2023-2024 preseason...

[Rick]

Yes, the things that get us going. I am positive a few days of hard rain with more in the forecast would be as such to everyone there!

Problem being how dried up some lakes and even rivers have gotten over the year from high pressure that wouldn't move. Fires and winds have made a mess out of a lot of acres in the US and Canada. It has been a nightmare for thousands of folk and much wild game. Happy the marsh is still there. The hurricanes may give us a wet way, if there are any(right). Some sweet rain with no damage would be great.

Proud of you, Rick. There when Miss Mary needs you the most. However, you have always been like that. I could never turn my back on those who helped us help each other along the way. If it is meant to be, it will be so. If not, it causes us more blood, sweat, and tears to do what we can. Silence may be golden, but the looks, smells, and sounds of a forgiving rain on a tin roof
make the pot bigger, and helps us to stay in the game looking at it. Good luck to you all.

I appear to be back on my feet again without dragging a leg or limping. Will know for sure end of this month. Glad this Covid came in August rather than some other time. Be happy if this new RX tomorrow will help it to go away. Been out of commission all month, but hope again keeps us smiling.

Sure do miss the old Federal Buffered Power Magnums in lead. When I found those, they went to steel the very next season.
I'll pray for rain.

Funny, and sad, how that crap affects folks so differently. Hope you've found the cure and glad it's not been worse.

[Rick]

From my neighbors who are in what I would call the middle marsh; but right off the road...

Heard Mike B. walked to a middle marsh deep run he hoped might still be fished for gators and didn't muddy his Crocs.

[Duck Engr]

Glass half full is that, much like the prairies on a dry year, I would assume this dry spell is good for the marsh long term as far as duck food production, right?

[Rick]

Glass half full is that, much like the prairies on a dry year, I would assume this dry spell is good for the marsh long term as far as duck food production, right?

Don't really know. Might be good for some types of forage, but death to the sub aquatic plants and their invertebrates, as well as emergents like dwarf spike rush that live on water. Hopefully, set back some invasives, too.

[Rick]

Had an e-mail from Paul Link that there's starting to be some significant shifting around, if not migration, of transmittered blue-wings.

[Duck Engr]

That was some news I needed to hear!

[jrock75]

Glass half full is that, much like the prairies on a dry year, I would assume this dry spell is good for the marsh long term as far as duck food production, right?

We had a biologist out to our marsh earlier this summer and he thought that long-term it was good for the soil to dry out and crack and get more exposure to air every once in a while. He said the remnants of dying vegetation could build up layers on the bottom that could render areas "dead". We sure had a great stand of submerged vegetation growing this spring after the drought last year but unfortunately it is all dead now. Maybe there is indeed a long-term benefit but what I do know from last year is that it crushes the waterfowl carrying capacity for the current year, even once the water returns.

[BGkirk]

Yesterday I spotted some blue wings on east side of 27 just south of ICW in some “cheese” water
The shallow nasty stuff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Darren]

It will absolutely hurt this year's ability for holding birds with the current dry-out, even when the water returns. But for sure it's best for overall wetland health to be cyclical with its water levels, including occasional dry out.

Sounds about right that the birds were in shallowest stuff around, some of the biggest concentrations of them I've seen in past years was when water levels were super low and they were walking around on mudflats with water nearby.

Local outfitter of Delacroix area texted yesterday to report few more blue ducks showing.

[Ducaholic]

When it dries the bad stuff dies and the good stuff returns eventually. No doubt these dry cycles are a necessary component of ecological health for wetlands.

[Rick]

Heard from a fellow who heard from a fellow about a hundred teal somewhere in the Thornwell area and drove through some of it en route to a Welsh grandson's scrimmage late yesterday without seeing any, myself, but did get to see teal water starting to go on some worked fields. "So there's that."

[Rick]

First known to be reliable teal report this morning. Hope to see one myself some day...

[Rick]

Went to the Duck Festival to shake what turned out to be a very few hands and watch the state speck contest, and would think it the first such trip to Gueydan for the contest when I didn't see water, let alone teal along the way. Too much salinity on that end. Did learn Lacassane Land Co. is still good and has started pumping, with silted-in intakes being their biggest issue - so far. Guessing they'll have all the teal in the parish after the shooting starts where there's less water and more pressure.

[Rick]

Had an honest to gosh, but incredibly short-lived, shower late yesterday that may have at least helped with the grass fires geniuses tossing their cigarette butts along I-10 have started.

