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It wasn't my mother, and I don't want to speak about it, ok?

Last season was the first of seven in my current location when mallards bumped greenwings from the top spot.

They all take me for the most.

Rick wrote:Last season was the first of seven in my current location when mallards bumped greenwings from the top spot.

just outta curiosity, what was your season total?

I lied. Was thinking only of the regular season and not of September teal, which gives bluewings the lead.

Here's last year's species log:

SEPTEMBER TEAL:

Bluewing teal - 231 (1 banded)

Greenwing teal - 5

September Teal Total: 236


FIRST SPLIT BY SPECIES:


Blackbellied Whistling Ducks - 12

Bluewinged Teal - 12

Canvasbacks - 3

Gadwall - 6

Greenwing Teal - 25

Mallards - 101

Mottleds - 15

Pintails - 10

Ringnecks - 28

Scaup - 8

Shovelers - 37

Wigeon - 3

Wood Ducks - 13

Specklebellied Geese - 13

First Split Totals - 273 ducks and 13 geese



SECOND SPLIT BY SPECIES:


Black Ducks - 1

Blackbellied Whistling Ducks - 4

Bluewinged Teal - 14

Fulvous Tree Duck - 6

Gadwall - 68

Greenwing Teal - 205

Mallards - 146

Mexican Duck - 1

Mottleds - 11

Pintails - 31

Ringnecks - 56

Scaup - 2

Shovelers - 52

Wigeon - 15

Wood Ducks - 4

Ross - 1

Specklebellied Geese - 59

Second Split Totals - 616 ducks and 60 geese



2012-2013 SEASON TOTALS


Black Ducks - 1

Blackbellied Whistling Ducks - 16

Bluewinged Teal - 26

Canvasback Ducks - 3

Fulvous Tree Duck - 6

Gadwall - 74

Greenwing Teal - 230

Mallards - 247

Mexican Duck - 1

Mottleds - 26

Pintails - 41

Ringnecks - 84

Scaup - 10

Shovelers - 89

Wigeon - 18

Wood Ducks - 17

Ross - 1

Specklebellied Geese - 72

2012-2013 Regular Season Totals - 889 ducks and 73 geese

2012-2013 All Inclusive Totals - 1,125 ducks (1 banded) + 73 geese = 1,198 birds


First season since moving here in '83 that my hunters shot no blues/snows. I'd think because my duck season mornings are all spent in the marsh. But still...

Have taken the most...female human virgins.

Damn Rick.

Where's your place?

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

Damn Rick! Is that just you and your clients totals?

Shit...I shoot that many in a single hunt.

rebelp74 wrote:Damn Rick! Is that just you and your clients totals?

No, no, you're fixin' to have me hauled off. That's the total for hunters I took.

Not many widgeon huh Rick?

Rick wrote:

rebelp74 wrote:Damn Rick! Is that just you and your clients totals?

No, no, you're fixin' to have me hauled off. That's the total for hunters I took.

my bad, I thought you were a guide? Still that's some serious numbers. Where you at down there? Outside of Lake Charles?

Those represent some pretty nice hunts! How many days you figure you hunt a year?

I know by the time we see the end, I'm ready for it - can't imagine how you feel.

Feelin' Fowl wrote:Damn Rick.

Where's your place?

Little mud hole in Southwest Louisiana.

rebelp74 wrote:

Rick wrote:

rebelp74 wrote:Damn Rick! Is that just you and your clients totals?

No, no, you're fixin' to have me hauled off. That's the total for hunters I took.

my bad, I thought you were a guide? Still that's some serious numbers. Where you at down there? Outside of Lake Charles?

No, my bad. I read it as "just you or your clients totals. I do guide and those are my and my clients and friends and family's numbers. What was killed on the hunts I made with whoever was along.

We've stuff in Cameron, Vermilion, Jeff Davis and Acadia Parishes, but the camp and my morning marsh blind are in the area known as Klondike, between Gueydan and Lake Arthur. Ours is fresh marsh at the edge of the rice, so we see a lot of trafficking birds. With the rub being that the lease has a 9:30 curfew, so we're too often out about the time the big ducks are start moving.

Redbeard wrote:Not many widgeon huh Rick?

Wigeon are the great Louisiana mystery. They were thick enough here in the '90s that we once shot 14 drakes in a morning to get four real footballs with clean caps and masks and pretty sprigs (such as they are) for mounting. Now 14 might well be our season total. Larry Reynolds, our head waterfowl biologist, says no one knows what happened to them.

DeadEye_Dan wrote:Those represent some pretty nice hunts! How many days you figure you hunt a year?

I know by the time we see the end, I'm ready for it - can't imagine how you feel.

16 days of September teal and 60 of regular duck season, but I've all but quit taking parties for geese after. Still hunt pretty much daily as long as specks are open, but it's generally just the dog and I decompressing. Mighty nice not to feel like we have to shoot something.

