of my favorite method of duck hunting.

I'm a pond hunter.

Oh, I enjoy a frosty day standing waist-deep in icy water in the shallows of Lake Eufaula as much as anyone else.

But I grew up in northwestern Oklahoma where big reservoirs are few and far between, and where migrating ducks often stopped for R&R on the many farm ponds and stock tanks that ranchers and farmers built on their lands.

And even though I now live near Tulsa, with a dozen large reservoirs within an hour or two of my house, I still enjoy a day of jumping ducks off of farm ponds, creeks, bottomland areas flooded by beaver dams and other such small bodies of water.

Some days it doesn't take long to bag a limit of mallard drakes while hunting ponds. And the diversity of species I find on ponds seems even greater than on the big lakes.

You never know if the next group of ducks to circle the pond will be mallards or pintails or redheads or teal or widgeon or what. I've seen everything from buffleheads to the rare (in this flyway) black ducks cupping their wings and landing on the small ponds I sometimes hunt. I usually shoot only mallards or gadwall or teal, but I do get to see a variety of species on small waters.

My son, a college student now, keeps our freezer full of duck breasts, often by hunting right here in the urban area within the suburbs of Tulsa. He and his young friends often come in with a mixed bag of ducks, as well as the occasional big Canada geese, which frequent the ponds on the outskirts of Tulsa. That's especially true along the Arkansas River, which a variety of waterfowl seem to use as a local flyway.

Some of the local creeks that flow into the Arkansas also attract ducks and geese. Although I haven't shot at a wood duck in many years, local creeks often have breeding pairs of woodies in spring and summer, and you may see plenty of that colorful species during the hunting season as well.

Actually, my son and his young waterfowling buddies don't always jump ducks from those small, local ponds and creeks. They may make a small decoy spread and hide in shoreline brush. But they sometimes employ the old sneak-and-jump technique as well.

For many years we have had access to a large ranch that has seven ponds. We hunt deer and quail there, but the ponds have provided many days of waterfowling fun. We go from one pond to the next, creeping up from below the dams or behind shoreline trees and brush to flush the ducks into flight. All but one of the ponds are small enough that ducks are within range, even if they are at the far end of the pond. And they usually are. That's because most of the "sneaks" usually take place from below the dams, at the deeper ends of the ponds, while the ducks typically dawdle in the shallower, upper ends of the ponds where it is easier to dive or dabble for food.

And even on the largest pond, where ducks at one end of it are 50 or 60 yards from the other end, we are able to "double team" them because the upper end of the pond has a thick stand of trees that can hide one hunter while the other flushes the birds from the dam end. One hunter pops up over the dam to flush the birds, and any that flush from the upper end stand a chance of getting shot as they rise over the treetops. The hunters there are hidden within shotgun range.