2025 Preseason...

[Rick]

Post season DTs had passed, and I'd gotten away from ducky projects to ease them. Well, other that Call and my morning exercise/training rounds of friends' farms.

But another CR guide, Neil, who's the camp's real work horse, and I have been spraying cutgrass and salvinia that's encroaching on parts of the marsh of late, and that taste of it gave me the envies to make a pass by my blind. So Call and I changed up our routine and did so yesterday morning - and now I'm itching to get busy on next season.

Hadn't seen much at all in the way of ducks while focused on spraying or even while looking for them en route to our blind, just a very few mostly passing squealers and fewer flushed mottled pairs. But as we entered our pond, a few dozen presumed woodies (which apparently bring their young to the marsh for invertebrates) blew out of the flat between our and Wayne's ponds. Probably sad that that little show was enough to stoke my fire, but it did. So I'm plainly still OK with the remaining state of things duck.

Gave up on the notion of pushing up islands with prop wash (to take some of the odd/dangerous brush pile look out of my blind) as a dumb idea and am, instead, going to experiment with transplanting button willow, bull tongue and cane to three or four existing shallow knolls or particularly thick floating black dirt patches. "We'll see..."

[DComeaux]

I went down to chenier this morning to check on things and trim a little grass around the camp, and I drove out to our launch area to take a look at the water level. It is low and at a perfect level at the moment for the growth of wigeon grass again this year. I just don't have much confidence of it being there for the season.

[Rick]

...just don't have much confidence of it being there for the season.

'Tis "hold your breath season" here by the Gulf of Whatever.

[Rick]

Don'tcha know this 6ish tataille just had to homestead the least combine rutted and likely to tear a dog's ACL crawfish pond Call frequented:

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No shortage of smaller ones scattered around our morning exercise AO, but this one's "big enough"to have me wondering if I'm missing others like it when running marks beyond line of sight elsewhere:

[Rick]

Finally got back out to the marsh to dodge lightning and take some soakings while trying my hand at transplanting native plants to some spots around my blind this morning. Had no luck digging out button willows, which wasn't surprising, given what good gator line anchors they make - but later, thank Google, learned they can be started from cuttings. Did dig out some super tall bull tongue, but found it breaks easily and is apt to fall over in its new site.

Hadn't found getting Roseau cane started from fresh cuttings as easy at my new blind as it had been at my old one, which left me wondering if some isn't better adapted to deeper water than others. So I dug out several clumps growing in calf deep water along a boat run to experiment with. (And may have stepped off the edge and over a hip boot in that process.)

Circled the marsh in my travels and, again, saw but a very few squealers and mottleds, but was, again, treated to a good mess of woodies on the SE end of that loop. This time they were split a couple dozen in Wayne's pond and a like number on the east end of mine, rather than on a big flat between them. Made my morning.

Looking forward to getting back out there some time next week to see how my transplants look and try my luck with button willow cuttings.