Also enjoyed our first feels-like-fall-might-actually-be-coming breeze while airing the bug this morning. Bittersweet knowing the landscape that will meet teal riding it and that we'll not likely get to enjoy their much awaited season this go-round, but the bug and I are still going to celebrate with some walking baseball drill it's been too damn hot for.

[Deltaman]

Glad to hear that you finally got some rain, and hoping you get more from the related storm that is in the gulf. I woke up this morning to see lighting flashing in the way off distance to our West, and promises by the local news channel of rain here today, along with a North wind........can't wait
We haven't bothered to venture out in the boat for the last three weekends due to the heat, so I haven't put my eyes on any birds, nor have I heard any local chatter of them making an appearance here.

[SpinnerMan]

Also enjoyed our first feels-like-fall-might-actually-be-coming breeze while airing the bug this morning.

We definitely had feels like fall weather this weekend. Unfortunately it's going to get back to cooking for opening day of early goose. Highs in the 90's for the first week and not much better the second. I did hear some geese in the area I hunt the other day and was told there were 50 using the lake about a half mile from where I hunt. It usually doesn't take many because they are as dumb as they get for early season. But will they actually get airborne with temps that high. Usually they don't.

I did see something I never see this time of year. My wife and I were out Sunday and took a walk at a park we've never been. Hundreds of ducks using the lake. Mostly mallards which is normal. Pretty certain I heard BWT. Pretty sure I saw some spoonies. Pretty sure I heard a 4th species. Very rare to see those numbers or variety this time of year.

[Duck Engr]

Record fall flight. Print it.

[Rick]

Record fall flight. Print it.

Being as how I may be out of a place for the first time in forever, that sounds like a safe bet.

[SpinnerMan]

Record fall flight. Print it.

Some records are easily broken.

[Rick]

Laid one of our camp's guides, Clyde, to rest in the cemetery south of Gueydan this afternoon and took what should have been a teal tour home, passing near DComeaux's old lease without seeing a bird. Or water with the exception of a single farm pumping for second crop.

Do have it on good authority that the 600 acres Lacasane Land Co flooded is now holding birds, as is some of the stuff our area's second largest landowner has flooded close to that. Don't know whether I want to go look at 'em or not.

[Bud]

Sorry to hear about Clyde. You've mentioned him a bit over the years.

[Ericdc]

Sorry to hear about Clyde. You've mentioned him a bit over the years.

My thoughts as well, sorry Rick.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rick]

You've mentioned him a bit over the years.

Clyde's blind was in a great flyway, and he was of the school believing "Every shot you don't take is a miss." So I've spent more than a little time cussing him for banging out our working ducks with poke and pray shooting. But he was also my friend, and that marsh will never be quite the same without him.

Here's a bazillion year old photo I was given of "Crip," who hunted the blind Isaac's been in, Obray, who hunted the mud hole in its glory days before it filled and fell from regular usage, and Clyde near the blind he hunted for 52 seasons:

MAXscan1a.jpg

And, while I have it located, another the fellow who's father took them gave me of Obray in what was a much younger mudhole:

MAXscan2a.jpg

Time passes...

[Deltaman]

Sorry for the loss of your friend Rick, and may he rest in peace!
52 seasons in that area, WOW, and know he saw some sights none of us will ever see. I bet you heard more than a few awesome hunting tales from his past.
Heard, or read somewhere recently (might've even been on here?), that a man dies twice. Once when he leaves the earth, and again, when the last person that has a memory of him dies.

Sure hoping that things shake loose soon for you in terms of your Club's hunting leases, and water for the area (you too Dave!!).

[Darren]

Very sorry to hear about Clyde. Tried a couple of times but his deer trips kept me from sharing his blind with him.

Love those old photos. Hoping some positive comes along over your way soon.....

[5 stand]

Sorry to hear about your friend passing Rick, I do enjoy the old photos also...

[Duck Engr]

52 seasons in the same blind?! That’s incredible. Very sorry for the loss Rick. Was he the one that had retired before last season or am I thinking of someone else?

[DComeaux]

Time passes...

That it does.....

[Rick]

Was he the one that had retired before last season or am I thinking of someone else?

He had been diagnosed with colon cancer and was too depressed and miserable from the treatments for it to hunt last season. Was, however, in remission by the time Doug passed and in fine spirits (and regretting having given his decoys away) at Doug's funeral. But the cancer came back and got him.

[Deltaman]

Damn cancer..........sorry to hear, and can't imagine the let down when it came right back
I think that most of us have the potential to get some sort of cancer if we live long enough, and something else doesn't kill us first. When you see people making it to their 90's and up, know they've got some damn good genes!