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Date: 11/9/2024 west zone opening day

Time: finished around 8:15

Location: my brothers' lease

Cloud Cover: cloudy but no rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: 5-8 easterly

Temperature: warmest opener I can remember (high 70's maybe, pushing 80)

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: shared a blind with both of my brothers and nephew ( which has become too rare of an occasion)

Waterfowl Activity: pretty good flight from daylight to 7:30 then slowed down waiting on last few birds.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: felt like teal season, but birds worked decent.

Hunters: me, Ryan, Corey, and Simon

Guns: simon shot all of his 20 gauge shells (almost 2 boxes) then switched to my beretta to shoot a few more.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Ryan's dog goose

Special Equipment: 4 spinners

Kudos: Simon has been shooting skeet for 4-H or something, and it's showing. He's pretty confident and not timid.

curses: sooo hot.

Birds By Species:
13 blue winged teal
9 Green winged teal
2 shovelers

Photo Ops:








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Awesome hunt.

Can that brown dog hunt?

Decent.


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Thank God for tealz.

Date: 11/16/2024

Time: stopped hunting at 10

Location: the 86.

Cloud Cover: clear, ground fog in places but not on us.

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm to very light east to 5 mph SSE ( takes about 5 to put any movement on water)

Temperature: 40's but warmed up fast

Barometer:

Moon phase: full moon had everything bright. Was a pretty ride to the pit.

Special Notes: just 3 members in the lease this year. 2 guys my age who are thankful to have a place to go and were very happy with the hunt.

Waterfowl Activity: pretty good duck flight once shooting started in area. Flight slowed down by 9. Big body of specks south of us but too calm and too much shooting to do anything with them.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: we used jerk strings that helped some, but was tough to get birds in right with calm conditions.

Hunters: Martin, Hutton, and me.

Guns:

Malfunctions: I forgot to reload my gun after a volley and before 4 teal came through on my end.

Dog(s): group effort between us. We didn't lose any birds.

Special Equipment: 3 mojos on remote

Kudos: enough birds to get our 18, but did some missing and a few should have shots. We laughed and agreed we'd do better next time.

curses: we knew we weren't going to have any wind, but just reinforced my position of not hunting on calm days. I plan to be back Wednesday or Thursday with the big NW wind and cooler temperatures.

Birds By Species: (all hens but the BWT and 1 GWT)
1 pintail
1 gadwall
1 wood duck
1 scaup
1 blue winged teal
5 green winged teal
1 hooded merganser (flying with the wood duck)


Photo Ops: I didn't take 1 picture, which is rare for me, but I'll do better next time.


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Nice hunt !

We're planning to give it a try Wednesday in the field.

More BWT being killed in northeast Louisiana this weekend than I can remember.


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The bluewing are in trouble.

DComeaux wrote:The bluewing are in trouble.

Their new double-dip pattern can be helping them. September teal may be on the way out.

Rick wrote:

DComeaux wrote:The bluewing are in trouble.

Their new double-dip pattern can be helping them. September teal may be on the way out.

My thoughts exactly. They’re catching it on both ends.

Rick wrote:

DComeaux wrote:The bluewing are in trouble.

Their new double-dip pattern can be helping them. September teal may be on the way out.

True

My world changed Monday afternoon. I began having intense chest and arm pain while driving to a logging job. I went to the closest ER in Columbia LA and was then transferred to west Monroe by ambulance during the storm Monday night.

Apparently I survived a heart attack from a blockage. Doctors did a heart cath and put a stint in yesterday afternoon and I'm home now. It's the strangest thing to go from that to feeling completely fine by early Tuesday morning. I was never out of it just was in a lot of pain for several hours.

I probably won't be trying the ducks until the 2nd split, but I'm thankful it was not worse and that I heeded the warnings. Life changes quickly.


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Dodged a bullet, thank God and stints.

WHOA! Glad you’re ok Eric! I’m sure that’ll put a whole new perspective on things

Well Praise God you went to the ER. Most of us would have ignored it and paid the price! I hope you feel well enough to get in the blind soon!!