Seems, however, like the withdrawal when it's over just keeps getting worse every year.

Rick wrote:

rebelp74 wrote:

Rick wrote:

rebelp74 wrote:Damn Rick! Is that just you and your clients totals?

No, no, you're fixin' to have me hauled off. That's the total for hunters I took.

my bad, I thought you were a guide? Still that's some serious numbers. Where you at down there? Outside of Lake Charles?

No, my bad. I read it as "just you or your clients totals. I do guide and those are my and my clients and friends and family's numbers. What was killed on the hunts I made with whoever was along.

We've stuff in Cameron, Vermilion, Jeff Davis and Acadia Parishes, but the camp and my morning marsh blind are in the area known as Klondike, between Gueydan and Lake Arthur. Ours is fresh marsh at the edge of the rice, so we see a lot of trafficking birds. With the rub being that the lease has a 9:30 curfew, so we're too often out about the time the big ducks are start moving.

You're in some prime time hunting but I didn't realize there were that many mallards that far south.

Rick wrote:

DeadEye_Dan wrote:Those represent some pretty nice hunts! How many days you figure you hunt a year?

I know by the time we see the end, I'm ready for it - can't imagine how you feel.

16 days of September teal and 60 of regular duck season, but I've all but quit taking parties for geese after. Still hunt pretty much daily as long as specks are open, but it's generally just the dog and I decompressing. Mighty nice not to feel like we have to shoot something.

Seems, however, like the withdrawal when it's over just keeps getting worse every year.

I've hunted 15 days of early goose and 59 of the 60 days of duck season exactly once...I came home the last day of the season, had been fighting pneumonia for 2 weeks, cleaned the ducks, took some more drugs and fell asleep around 11am, woke up the next morning @ 8 and felt like I'd been sleeping for 15 minutes. I thought I was going to die.

We've a lot more than SELA, but just between us chickens, the mallards are the ones that fall for the call easiest. So their numbers in the bag don't reflect what we're seeing. High flying mallards have saved many a morning when precious little was using the marsh. And my big mallard years have been when other game was in short supply leaving me to focus on breaking flights we'd not otherwise wrestle.

Rick wrote:We've a lot more than SELA, but just between us chickens, the mallards are the ones that fall for the call easiest. So their numbers in the bag don't reflect what we're seeing. High flying mallards have saved many a morning when precious little was using the marsh. And my big mallard years have been when other game was in short supply leaving me to focus on breaking flights we'd not otherwise wrestle.

Gotcha, and that's the truth on the park ducks.

DeadEye_Dan wrote:

Rick wrote:

DeadEye_Dan wrote:Those represent some pretty nice hunts! How many days you figure you hunt a year?

I know by the time we see the end, I'm ready for it - can't imagine how you feel.

16 days of September teal and 60 of regular duck season, but I've all but quit taking parties for geese after. Still hunt pretty much daily as long as specks are open, but it's generally just the dog and I decompressing. Mighty nice not to feel like we have to shoot something.

Seems, however, like the withdrawal when it's over just keeps getting worse every year.

I've hunted 15 days of early goose and 59 of the 60 days of duck season exactly once...I came home the last day of the season, had been fighting pneumonia for 2 weeks, cleaned the ducks, took some more drugs and fell asleep around 11am, woke up the next morning @ 8 and felt like I'd been sleeping for 15 minutes. I thought I was going to die.

I aspire to hunt 60 days one season. Just one time to say I did.

DeadEye_Dan wrote:I've hunted 15 days of early goose and 59 of the 60 days of duck season exactly once...I came home the last day of the season, had been fighting pneumonia for 2 weeks, cleaned the ducks, took some more drugs and fell asleep around 11am, woke up the next morning @ 8 and felt like I'd been sleeping for 15 minutes. I thought I was going to die.

But aren't you glad you did it? I've been going virtually every day since '84, so I'm programed for it. But most of the first decade or so of that was putting out and picking up big white spreads for geese most every morning and many afternoons, and I don't miss that a bit. 2,000 rags, 1,200 windsocks, 800 thin plastic shells and a wild assortment of kites and flappers went to the parish dump in The Great Decoy Shed Purge of '04, and I still celebrate the occasion every time I put a two decoy "Charlie and Agness spread" out for specks.

Absolutely!

In 1997 I hunted one day because of work commitments and swore I'd hunt every chance I had after that. In 2002 my wife went to the hospital the second day of the season and and my son was born 4 days later - they didn't come home until March, needless to say I didn't get out much that year either, but the year after that is when I tried to catch up.

Now, I hunt 25-30 days a year and try to enjoy every minute.

Well, my mudhole and our umpteen other blinds can require an enormous amount of preseason labor, but once that's done, it's not like trying to set a big water rig every day. You guys willing to do that for your gunning have my admiration. Not at all sure I would.