Fowling was another favorite amusement of the first president. As he got older, his own estate and the country around him swarmed with waterfowl. Tradition has it that he was a good shot. Mount Vernon, in the olden days, was celebrated for the luxuries of the table, as fields, forest, and the Potomac, each in their respective seasons, furnished the most abundant resources for good eating and good living. At Mount Vernon’s riverfront, the wild celery grew in the greatest profusion and here canvasbacks, sometimes referred to as whitebacks, congregated, and across the river from Mount Vernon was one of the most famous ducking blinds on the Potomac. In 1752, George’s older brother Lawrence died, and George inherited Mount Vernon after Lawrence’s widow died in 1761. After Lawrence’s death, George, in the run up to the Revolution, became a more avid waterfowler. When at home, he took his flintlock long fowling piece and went “a-ducking,” as he termed it. He spent hours in his boat, sneaking cautiously on the birds, or watching their flight from his place of concealment. He knew the favorite feeding places of the finest waterfowl, and during the season he was out with his long fowling piece early in the morning. George’s favorite meal was canvasback and hominy, and the shooting of them was one of Washington’s favorite recreations.

Occasionally, he recorded fair bags of “mallards, teal, bald faces & blew wings,” with bald faces being widgeons and blew wing, blue wing teal. On October 4, 1768, he recorded that he “Went into the Neck—& up the Creek after Blew Wings.” His best outing was February 24, 1768, when he, quoting “went a Ducking up a creek between breakfast and dinner & Killd 2 Mallards & 5 bald faces.” On January 16, 1769, he duck hunted in the afternoon, one of the few times he hunted in the afternoon. That same year, he “went a Ducking with Col. Lewis,” for three days in a row. On the fifth of October, he, now quoting, “Went after Blew Wings with Humphrey Peale. Killd 3.” On January 9, 1770, he “Went a ducking but got nothing with the Creeks and Rivers being frozen.”

A few other entries in his diary offer further insight into his duck hunting as on February 28, 1768, he noted that he “Went to the Creek but not across it. Killd 2 ducks, a Teal, and a sprig tail (which is a pintail). Rid out with my gun but killd nothing." He wrote several times in his diary of taking his “water dog” Pilot” “a ducking” with him.

Not only Washington but his entire family and friends enjoyed eating canvasbacks. Following his retirement from the presidency, General Washington met some friends in nearby Alexandria for dinner at the City Hotel in 1798. The proprietor, John Gadsby, mentioned that he had a good supply of canvasback ducks in the larder, which led Washington to reply, “Very good, sir, give us some of them, with a chafing-dish, some hominy, and a bottle of good Madeira, and we shall not complain.”

During his presidency, from 1783 to 1789 at his Mount Vernon residence, he fox hunted 23 times and killed fewer than 10. His final fox hunt at Mount Vernon took place on February 15, 1788, a week before his 56th birthday. During this time, he did no waterfowling and never went a ducking again. He retired from the presidency in 1797, having served two terms.

At his death in 1799, he owned 19 pistols, three rifles, four muskets, and nine fowlers. The only authenticated fowling piece owned by Washington at the time of his death was made by Richard Wilson of London. Overall, the long fowling piece was 64 ½ inches with a 48 ½ inch, .81 caliber barrel.