2023-2024 preseason...

[Rick]

...I think that most of us have the potential to get some sort of cancer if we live long enough...

A urologist I guided told me all men will get prostate cancer if they live long enough. Something to look forward to...

Meanwhile, let's dance:

[Deltaman]

That'll get yer heart pumping fast!
Thanks Rick!!!!

[MARSH BEAR]

I would be happy with 10% of those teal next weekend - assuming we have enough water to hunt

[Rick]

I bring my camp boat home with me after each season so none of its parts will run off and I can run its Go-Devil a while each weekend. Pretty religious about that run time, as well as adding a fuel stabilizer, which has always kept it running smooth between seasons. This year, however, the fuel went to water and jell of some sort (which I blame on trying Staybil, instead of one of my usual brands), and flushing the system with fresh fuel and replacing the in-line filters failed to bring things up to snuff.

But the season still being months off at the time made it easy to put off tearing the carburetor down. And all the more so when the marsh dried beyond the likelihood of needing our camp boats this season.

Today, however, I decided to tackle that project, if only so it will be ready for a new home when Miss Mary decides to liquidate the camp boats. Tore it down, soaked the jets, blew out the related orifices with compressed air an carb cleaner, reassembled and "presto, gusto" purrs and roars like new. Let the engine cool, put a drum bottom cover over it, and was caught by the front edge of a rain squall as I dashed back inside.

Hell, if I knew that was all it took to make it rain, I'd of cleaned that carburetor in July.

[Ericdc]

I admire your dedication to the family.

What do you see yourself doing come the 2nd Saturday of November at this time?

You may get to do a lot of deer and goose hunting this year?


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[5 stand]

I've used the blue marine staybil in my boat since 2012 and it's never failed me... If my memory is correct, year before last I went from February to September and never started it and never did anything, change the fuel in tank but not the lines or the carburetor and it fired right up and run just fine... But I've always seemed to be lucky with these outboard motors, I've also only owned two in my 23-years of duck hunting...

Glad you got some rain, show off...

[Duck Engr]

Seafoam snob here. Also fortunate to have a ethanol free station a few blocks from the house here in town.

[5 stand]

Seafoam snob here. Also fortunate to have a ethanol free station a few blocks from the house here in town.

I also use ethanol free... If it's a pump by itself I don't worry about it, but if it has multiple buttons I always run some in the truck first because you don't know how much is in the lines before you get to ethanol free...

[Bud]

Where do the masses line up for a carb cleaning? If it brings rain, tell everyone to clean their carbs or bring them to the rainmaker.

[Rick]

I've used the blue marine staybil in my boat since 2012 and it's never failed me... If my memory is correct, year before last I went from February to September and never started it and never did anything, change the fuel in tank but not the lines or the carburetor and it fired right up and run just fine... But I've always seemed to be lucky with these outboard motors, I've also only owned two in my 23-years of duck hunting...

If it works for you, it works for you, but the blue Marine Stabil was what let me down, though it may have had help from some outside source. Not that the engine has ever tasted ethanol, I won't even let get guys replace borrowed gas for fear they'll do so with ethanol-added. But our boat slips are on land peopled by gremlins, and strange things have happened in fuel tanks there.

Seafoam snob here. Also fortunate to have a ethanol free station a few blocks from the house here in town.

Years back, I guided a fellow with a chain of East Coast equipment rentals, where small engines might need to crank up after months of down time, and he turned me onto Sea Foam. Had great luck with it and came to think of it as "tune-up in a can". But a boat engine mechanic friend got me to try Star Tron Enzyme Fuel Treatment a couple years back, and it had been fine, too. Just had a brain fart and bought something more readily available at the time. Wouldn't bet it was the stabilizer, but know which of those I'll bet on in the future, just in case.

[Rick]

What do you see yourself doing come the 2nd Saturday of November at this time?

No telling. Haven't felt free to go knocking on camp doors, and the good options are almost surely closed for this November. So, "We'll see..."

(Probably handle it like this current teal season: sit at the house and go stir crazy..)

[Deltaman]

Hate you are dealing with the uncertainty of it all Rick, and praying it shakes out on the positive side for you. Can't imagine a duck season without your daily Mudhole reports Fingers crossed!!!!!!

[Rick]

Heard, albeit secondhand, this morning that the folks owning the marsh adjacent to what was (and may still be in the short run?) our marsh have begun the incredibly expensive process of pumping it up from the Intracoastal. Far as I know, both our marsh and access leases remain in limbo but water, even salty water, is a start...

[5 stand]

A flicker of light...

[Rick]

A flicker of light...

Or a tease...but I prefer your take.

[5 stand]

Told Bob (the Blackhawk pilot lol) Wednesday night that you didn't have any water and it was pretty Doom and gloom down there... He reminded me that they have a paid hunt down there somewhere, hopefully it's in a tidal Marsh? And they have water?
The guy that he's going with is a good friend of his named Rick, he also flew in Vietnam... He flew a Hughes 0H-6 (loach), flew right across the tops of the trees looking for the enemy the way I understand it?

[Rick]

He flew a Hughes 0H-6 (loach), flew right across the tops of the trees looking for the enemy the way I understand it?

Happens my MOS was 67V20, OH-6 crew chief/gunner. But I spent much more of my extended tour in one of the first Bell OH-S8s now known as Kiowas. "Aeroscout" was statistically said to be a bad deal, but ever so much better than being a grunt.

