As one who has (off and on) collected "woodie" feathers for fly tyers more than 30 years, please let me explain a few gut-wrenching facts to ya'...

Wood ducks are not rare. Wood ducks fly south with the teal...and the teal season in southern states is in September... long before the "regular" duck season starts in most states. Oh and ya' can't kill "woodies" in teal season!

Actually, there are large numbers of hunters who pursue them each year and they kill huge numbers of wood ducks in east Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia during the regular duck season each year.

The problem occurs as not only does that each drake have a very small patch of flank feathers under each wing but that wood duck hunters are only very, very, very, rarely cognizant of the desires of fly tyers for those feathers, and these hunters dispose of the feathers so coveted by our ilk. Understand that fly tying is not a prominent hobby in these states, especially in the countryside where these activities occur...

However, if on the opening day of duck season, you can get to a major "take out" where large number of "woodie" hunters launch, upon returning from their hunts, most will give all the flanks that you could every use... The problem is there are very few such "major takeouts"... but there are some at a number of large state run wildlife preserves (flooded timber reserves) that are managed for duck hunting.

However, I no longer live near such preserves, and I too could use a few "woodie" feathers.

Bowfin47