Season Log

[Darren]

Reports in my area kinda had our head scratching with the same idea, didn't look like we had new birds on this front. Saw no high "new" looking grays, just the small groups bouncing around.

[Ericdc]

It’s early, but in 2014 we had a similar front like today on thanksgiving morning and we were done with a limit of big ducks by 8 and picked out our birds mostly.....I kinda had my hopes up


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[Ericdc]

Date: nov 23

Time: left at 9

Location: marsh

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm to NE 5-10 mph

Temperature: 40’s

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: my cousins and I are convinced we’re a jinx on the marsh, and all 3 of us were together today, so the hex was on. Our last decent duck hunt was around Christmas 2014. Going to hunt close to home tomorrow and then try the marsh again Saturday.

Waterfowl Activity: very little

Waterfowl Responsiveness: none

Hunters: Eric Corey John will Tate

Guns:

Malfunctions: floater mojo with no weight

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: wonderduck

Kudos: we laughed a lot, and hunting was better back at my lease in northeast la. Ridge Joseph and his sister got 12 green winged teal at my lease.

curses: no birds

Birds By Species: 3 ringnecks 1 nutria

Photo Ops:






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[Ericdc]

Date: nov 24

Time: left at 9

Location: Bundick lake, where I grew up paddling to a blind and learned to hunt

Cloud Cover:

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm to light E

Temperature: 32

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: nostalgia, first time to hunt lake in many years

Waterfowl Activity: nothing

Waterfowl Responsiveness: gadwalls were coming to neighbors shot jacks

Hunters: my cousin David and I

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Kudos:beautiful morning

curses: like Bundick lake often is, no ducks

Birds By Species: 1 ring neck

Photo Ops:








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[Ericdc]

Date: nov 25

Time: left at 10

Location: public

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: light E to S

Temperature: 50’s then 70’s

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: my first hunt here since 2003

Waterfowl Activity: pretty slow

Waterfowl Responsiveness: big bunch of spoons came pretty

Hunters: Eric Ryan Corey Tate

Guns:

Malfunctions: I got in a soft spot putting out decoys and get wet

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: 2 baby mojos on remote

Kudos: did better than several I know. One big bunch of spoons came in perfect. Should have had at least 8 instead of 5 but I missed 2 of 3 shots.

curses: lack of birds from extreme SWLA to extreme NELA

Birds By Species: 5 shovelers 2 green winged teal 1 pintail 1 wood duck

Photo Ops:

Garrison ridge Peyton and ridge sis killed 1 green winged teal at my lease...


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[Ducaholic]

https://extra.mdc.mo.gov/cgi-bin/mdcdev ... y/main.cgi

[Ericdc]

I forgot to mention that we had nutria sauce piquant Friday evening as a novelty to go along with my chicken and sausage jamabalaya that the family really enjoys.

The nutria was enjoyed by those who ate it, about 2/3’s of the crowd tried it.


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[aunt betty]

Is nutria like eating a raccoon?


Once I was invited to a pig roast and they had a crock pot full of bbq'd coon. Was sort of forced to try a sammich.
Ever put a piece of meat into your mouth and the more you chewed it the drier and less flavorful it got? After a few chews it's like chewing on a dry kitchen mop. The dog wouldn't even eat it and gave me stink eye for trying.

[Ericdc]

No I would compare it more to a rabbit. They only eat vegetation. Meat is lighter colored and was fall off the bone tender. No weird smells or taste.


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[aunt betty]

Oh. Then maybe i ought to share my rabbit stew recipe.
It's simple as heck.

Ever use Wyler's stew starter? The beef stew mix makes excellent rabbit stew so I bet it'd work the same magic on a nutria.
Boil it first then pick the meat and use it like beef in the stew. Recipe is on the bag. Add a bag of mixed veggies and some pearl onions...oh yeah.
For a quick and easy camp meal it's great.

Now I gotta take my old duck dog and remind him that he can chase rabbits. It's been years since I did any upland game hunting. Permission is not happening. You just go and hope you don't get caught. I know a spot on the railroad tracks that's loaded with briars and rabbits. All I need is snow.

