Preseason 2016...

[Ducaholic]

I just want normal. Normal rainfall and normal temps. Best we can hope for this year.

[Ericdc]

I try to pick the best 25-30 days to hunt each year and work the rest.

I'm glad I work them all, because my weather based flight guessing record sucks.

Yea marsh is kinda unpredictable from what I've experienced in little chenier. My place is fairly predictable especially with certain weather.


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[Ducaholic]

I try to pick the best 25-30 days to hunt each year and work the rest.

I'm glad I work them all, because my weather based flight guessing record sucks.

Rick you have the most predictable outcome on this board. You kill ducks when no one else is.

What does your log show for 2004. Similar weather pattern. That's the year everyone cried where are the ducks.

[Rick]

Didn't keep a log until 2007.

[Rick]

Was reminded of your 2004 question when I made a pass through the east blind's pond this morning. While we didn't have the whole marsh until 2006, that may have been the last year we had the east blind, and I hunted it. Was, overall, the best marsh hunting I've known, as was the portion of the preceding year when I took it over from a guide who couldn't be counted on to show up.

But it wasn't always hot spit, either. Hunted an East Coast writer and his photographer one day and killed our 6 specks, 12 mallards and filled out on big ducks. Next day I took two elderly gentlemen whose forest product company business we were courting, and they killed just two teal. Then on the following day it was the writer and photog again, and while we fell a bird shy of both our specks and mallards, we still filled on nice ducks. Writer said it was better than Canada or Mexico. (Which is what made our numbers stick.) Don't know, or particularly want to, what the polite-to-me older gentlemen said about their hunt in private, but it would have been interesting to know where the big, slow birds they needed were that day.

[Ericdc]

You remember the forest product company? That's my line of work.


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[Rick]

Was long ago, and we didn't get them. Maybe Hunt?

[Ericdc]

Was long ago, and we didn't get them. Maybe Hunt?

Very possible they are based out of Ruston near me.


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[Rick]

Ruston sounds right, too. But it wasn't yesterday.

[Ducaholic]

Good piece of real estate y'all hunting on...

[Rick]

Yes, it is. We're fortunate to have it, but it didn't come cheap, and access issues are pretty much a constant.

[Rick]

Glad to hear it. We're not so fortunate, at least not yet. Was in the marsh early this morning, but saw nothing but a few woodies and mottleds. Even the poule d'eau that were starting to show seem to have found somewhere else to be.

On the plus side, one more morning on the flotant should knock out my annual fourchette fight and get the canes on the blind's "island" thinned. That, knocking wood, should just leave brushing the blind and putting out decoys.

I try to pull or clip virtually all of the fourchettes within a hundred yards of the blind, and aside from wearing my old arse out, it's given me the opportunity to see where the ever encroaching flotant has closed in enough that Marsh should be able to work without fear of tatailles and where I dare not let him tread before the water cools. Should be safe a lot farther north than I let him work in September, which is good from a safety standpoint but not for the hunting.

[Rick]

Strike up the band, there were a couple dozen green-wings and four mallards in the marsh this morning! (And a little buck not 30yds behind my blind, that I could have easily popped with the .270 "lightening" I take along, just in case something needs struck, this time of year.)

Learned last evening that I'll be taking at least one youth hunter this weekend, so preparations were kicked into high gear, and I finished off the last two sections of fourchettes, thinned the canes around the back and west of the blind for visibility, and made a path I hope Marsh will learn to take for falls behind the blind. Thinning produced all of the cane I'll need for the boat hide and a good start on what I'll need for the blind.

Didn't track how many damn times I broke through flotant today, but I'm not blaming myself for having put off what I did for last. God bless the dogs.

[Rick]

A very high bunch of specks going north across the marsh yesterday was the first I've seen out there. Know there are some serious pockets of them in the ag land, but I seldom see any movement. Seem screwed into their spots pretty tight.

[Rick]

And thinking of specks, I'd be curious to know if the transmitter crew caught any of the females they wanted on our piece by Gueydan. I didn't spectate, but the farmer who also guides it said it was quite a circus of activity with people (grad students?) outnumbering the birds. He was not too happy with Doug for letting them on, but I understand they were asked to give the birds a break a few days ago, and I might make a pass just to, hopefully, see some birds today.

[Rick]

I didn't make it to the Gueydan farm today, but met the sunrise with the dogs at a Klondike crawfish pond and saw exactly six specks fly. Dropped off the dogs and went to the marsh to set decoys and such and saw zero specks and not many more ducks out there.

Can't help but worry for the kids this weekend.

[Rick]

It's common for us to have little or nothing in the marsh before the guns go off, so I'm hoping you're right about there being enough shuffling to give the kids a chance. Specks will be getting run out of their spots, too, just harder to convince that another is safer.

[Rick]

Went back to the marsh this afternoon to plug a hole in the back blind that plainly should have been fixed by one of the two "guides" hunting it last season. "Oh, yeah, ---- said it was leaking last year." Grrr...

Took the bug along to teach him how to work the back/south side of our pond without hitting the Go-Devil tail or getting impaled on an old 2x4 staub, which entails going through the boat, under it's hide, and out through a spot where I've sunk a ramp in the flotant island that enables a dog to get back into the boat without assistance. Started out at that gap/ramp and moved back to the stand without incident, so I rewarded him with an easy toss into the pond out front and surprised us both when a big launch stuck him in the sludge below the surface momentarily. Welcome to the mudhole.

[Ericdc]

Thoughts on the drought conditions. Hard to believe from just a couple months ago. Feel like whatever early birds start moving down in the next few weeks won't have much water to look at until they get to the ICW.




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[Rick]

The weather and birds will do whatever they dang well wish, so we'll just wait and see how it goes...

Broke out the mat jig last evening and made one up to drape off the boat hide door and over the Go-Devil tail. And when the bug and I have installed it and a 12v battery for the gadgets and bilge pump and made a few practice exits and entrances out the back with the mat in place, we'll be ready to give it our best shot.

[Rick]

If Cajun Country has a national drink, that's it. Me not being Catholic, they won't let me take communion at Mass, but I'm thinkin' there's Bud Light in dat cup, yeah.

[Ericdc]

If Cajun Country has a national drink, that's it. Me not being Catholic, they won't let me take communion at Mass, but I'm thinkin' there's Bud Light in dat cup, yeah.

Baptist?


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[Rick]

Officially Methodist. Dad was born Quaker but became a Methodist minister for a while.