PorkChop wrote:Well Praise God you went to the ER. Most of us would have ignored it and paid the price! I hope you feel well enough to get in the blind soon!!

That ^^

So glad you are headed in right direction, thank God ! The birds will be there when you're ready

WHEW!!!!!! Scary stuff Eric, especially when alone and in a remote area. Glad that you were able to get help!

WHOA!! Not something I thought I'd read in on this page. Thank GOD you're okay and made the decision to get to the ER.

One of my guys went today with a guest. They bagged a pretty mallard drake, some wigeon, and teal. Also reported specks coming out of the north at very workable height. Hated to miss that but I'll heal up for the 2nd split.


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That’s a man’s duck hunter right there. Heart attack in the first split. Planning to be back in the saddle for the second split!

Duck Engr wrote:That’s a man’s duck hunter right there. Heart attack in the first split. Planning to be back in the saddle for the second split!

Beats the hell out of my knee surgery.

Eric, Get well and give 'em hell in the second split.

On the opener of the EZ I like the results we got this year but the next two years we would be opening even earlier under a similar format. I think that's more of a crap shoot to be honest. Our neighbors and in Arkansas and Miss. both open later than we do and that has to be given consideration given the low numbers shown in our surveys. I'll have to do some thinking on this when the time comes for public comment.

Ericdc wrote:One of my guys went today with a guest. They bagged a pretty mallard drake, some wigeon, and teal. Also reported specks coming out of the north at very workable height. Hated to miss that but I'll heal up for the 2nd split.

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Steady stream of new specks (and snows), probably 50/50 split, on Saturday when I was there. Report out of the pit yesterday was "lots of workable specks but no one could call."

My guys has another good shoot this past Friday with a mix of teal, pintail, wigeon, and gadwall. Ducks worked really well in the NNE wind and sun. One of my guys went back Saturday and it was very slow with the frost and no wind.

I'm looking forward to getting back out there on the 14th. Hope to do some deer hunting this week.


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Date: 12/14/24

Time: left at 8:30

Location: 86 pit

Cloud Cover: high clouds, rain stayed west and north until we packed up and were doing some decoy shuffling when it sprinkled on us. Several rainbows too

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE 5-10, died at 1 point after sunrise then picked back up

Temperature: 50's

Barometer:

Moon phase: full but cloudy

Special Notes: very thankful to be healthy and be able to get back out there after my 1st split was cut short.

Waterfowl Activity: didn't see many, mostly very high. Saw some geese west and south of us.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: a few teal came in decent but didn't have much success with anything else.

Hunters: me Hutton and Martin

Guns:

Malfunctions: Martin had some bad shells which ended up causing a scary moment and a bulged barrel right around the choke area. Brought it to Simmons later and they said it was bad ammo. Thankfully nothing or nobody hurt but his barrel.

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: we decided not to use any mojos due to clouds and I don't think it would have mattered if we had some...but who knows. I only use them when it's clear.

Kudos: we shot pretty well and Wednesday I got a good report from cardiologist. My heart is healthy and wasn't damaged any, so that gave me some peace of mind.

curses:

Birds By Species:
5 green winged teal
1 gadwall
1 shoveler

Photo Ops:













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Glad to hear of your heart checking out


Note, we ran 4 flock-a-flicker's today AND a floating Mojo spinner, plus two splashers.......birds ate up the decoys all morning.

The skies cleared for a while once we picked up as you can see from picture with guys but it clouded right back up.


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I just remember a curse haha

Hutton had a few dozen decoys he used for deep water hunting and they unspooled during split. Had a few messes to clean up before LST, but decided to not mess with mojos since it was cloudy. The teal we shot at were passing over and broke to hard calling and very aggressive peeping on my Matt Pierce (RIP) whistle.


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Darren wrote:Glad to hear of your heart checking out

And he's lookin' ornery, too.