Guessing he was referencing hunter/killer teams with the innocent looking little OH- playing decoy for big bad AHs just over the ridge.

[5 stand]

Don't know, Bob just mentioned last Wednesday that Rick had a lot more dangerous missions?
Rick was wounded twice, but not bad the way I understand it...

Bob has mentioned that several times about how the pilots had it so much better, than the grunts...

[5 stand]

Big bad AH, we were talking about the gun and switching from 2000 to 4000 round burst, and Bob said he mainly shot on 4000 round because it jammed more on 2000... The only way to clear a jam was on the ground, and if you had shot all your rockets you weren't very big and bad anymore... But he said we didn't leave our buddies, so we would just make fake strafing runs to try to keep the enemy at Bay until help showed up...

[Rick]

I spent most of my time with a "free" (M-)60 and had next to no mini-gun experience. The fake strafing thing sounds like close cover support of ground troops or a downed bird. Avoiding "friendly fire" "incidents" during close cover could be super stressful - but still better than being on the ground.

Better still to put all that long ago and far away stuff as far behind you as possible.

[5 stand]

Better still to put all that long ago and far away stuff as far behind you as possible.

[Rick]

Spent much of my morning in the Cherry Ridge marsh putzing around in one of their little 25hp passenger mudboats behind Clark and Neal in their V8 and V6 work mudboats that struggled to break trail in the humus-rooted vegetation flotant that's popped to the surface with the rising water from they're pumping. Didn't get a whole lot done before the welds on V8's drive shaft supports broke and the V6's water pump went out, but we got them both back to the boathouse without additional damage I'm aware of. The marsh being the marsh and mudboats being mudboats, I was tickled to get out before my little, largely support and entirely grind-what's-already-been-broken, craft found a way to crap itself. Pounding timber, as tomorrow's another day.

Neat to be in marsh again, even if no ducks were seen - a Cherry Ridge first.

Not so neat to think about trying to break similar flotant in our marsh's boat runs and ponds with nothing more than Go-Devils and our keel-cooled mudboat that's easily overheated by such sludge work. Having not yet made it to any of Cherry Ridge's normally open water, other than the one, deepest run we've started on, I'm anxious to see how much of it's bottom is now on top before talking to the gals in charge of our camp's future about what likely lies ahead for us at Doug's, as well, if leases come through.

[Duck Engr]

Tough day on equipment!

[Rick]

Tough day on equipment!

It's a marsh thing.

[BGkirk]

Rick, is pumping water, even if it was just to put some water in canals a possibility?


We got to hunt Saturday because we had 1-2” of water that spilled over from one of our canals that filled up. And it’s sure enough salt water. The best answer I got is there are “pipes” somewhere along that mermantau that let water in the burns marsh and apparently trickled down to us.
I was tickled to be able to hunt our place, even it was the last day of teal season.
I’m guessing the tide must be high and is somehow backing up into the marshes. My thoughts now are that if we had water in canals, minimum, that it wouldn’t take much rain to put some sheet water in the ponds. Was still able to ride atv which was sweet. And maybe a once in a lifetime deal


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[Rick]

Rick, is pumping water, even if it was just to put some water in canals a possibility?

I suppose it could depend some on the marsh and canal system, but, here, the marsh substrate is largely peat or peat-like and acts like an open sell foam or sponge that slows, but doesn't stop what's in the canal and connecting runs from eventually dispersing and settling throughout the marsh basin at whatever level the quantity of water supports. So, I'd think, the canal one was filling would have to be sealed off from the surrounding marsh by spoil from below the humus substrate (or an imported source which has become big business) to have hope of filling it without also filling the marsh basin.

Of course, whatever water one pumped wouldn't have to be replaced by natural sources - unless it evaporates, which Cherry Ridge's surface water was doing at approximately 1/2" a day when I measured that loss.

Crazy expensive proposition to pump meaningful water here.

[Darren]

Might see a little rain down your way later today, but forecast to fizzle before it gets to me of course.

[Rick]

Might see a little rain down your way later today, but forecast to fizzle before it gets to me of course.

Rain in Lake Charles and drizzle here, but the front's probably not bringing more rain than its winds will dry.

Meanwhile, I checked on our camp's leasing progress this morning and was told the local lawyer is going to check with the marsh's executor - and going on vacation all next week. Finding myself wishing I'd not taken myself out of the loop by cussing the executor for very nearly blowing my head off and suspecting the local pirate (who dodged me at a recent funeral) is working his own deal. Seems like "best case" is apt to find us with too little time and money to get ready to open, which would be worst case. Grrr...

[Darren]

Grrrrr indeed, very sorry to hear of all this. As if loss of Douglas alone weren't enough of a hill for the camp to tackle. And Ma Nature sure seems to have turned her back on those trying to climb that hill.

[Rick]

Am starting to puppy shop and made a quick stop at the Cajun Hunting Retriever Club's test this morning to check out the only Chessie running and spotted, but could not hear against the northerly breeze, my first two flights of specks while there. Hadn't heard a single local report prior, but expect to hear of others over Tiger Mart coffee and sausage biscuits in the morning.

(Liked the Chessie and will check into its breeder, but the "pro" running it plainly should find a more honest living.)