2018-2019 Season Log

[Rick]

Right up front (where it's easy for me to copy), here is the template I will be using:

Date:

Time:

Location:

Cloud Cover:

Wind Direction and Velocity:

Temperature:

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity:

Waterfowl Responsiveness:

Hunters:

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Curses:

Kudos:

Birds By Species:

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[Rick]

Date: 9/15 Saturday

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: negligible

Temperature: hot

Moon phase: waxing crescent

Special Notes: teal opener

Waterfowl Activity: Lots and lots of mottled ducks, with one group probably being the largest of its kind I've seen. Sweet show. Also plenty of woodies and teal, with some twenty and thirty bird groups of the later.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Par for opening weekend, in that they were initially pretty skittish before taming down and working pretty later on. Saw appreciably better response to the squacky DC than the teal tuned Deceiver I was so proud of prior to trial on game. Believe I have it tuned too high and will try a slightly longer reed.

Hunters: 2, "Everything's a teal" Doug and Spencer

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh didn't much care for leaving birds on the water to be retrieved by boat (gators), but was good and did some real nice work on the flotant.

Special Equipment: 2 full sized spinners and modified Mallard Machine (MMM) were probably what finished us first in under an hour. Had also modified the marshscape to afford greater visibility of the spinners from the little birds' favored water and reckon that helped, too.

Curses: none at all

Kudos: Beautiful morning with nice folks.

Birds By Species: !8 bw teal (16 drakes and 2 hens) (2 bands)

Photo Ops: First retrieve of the 2018 season:

009a.jpg

First "fourple":

016a.jpg

Spencer and Doug:

020a.jpg

Lagniappe: Told them "We have a problem." when I picked up a banded bird, so they could worry about shooting a protected bird until being told they'd have to fight over a band. Then got to tell them the big fight was off when the last bird was also banded.

[Ericdc]

The fourple

Rick we had a flight of mottled come by close enough to see one was a mallard drake or a hybrid. 12-15 birds.


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[Rick]

Yes, teal triples haven't been too uncommon for him, but four was first. Lucky nothing got squished.

[Rick]

He's just lazy.

[Rick]

Date: 9/15 Sat

Time: afternoon

Location: South of Gueydan

Cloud Cover: rain, thunder and lightning most of the hunt

Wind Direction and Velocity: east to strong south to nil at end

Temperature: warm enough that wet wasn't a bad thing

Moon phase: waxing crescent

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw good numbers of mostly teal from the onset but also all other summer ducks coming from all directions, with a surprisingly strong, for afternoon, north to south flight.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Mostly flying crazy in the rain and light show with poor response to calling other than momma call to keep those headed our way continuing so. Guide who set the spot up used all teal decoys that didn't show up well at all, which I believe hurt our draw.

Hunters: 4, Mike, John, Glen and Jeremy the first two of which have been hunting the first two teal afternoons with me for over a dozen years. Mostly a social hunt.

Guns:

Malfunctions: When the storm hit us, John put his shell bag in the bucket he was sitting on, which turned out to still have paint in it.

Dog(s): Marsh broke with the first volley, and there being a tipped fly-off involved, I foolishly let him roll with it - and paid the price with mostly controled breaks nearly every time something wasn't killed outright.

Special Equipment: 2 baby mojos

Curses: Just my usual old fart "I would have done it differently" complaints.

Kudos: These guys had a couple tough hunts last year, and I was tickled to get us back on track.

Birds By Species: 24 bw teal (didn't get final ratio, but 18 birds in only 4 were hens)

[Rick]

The rain was a blessing, but didn't care much for the light show. Seemed like every time a bunch was working sweet, lightening would crack.

Going to try it again without this afternoon. Morning guide there said it was slow (9 birds), so I'm going to move a bit, make a setup that suits me better, cross fingers and toes and hope for the best...

[Rick]

Date: 9/16 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: waxing crescent

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Slower starting than yesterday, but still plenty of birds large and small. Knock wood.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Felt I had better luck breaking high bunches: maybe they were less panicked by all the shooting, maybe I just tried harder because there were fewer of them? Been having my best luck with the squacky DC, but also worked some high ones down and around with the teal cut SD.

Hunters: 3, Colby, Mikah and Mikah's young son Hayden

Guns:

Malfunctions: Hayden's Remington semi-auto's firing pin was striking shallow.

Dog(s): Marsh had a fine day.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Whoooole lot more shooting than hitting.

Kudos: We taught young Hayden the fine art of Arkansasing, but he also hit three in the air.

Birds By Species: 24 bw teal (20 drakes and 4 hens)

Photos: Colby, Hayden and Mikah:

001a.jpg

[Darren]

Lawwwddd; save a few for White Lake's marsh on Tuesday. Need a taste of all this SW La teal because SE sure isn't the place to be

[Rick]

Much of what we're seeing in the afternoons is probably coming off White Lake Complex. You should see plenty.

