Preseason 2024-2025

[Darren]

Exciting times in weather right now, par for the course/calendar point:

Blob in Atlantic is showing signs of making it to the Yucatan area and Gulf from there, wont bother posting current landfall ideas the GFS has to avoid premature hysteria, but it's worth staying tuned in the coming days as it heads that way.

On positive note, though, decent cool front showing as well, temp anomalies in image below. Might move some teal....

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[DComeaux]

I hate hurricanes!

[Duck Engr]

Cool front (heavy breathing)

[MARSH BEAR]

Cold front won't get here - Hurricane will

[Darren]

Cold front won't get here - Hurricane will

At the moment, at least, GFS is still buying the cold front, and not the storm. Debby's ongoing lingering also hampers additional development for another storm, but man I hate it for the people getting all that rain.

[Darren]

We'll take it

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[Darren]

Got nearly all of our critical pre-fabrication work done yesterday under the shade of my little barn area here at the house. Have a floor upgrade for existing favorite blind on the lease to raise it a tad and also work to correct a slight forward list it's developed.

New blind being dubbed the "Redhead Blind" for the fairly rare occurrence of redheads taken by Will in that blind last season, our first year of access on a pond I've watched grays drop into for a number of years.


New floor deck to be placed atop existing floor

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Redhead Blind coming together

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stacked away waiting on teal season opener weekend when we'll likely hunt and do the install.

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In meantime will throw a few rattle cans of flat green on bulk of the wood before loading on to utility trailer then into the fleet of flat boats for transport out to the lease.

In weather news, another "humidity" front" is accompanying a rare blue AND super moon in the next couple of days....at this point on the calendar, would think that moves blue wings....

[Rick]

New blind being dubbed the "Redhead Blind" for the fairly rare occurrence of redheads taken by Will in that blind last season...


In weather news, another "humidity" front" is accompanying a rare blue AND super moon in the next couple of days....at this point on the calendar, would think that moves blue wings....

The redhead blind made me smile thinking of a favorite long ago regular from Alabama's explanation that where he was from there were wood ducks they got to shoot, green-headed mallards they dreamed of and pintails because there was a local "Pintail Pond," so named because someone one claimed to actually witnessed one there. (And all other species were so rare as to be lumped into "pond ducks".)

Re: the weather moving teal, Call and I might have moved a pair from the trail on our way to open Clark's pond early this morning, but the little birds flushed into the rising sun to defy positive ID. Not much else seen early on, but toward 8 and after a serious show of black-bellies presumably returning from rice.

Will note that on our way there at first light we passed a good bit of recently cut first crop that's been flooded for second crop, which is ideal for ag land teal, along the gravel road to CR and Oak Island camps and even pulled into a few grass field roads to see what might be with the shore birds taking advantage of it. Nothing but black-bellies so far.

[DComeaux]

Glad your stuff's coming along,and happy I don't have much work to do.

[Darren]

Glad your stuff's coming along,and happy I don't have much work to do.

Its going to be a chore wrestling that structure into place but will have three of us doing this one instead of just J & I like the last one. And once all buttoned up together should be awfully stable a platform to wait out (and hopefully shoot at) flights, and reasonably storm resistant.

[Darren]

Sure enough, feels pretty nice out here in BR, and front made it through down at the camp as well:

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[Rick]

Sure enough, feels pretty nice out here in BR, and front made it through down at the camp as well...

Cooler/drier northerly breeze sent Call and I back to the marsh at first light, just to see. Made several flooded stubble field stops on our way without seeing anything but bec croix and black birds, not even squealers there. But some of everything local seemed to be feeling the weather and moving about as we cut up chinquapins in a couple ponds, to include perhaps the same pair of little "Whoa, was that teal?"

But we still have the first sure-'nuff gotta-be-migratory bunch to look forward to.

[Darren]

Not really doing anything particularly ducky this weekend coming, but will be down at the camp and out and about in boats fishing a bit so there's at least a chance of a sighting or two. Will try to pack the bino's along for the ride.

[Darren]

Looks like LDWF secretary and the governor are trying to push the issue on the BBWD's.

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Pals at LDWF have long said it would be very difficult to get this through, but that's under current framework/policy etc.

But at what point does that legacy policy stop applying given the nature of the population is ever-changing, in this case rapidly growing? They sure seem to be growing beyond what would have been thought with no sign of slowing down.

[Darren]

Saturday saw what I thought to be a little bunch of teal from the camp porch out over the ship channel, couldn't get to the binoculars in time. Sunday morning saw a sure-enough bunch of a dozen or so through the bino's from same camp porch rocking chair vantage point.

