Preseason

[BGkirk]

Had a decent dove shoot Saturday but it wasn’t spectacular as years past. The next morning I wanted the pup to get some action. Missed the first op and shot true on the second. First dove retrieve (15’) from us went smooth. Will be prepping for the teal this week. Making quick trip tomorrow to marsh to get boat launched and see what kind of open water we are dealing with as the salvinia is bad and lotus got a late start dying off. Will
Most likely be hunting bushes come Saturday unless water opened up around blinds and blinds brushed themselves.


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[BGkirk]

Forgot to post the pups first dove gonna be a fun season watching his nose work


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[Rick]

Not eating it, puts him one up on a lot of pups meeting their first doves.

[BGkirk]

Not eating it, puts him one up on a lot of pups meeting their first doves.

We had a short intro to a frozen dove before daylight. Figured it could not hurt. I wouldn’t turn my back with that dove in front of him though


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[Duck Engr]

Not eating it, puts him one up on a lot of pups meeting their first doves.

I’ve been on a couple of dog’s first hunts where we killed X and “netted” X minus a few due to the new dog’s taste for doves.

[DComeaux]

Not eating it, puts him one up on a lot of pups meeting their first doves.

Blake has nightmares of Ellie's first and last dove hunt in her early years. She retrieved all of the birds during the hunt with no issue and as we were walking out, with Blake dangling the last retrieved dove in one hand, she snatched it from him, chewed a couple of times, and while staring into his eyes she swallowed. The look on his face was priceless. He said she looked possessed... I still bring that up from time to time, as does he.

[BGkirk]

Took a 1/2 day and brought the boat to marsh and checked on our water situation. Got 2 spots that are huntable and everything has green or dying salvinia waiting to sink covering the waters surface. I don’t expect it to sink before teal season is over so will be bush whacking for all of teal season, which is ok by me.
Did get up one lonesome blue wing. Thought it was odd to just see 1 by itself. Surely he/she didn’t migrate on its own.
Photo of one of the ponds where salvinia just recently sunk. No SAVs but good slick water that will work for teal season.
And the whips that will be hiding the guns


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[Darren]

What was the treatment like? What chemical sprayed and how sprayed? Get plenty of questions on what works from folks that also have salvinia but I've not really dealt with it other than as a nuisance in the boat slip. Our ponds are too saline to harbor it for the most part.

Looking like you're in good shape at least at that pond.

[MallardBay]

Good looking pond. Looks like a special place.

Dont know what others use but I have had great success with 32 oz diquat, 32 oz surfactant, 96 oz glyphosate per acre.

Main thing to remember is to hit it again after 10 days, often a third spray is needed as well.

[Duck Engr]

Holy concoction!! Glad the stuff I have to spray isn’t nearly that stubborn.

[MallardBay]

It is thought to be world's fastest aquatic invasive. Doubles in coverage every 5-7 days. My past experiance, if it is floating it's still alive. Nuke it or it will come back.

[BGkirk]

No chemical used here. Biological control (salvinia weevils). We did this 2 years ago with much better success. I don’t think our population is as strong this year as I’ve been seeing areas where salvinia has died but weevils just did not spread as fast. I think it’s due to constant rain, high water, and it just got dry and hot down there 2 weeks ago. We may have to revert to chemical soon if we want more water showing before Nov.
I’ll try and post timeline pics from our success story 2 years ago.


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[BGkirk]

April 30 . Introduced weevils Mid May.july 5th
july 31st
aug 20 . Salvinia starting to sink. Also it flooded around this time so that did help move some of it out.
sept 5th



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[MallardBay]

Wow, great response from the weevils. I tried them for first time this year on a couple heavily infested areas. I picked up 20 totes from LSU research station. Time will tell if I get as good a result as yours.

[BGkirk]

Wow, great response from the weevils. I tried them for first time this year on a couple heavily infested areas. I picked up 20 totes from LSU research station. Time will tell if I get as good a result as yours.

we didn’t get an early start this year like we did in 2016. But you’re right, it’s all about time


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[Rick]

Neat to see the progression.