[Rick]

Date: 9/16 Sun

Time: afternoon

Location: South of Gueydan

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: westerly moderate

Temperature: hot

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Guys hunting the spot this morning only killed 9 birds, so I went early to haul in my own rig and set us up in a new spot and manner to better suit myself and, as it turned out, the birds.

Waterfowl Activity: Didn't see nearly as much game as yesterday.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: But virtually every teal we saw bought in beautifully. Used both DC and SD for near and far birds respectively with equally fine result. Turning them by raising Cain and reeling them in with momma calls.

Hunters: 5, Mike, John and Glen from yesterday plus Lance and Jason

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): New spot has deeper driving water that flat wore Marsh out.

Special Equipment: 2 spinners, large and small

Curses: only the heat

Kudos: Got our birds and got out before mosquito time. (Which was brutal last evening.)

Birds By Species: 30 bw teal (didn't make a sex ratio count, but almost all were males)

Photo Ops: fear of rain made the camera stay home

Lagniappe: The guys had such a ball with the lay-up gunning that I was awfully glad to have taken the trouble to make it so. And they re-booked for tomorrow afternoon. That, and even after all these years, it still tickles the heck out of me to make it work, whether I'm shooting, too, or not.

[DComeaux]

You're on a roll!

[Ericdc]

So...what did u do different? Assume u were hiding in bushes?


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[Rick]

Better location, bigger/more visible decoys closer to the guns and side-stepped into waist high grass and kicked up holes I showed them how to get in and out of without flattening the cover around them. Then I explained that we'd hunted together long enough to be old friends and I was going to treat them as such, instead of just as paying guns - meaning give 'em a rash and a half of crap if they screwed up our sweet deal. (Which poor Lance found to be true.)

[Darren]

Better location, bigger/more visible decoys closer to the guns and side-stepped into waist high grass and kicked up holes I showed them how to get in and out of without flattening the cover around them. Then I explained that we'd hunted together long enough to be old friends and I was going to treat them as such, instead of just as paying guns - meaning give 'em a rash and a half of crap if they screwed up our sweet deal. (Which poor Lance found to be true.)

Way to adapt and conquer

[Darren]

Rick,

Did you get to see this bird? Thought you would have mentioned it if so; Isaac's blind apparently

Capture.JPG

[Deltaman]

Glad the birds finally made a showing, and in enough force to make it fun for all Rick!!!!!!
Curious if Hayden's "shallow firing pin" was on a Benelli Nova?

[Rick]

Rick,

Did you get to see this bird? Thought you would have mentioned it if so; Isaac's blind apparently

Capture.JPG

First I've seen/heard of it.

[Rick]

Curious if Hayden's "shallow firing pin" was on a Benelli Nova?

New Remington 20 semi-auto.

[Rick]

Date: 9/17 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: none that I noticed

Temperature: hot

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Slower, as expected without weekenders stirring the rice, but still plenty for our purposes.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Birds still working sweet. Tried screaming at some really far flocks "just to see" with surprisingly good result.

Hunters: My pay hunter canceled, so JJ and I made a buddy hunt.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning for Marsh, who's showing strong memory for birds falling on the flotant and left for when he can be boated across open water.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" been finished a lot sooner than our shooting allowed. JJ noted that he was missing so we could stay out longer, but with that excuse taken I had to fall back on "I suck."

Kudos: Aside from the heat and some misses, a "just right" morning.

Birds By Species: 12 bw teal (forgot to check sex ratio)

Photo Ops: Tried for some shots of landing mottleds, but there just wasn't enough light for my little camera to shoot action:

015a.jpg

[Rick]

Pay hunters get a little too deep in the brownwater watching the saints and browns?

I heard two different stories, but have yet to talk to the fellow, who's a long time regular with us.

Having been in the old Lake Front Stadium several times as a boy watching Jim Brown drag defenders downfield, that was a tough game for me. Pretty desperate to see "my" Browns get it together and start beating folks, but not "my" Saints.

[Ericdc]

Pay hunters get a little too deep in the brownwater watching the saints and browns?

I heard two different stories, but have yet to talk to the fellow, who's a long time regular with us.

Having been in the old Lake Front Stadium several times as a boy watching Jim Brown drag defenders downfield, that was a tough game for me. Pretty desperate to see "my" Browns get it together and start beating folks, but not "my" Saints.

Browns appear to be competitive at worst


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[DComeaux]

Nice hunts my friend! Looks like I'm going to have to wait for the big ducks (hopefully) to really work my trigger finger. I'm happy to say that my first shot of year on a pair met it's mark, but my second and third shots were rapid fire ridiculous at the other.

[Rick]

Looks like I'm going to have to wait for the big ducks...

I'm thinking this teal season should improve as it goes on. 'Course, I've thought wrong before.

[Darren]

Spoke to Wayne at White Lake this morning, sounds like they did well over the weekend. Hoping a few show in the AM

Nice buddy hunt!