[Deltaman]

Back in the mid 80's, I befriended a fellow that was living on the causeway in a tent near the boat launch. One day when I was returning from a duck hunt, he asked me if the Nutria were edible, as he had seen a couple of them around. I had never eaten them, or talked to anybody that had, so what the heck, I walked the marsh and shot a couple. We skinned, quartered, and boiled in a dutch oven, de-boned the meat, and threw it back in the pot, along with cut up trinity, salt and pepper, and let it simmer for a while longer. Served if over white rice with light bread, and it was surprisingly good. Like Eric said, they are vegetarians, and the meat is very light colored, with no strong flavors or smells (reminded me of a young tender rabbit). They are very destructive to the marsh, and thankfully, our alligator population has kept them in check around here nowadays. When I was a kid (back in the late 60's), they were plentiful, so we had a yearly Nutria Rodeo, even had a Rodeo Queen Mobile County Wildlife held the event each year, and they gave some really good prizes. There were categories for individuals as well as groups, for largest, smallest, most killed, etc...... and there was a fur buyer that would arrive after the hunt, and take all of the donated carcasses for skinning.

[Ericdc]

Our blind goose egged today. Don’t think they even fired.


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[Ericdc]

Date: dec 2

Time: called it at 9:20

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: high cloud bank to east with sun peeking through

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm all morning

Temperature: upper 40’s but warmed up quick

Barometer:

Moon phase: big and bright

Special Notes: glad the split starts Monday

Waterfowl Activity: just the normal south to north pintail traffic that fly erratically when called at but regroup and continue on north

Waterfowl Responsiveness: none

Hunters: my buddy over slept, so just me

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: 2 mojos on remote

Kudos: even though it was my first scratch in 2 years, I was able to hear the wings coming over and the distant wood ducks roosting on far end of pond...beautiful sunrise....and all that.....bring on the split!

curses: thought since it was just me I could hide the pit really well and trip up some locals, but I didn’t have anything bend much less break, whether it be ducks or specks. Slowest morning I can remember in my 4 years on this farm. Not just me though, lots of folks up here are struggling...
http://www.simmonssportinggoods.com/blog/


Birds By Species: apparently a ross goose died of natural causes since Thursday about 20 feet behind the blind, thankfully it didn’t stink yet and I could hide it in the blind until hunt was over then discard properly on way out.

Photo Ops:




Plenty of time to enjoy the scenery



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[DComeaux]

It's tough all over, except for those high dollar marsh places just north of us. Where no blind is hunted every day and decoys are put out and picked up the same day of the hunt. Our lease holder hunted up that way this morning with a friend. They were finished in 20 minutes, teal, grays, and black belly whistlers.

[Ericdc]

We are slightly ahead of last years duck numbers for first split in less hunts, but only killed 2 specks. Last year we killed 12 specks in first split, but did a lot better in 2nd split. So we’re on a decent pace if the weather will get right for 2nd split.


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[Ericdc]

Wife and I made a road trip this weekend.




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[Ericdc]

Thankful to take a nice doe yesterday. Sausage inventories were getting scary low.


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[Ericdc]

Date: dec 16 2nd split opener

Time: left at 10

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: mostly clear to mostly cloudy by the time I got home

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to decent SW to SE

Temperature: 28, skim ice formed after sunrise and stayed till 9 am

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: nothing special about today

Waterfowl Activity: local birds landing on other end of field all morning

Waterfowl Responsiveness: mallards would give us a look but with skim ice and dead calm they decided to go land where they have been going last 2 weeks during split

Had a speck give me a good look and we tried him but just couldn’t get him any lower

Hunters: Eric josh ridge shack

Guns:

Malfunctions: ridges new king mallard mojo remote wouldn’t work so it stayed in pit.

Dog(s): ridges dog ace

Special Equipment: 2 full size mojos on remote...didn’t use much at all

Kudos: made it back home safe...got to watch a big 8 point walk across field

curses: ridge decided not to bring his deer rifle

Birds By Species:
1 green winged teal
1 shoveler

Photo Ops:



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[Ericdc]

Sometimes it’s better to sleep in an extra 2 hours and go to the woods. Been getting several pics of a few big spikes, and was hoping to take one.

