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Can you guys tell a difference in the meat of divers vs puddle ducks?

yes. fish ducks are ineatable.

My take as well. Gumbo maybe?

Yes. Divers - stuff like canvasbacks, redheads, ringbills, and such are a little more liver-y than puddle ducks. They're still good, but not as mild as a good, young mallard drake or woodie that is fattened up on acorns.

Absolutely
That said, divers need to brine a bit before gumbo. There is NOTHING better than an early fall puddle duck that has not stored a bunch of lactic acid in muscle tissue from flying. The birds we shoot in Canada/Dakotas taste more like prime beef than they do waterfowl.
The birds I shoot here in SC in Dec/Jan taste like ducks... good but not great.

If cooked in the skillet or on the grill, yes.. i usually throw em in a gumbo mixed up with other ducks and i cant tell one from the other

In the past when I shot more divers, I would set them aside for mixing in the next batch of smoked sausage. In that manner they become indistinguishable.

Hell, I can make merganser or coot taste good by way of a snack stick… but I rarely shoot them anymore.

Coastal LA, it amazes me how the ducks (puddlers and divers) taste sooo much better than my local birds….more like the ducks we kill in Canada. Not sure if it’s the feed, but they don’t seem to have the lactic build up. Maybe they loaf there for long enough?

Okay, then my memory is correct. Growing up we mostly shot divers, and I thought they were the nastiest thing I've ever eaten. After I got married, someone told me to cook ducks just til medium rare, and they tasted great, but they were puddle ducks.

So I didn't know if it was how my mom cooked them, or if it was just the different types of duck tasted different.

It came up this year cause a new place I'm hunting has mostly divers, and I didn't feel like shooting them since I remember how horrible they were.