While there's a lot of brand new teal-perfect habitat on hand this year near the camp where we dont have access rights, I was at least partially relieved to see that much of what was same type stuff last year has now drained.

Other than that, got thermostat changed in my duck boat outboard and cleaned up compartments and such. Caught a few fish in the crazy wind and tore up a bunch of boiled crabs with family in town from SW La with a nice northerly breeze most of the visit. Solid time !

[Deltaman]

Glad to hear that you are seeing some teal, and like you, tore up some crabs over the weekend, but no trace of teal yet.

[Darren]

Watching increasing model traction for a lil cool front for next weekend. Rather it next weekend than the following as the log says these Sept fronts of about any teeth blow out the bluewings.

"But at least the hunting is comfy," they say, as we're sitting there watching empty skies.

[MARSH BEAR]

I saw yesterday they were forecasting lows 64 - 65 in Baton Rouge, this morning they were forecasting 70

What are seeing concerning the tropical mess heading into the Caribbean for next weekend - that makes me nervous

[Darren]

I saw yesterday they were forecasting lows 64 - 65 in Baton Rouge, this morning they were forecasting 70

What are seeing concerning the tropical mess heading into the Caribbean for next weekend - that makes me nervous

Models aren't buying it in more recent runs, thank God.

[Darren]

Harry the dog and I took a ride up to the farm to retrieve our egret decoys for teal season and get an idea of the condition of the camp, field, etc.

Presumably from spring storms, found that the camp has a ton of branches down all around it and even one hefty enough to snap the middle joist on the awning we built years back. The inside of the camp, however, was probably in the best condition I've ever seen for this point on the calendar, given no one's been there to run out the critters.

The blind cover looks great and the rice is cut, but discovered that whoever hunted the pit last failed to put the lids on.......so we've got some water to deal with and it looked nasty. May as well leave it for now and pump it next month sometime. I put the lids back on after finding them still stacked at end of the pit, had wondered if they'd maybe been stolen......nope! So much for the nice clean pit we'd had a couple of seasons now.

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[DComeaux]

Always something.

[Darren]

Still nothing cookin in the tropics from overnight and morning model runs, but the promise for a cool down is gaining steam for late weekend into early next week for us down this way.

[DComeaux]

Still nothing cookin in the tropics from overnight and morning model runs, but the promise for a cool down is gaining steam for late weekend into early next week for us down this way.

I'm very hesitant with hauling too much stuff down to the camp just yet. I'll be monitoring the three models which I find most accurate, which are the GFS, Euro, and Icon, which the later have been more accurate to date. Hopefully this front keeps the wave headed into the Caribbean now, far south of the gulf.

[Darren]

Still nothing cookin in the tropics from overnight and morning model runs, but the promise for a cool down is gaining steam for late weekend into early next week for us down this way.

I'm very hesitant with hauling too much stuff down to the camp just yet. I'll be monitoring the three models which I find most accurate, which are the GFS, Euro, and Icon, which the later have been more accurate to date. Hopefully this front keeps the wave headed into the Caribbean now, far south of the gulf.

agreed, not worth bringing much down to the camps right now to then have to hustle to go haul out. Still some weeks ahead of us

[Darren]

Eastern half of the US will be nice, western half will roast!

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[Duck Engr]

I’ll take it. Had all the roasting I can handle for the year.

[MARSH BEAR]

Sorry Darren looks like the storm is headed toward your hunting area.
The storm is supposed to move through quickly, fingers crossed you don't have much damage

[Darren]

Sorry Darren looks like the storm is headed toward your hunting area.
The storm is supposed to move through quickly, fingers crossed you don't have much damage

Should be OK, just hope power is brought back in reasonable time. thanks for looking out ! West winds are forecast for rest of the week so that'll get our extra water out.

[Darren]

In keeping in mind buddy's places along our coast, the collective in here included and beyond, I noticed that the position of the storm this moment has a buddy's blind on Point au Fer Island riding out a Cat 2 at the moment....sending my best to her! They did well with it last year when many weren't, and had even just done an expansion project on it.

In a text to him, he replied to me with

"riding out" is subject to interpretation

may as well laugh, all we can do in the interim

A bit more seriously, storm is poised to go right about over Johnny's house, so hoping for best for him, surely will result in power loss that could last a while given history.

[Rick]

Sorry Darren looks like the storm is headed toward your hunting area.
The storm is supposed to move through quickly, fingers crossed you don't have much damage

Should be OK, just hope power is brought back in reasonable time. thanks for looking out ! West winds are forecast for rest of the week so that'll get our extra water out.

Trouble with Gulf storms being that if you dodge an impending bullet, as we did, someone else is still going to catch it. Hope you and Johnny are just picking up sticks this morning.