[BGkirk]

Got to be in the marsh Wednesday morning, sadly enough to pick up decoys left out from teal season. No one hunted down there the last week or weekend. Moved about 10 bwt that were in a shallow pothole filled with duck weed. No other ducks seen , we weren’t down there til after 9.
Lease boat left me stranded right in the middle of lease. Me and lease boats have a bad past. Dang things not even 2 years old. Good workout push poling back. Salvinia has died in areas and grew in others. Glad we got several weeks to figure things out


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[BGkirk]

Decided to try our hand at transplanting what I call “ cut grass/saw grass.” Can easily be mistaken for cattail until you grab ahold of it. Dug up 2 boat loads on dry ground and hauled them to marsh with hopes of getting vegetation growing around blinds again. We added square bales to the mix to help slow the wave action.
We may have sat on our butts to long waiting for weevils to do their thing when we should’ve been spraying early on for salvinia. Our best pond is mostly out for the season and 2nd best pond will be close to huntable by opening day. Talked to a couple spraying services who say if it’s still green, it’s still growing and needs to be sprayed.
Still have lots of brushing to do, however I’ll be holding off til last minute as there’s no point in brushing a blind with no open water in my opinion
green and thick
its been brown since early teal just taking awhile to sink.
Did move about 50 bwt hanging out in some ultra shallow spots covered in duck weed, unfortunately had to make lots of passes by that area and kept jumping them but they kept coming back


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[Rick]

A couple of our guys are using cut grass pretty successfully, but it's bad for pad slices that can put a dog out of action...

[BGkirk]

A couple of our guys are using cut grass pretty successfully, but it's bad for pad slices that can put a dog out of action...

good to know others are using it. And I did think about that with dogs, will have to trim around the dog walks


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[BGkirk]

Pre season 2020-2021

Got to do some work on a blind this morning that we didn’t get to hunt last year bc of salvinia. Unless something drastic happens we will have it back for this season. Weevils have cleared it out and are moving towards other ponds that are in bad shape. Thankfully other ponds are manageable with chemical. Will try to do some spraying this month as well and that’ll wrap it up until brushing for teal.

Overall we are in better shape than last year as far as open water.
Pond was about 50% open water exactly a month ago. Now it’s closer to 90%.

Saw woodies, mottled ducks, and some fulvous. We started working at daylight so temps didn’t get bad til we were leaving. The itch has started


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[Darren]

Great news all around, especially getting a blind back and more "show"/water for birds to work, something at a premium marshes across the coast these days due to both salvinia and hyacinth. Hyacinth has some historically really strong areas near Delacroix locked up, not even passable in mud boat, much less huntable.

[BGkirk]

I agree.. forgot how bad big water meant to us until we didn’t have it.
I’ve seen a couple rough areas with hyacinth. Doesn’t look fun either


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[BGkirk]

Will continue in this pre season thread until 2020-2021 logs come available.
Me and the cousins made a trip to marsh this morning to attempt at spraying American Lotus (huge Lillie pads that stand 1-2’ above water surface) which normally dies off this month anyhow, but figured we’d speed up the process and glad we did as it had encroached on our emergency teal hole from last year.
Salvinia weevils are still doing their thing, as most of it seems to be turning brown but I dont get my hopes up about it until it’s sunk.
We will be pushing it to have 2 out of 3 ponds open for teal. I’m curious if the excess chemical that falls between the lotus will knock back the salvinia.

Pictured below with cousin standing on a pallet which is on top of a fiberglass pit. Needed a good platform to work off of while driving more anchor boards.
We drove 2 boards on each end and connected them with a board running Over the top of pit to try and “pin it down.”
We also drove 4 other boards at and angle and bolted those to some existing boards attached to blind. We will not hunt blind for teal, bushes are easier to setup in and no open water near it as of now.


Willows were a quick fix for last year, seems they stuck around which I’m ok with. Somehow managed to avoid several guinea wasp nests. Turns out gasoline sprayed out of a engineered water bottle will knock em down.

Will have to upload YouTube video of the spraying. Was surprised at how well it worked, hopefully the high pressure and fine mist will do the trick. In the video is the pond least likely to open up for teal, but will manage.


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[BGkirk]

https://youtu.be/FSmWz-py8x8


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[BGkirk]

Oh and a group of 3 and about 10 mottled were spotted along with some wood ducks cruising around.


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[BGkirk]

And one more post.. our big water for this year. Excited to hopefully hear some wings cutting and dropping from high.
Pretty morning that turned hot and humid too fast


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[Ericdc]

Been nice up here, light northerly winds and lower than normal temps.


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[Darren]

Sprayer looks legit! and that big water pond looks great to me

good work

[BGkirk]

Sprayer looks legit! and that big water pond looks great to me

good work

Not sure why I haven’t seen more people do it before but it’s just a 25 gal tank pumping to a pressure washer. About the cheapest way I could do it


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