I'm thinking that if you had the previous birds done commercially, they probably had a cure in their brine.
If the duck was slightly hammy, or had that commercially made smoked turkey type of flavor to it, then I'd bet that they did brine with nitrites.
If you brine with just salt, sugar & spices, you'll get a moist bird, but the flavor and the color will not be close to the same as you had before.
Being that you're in TX and it's hunting season, you'll probably be able to find Morton's (as in Morton salt) Tender Quick at walmart our a good local butcher shop. TQ has nitrates and nitrites in it as well as salt and a little bit of sugar. 1TBS per lb of meat is the recommended usage, you can mix it in with your brine (be sure not to add to much regular salt as the TQ has a very high salt content).
General rule of thumb for curing is to allow 24 hours per 1 inch thickness of meat in the thickest part, with duck I would think that 24-48 hours would suffice.
After brining, soak in cold water for 30-60 min and then pat dry and allow to air dry (uncovered) in the fridge for anywhere from a few hours to overnight. I use a cookie sheet with a wire cooling rack on top to set the bird on so that the skin can dry on all sides.
Now my disclaimer - I have not done a duck this way, but this is the general way to wet cure anything, and you will assuredly end up with a moist, slightly hammy bird.
For smoking, I would use apple, alder, oak or pecan and go very lightly on the smoke.
I'd treat it like a chicken and prolly cook it around 300* until it temps, FDA says 165* IT is safe for duck, even if there is a slight pink to it. Since you cured it, it will actually already have a pink sort of color to it, like the difference between ham (cured) (pink) & cooked pork (not cured) (grey).
Cranking up the heat to 350-400 for the last 15-20 min is never a bad idea for poultry to get crispy skin, so long as you're not over cooking it...
Let us know how them quackers turn out!!
Edit: Duh! Since they're wild duck, I seriously doubt you plucked them, therefore, no skin... And they are prolly in pieces... :doh:
) but the Specklebelly is an awesome goose to smoke. I serve mine with crawfish dressing whenever I am lucky enough to get one. When I lived in Texas (most of my life) I mainly hunted ducks because all we got for geese was Snows. Occasional I'd get a Specklebelly and that was a prize! Up here in PA, I get tons of Canada geese. There not bad but I prefer them medium rare and not smoked.