My deer steak loving bride will be pleased



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[Rick]

Pretty serious spike, that.

[Darren]

Malfunctions: ridges new king mallard mojo remote wouldn’t work so it stayed in pit.

Been in the hunt for a fully fledged remote control-equipped spinner. After seeing your note here did some research, the ugly reviews on that thing are rampant! Opted to finally give another brand a shot. Disappointing to see that Mojo's new top tier "king" gadget is a bummer.

[Ericdc]

Malfunctions: ridges new king mallard mojo remote wouldn’t work so it stayed in pit.

Been in the hunt for a fully fledged remote control-equipped spinner. After seeing your note here did some research, the ugly reviews on that thing are rampant! Opted to finally give another brand a shot. Disappointing to see that Mojo's new top tier "king" gadget is a bummer.

Darren, you can still get the regular full size mojo mallards with a remote. They have remote now that will run several decoys off same key pad. I’m on my 2nd year with mine. I’ve been very pleased.


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[Darren]

Malfunctions: ridges new king mallard mojo remote wouldn’t work so it stayed in pit.

Been in the hunt for a fully fledged remote control-equipped spinner. After seeing your note here did some research, the ugly reviews on that thing are rampant! Opted to finally give another brand a shot. Disappointing to see that Mojo's new top tier "king" gadget is a bummer.

Darren, you can still get the regular full size mojo mallards with a remote. They have remote now that will run several decoys off same key pad. I’m on my 2nd year with mine. I’ve been very pleased.


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Roger that. Though I'm intrigued by the integrated design of the king mallard and also Lucky Duck's similar model that's gotten some really good reviews. We'll see!

And while we're on the topic and you're hunting similar set up that I am, are you using your spinner every day regardless of weather condition? Cloudy vs. sunny, etc? Feel like I need some flash to give us more show but has to be a reliable means of turning it off when specks come shopping.

[Ericdc]

Yes, since I have remotes I use them every hunt. The specks haven’t really started giving our field much attention yet but I didn’t have any trouble shooting specks last year with them out and turned off.


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[Darren]

Yes, since I have remotes I use them every hunt. The specks haven’t really started giving our field much attention yet but I didn’t have any trouble shooting specks last year with them out and turned off.

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Good deal, will give it a good shot for remainder of season...I think. Know some of the big hunts we had last season here were over spinners in various weather, mostly either foggy or cloudy or both, no sunny days.

[Ericdc]

I’ve had specks land by mojos on sunny days....of course they were off.

I love the flash it gives on bright sunny windy days.


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[Ericdc]

Mom texted today and said she was out of sausage


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[Ericdc]

Date: dec 22

Time: planned to hunt as late as I wanted but accepted our fate at 10

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: heavy low clouds followed by high broken clouds with some sun

Wind Direction and Velocity: SSW 10-15 mph

Temperature: 70’s I wore a t shirt and shorts under my breathable waders

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: starting to think we won’t do near as well on geese in this big slick bean field as we had in my old smaller field on north end

Waterfowl Activity: didn’t see a Duck for what seemed like a while early on, big goose roost to our north (mostly snows) trafficked back and forth to the plowed rice to our west
Several hundred local ducks on water north of us that the guys aren’t hunting much at all. Didn’t see any flight ducks out of north that I’d hoped for ahead of front

Waterfowl Responsiveness: ducks acted scared of everything and geese won’t look.

Hunters: me ridge shack and Gabe

Guns:

Malfunctions: Gabe lost his phone somehow when getting out of pit to pee

Dog(s): ace

Special Equipment: mojos mostly off, probably won’t use again till bright sunshine and north wind.

Kudos: can only get better tomorrow

curses: big rain bumped our water up several inches after it was looking just right this past weekend..it’ll drain out. Old pit probably would have flooded. Lots of fresh muddy water coming down the boeuf river means there’s a lot more water in SE Arkansas now. Probably will help in long run.

Birds By Species: 2nd scratch of year for me.

Photo Ops:



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