2018-2019 Season Log

[Rick]

Well that and my dad finally making me buy my own ammo. That’ll help a kid become a better shot too.

Made me think of Grandpa Harper, who'd send us around the hill with on .22 bullet and give us another if we returned with game or a varmint.

[Rick]

Bud, happy and safe holidays to you and Elizabeth, too.

[Rick]

Date: 12/25 Tue

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: real/high fog

Wind Direction and Velocity: easterly nil to moderate

Temperature: 50s?

Moon phase: still too full

Special Notes: Christmas

Waterfowl Activity: Heard and tolled a big, 30+ speck flock pretty early on, and that was it for geese. Saw a few more little ducks buzzing by than yesterday but no more big ones.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Specks came talking in the fog but shut up and pushed wide of the pond on arrival. Tried finesse and nearly lost them before switching to my version of an every bird on the ground come-back, which brought them straight to the gun. Only managed to get big ducks to work once, and someone else shot before they made it in. And only turned a bluewing single and bluewing and spoon trio. All else was shot passing.

Hunters: Just Marsh and I out to enjoy a morning of not disappointing anyone.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Videoing Marsh was a harsh reminder of how much I've let his training slip.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: The mudhole remains a dead zone compared to the blinds to our east.

Kudos: No one but me had to listen to the shooting while watching barren sky. And it was awfully nice to work some geese.

Birds By Species: 3 bw teal, 2 gw teal, 1 shoveller and 2 specks

Photo Ops: Marsh enjoyed riding up front like a big shot on the way out, while I enjoyed thinking about pot-roasted specks.

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Then, too, there was the circus:

[Duck Engr]

Thanks for taking us along Rick! I enjoyed the video (probably more so than Marsh’s trainer). That was quite a nice mess of ducks and specks!

[Darren]

Louisiana is back in the game; mudhole is producing limits of ducks and specks! Print it!

Merry Christmas, see you in a couple weeks

[Rick]

Louisiana is back in the game; mudhole is producing limits of ducks and specks! Print it!

I'm still laughing from that as I type.

[DComeaux]

What a nice hunt.

[Johnc]

Sounded like quite a few specks milling around in background

[Ericdc]

Yea at this point, good on you for getting your birds no matter how big the bunch.

Video was great


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[MARSH BEAR]

Rick I enjoyed the video.
It reminds me of dog trainer once told me "somedays a dog is going to be a dog, and you have to expect it, no matter how much your train them."

[Deltaman]

Glad you were able to kill some birds yesterday Rick, well deserved!!!!

[Rick]

Date: 12/26 Wed

Time: Morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly to cloudy and back

Wind Direction and Velocity: Easterly and building to strong

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase: 81% waning and still bright enough I'm still hearing geese overhead airing the dog at 3:30

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Wonder of wonders, we saw an honest to gosh migratory flight of big ducks, albeit a relatively brief one and too high to benefit us. Even had a few lower mallards that weren't "locals" and a scattering of teal, but was just "our turn" and nothing to alert the media about.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Actually got to work a few mallards and teal, though most of the later were shot in passing.

Hunters: 2, JJ and Mark, annual day after Christmas regulars and fine hunters who hide and shoot well.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh managed not to get yelled at.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: No complaints from me.

Kudos: JJ and Mark always seem to bring birds with them, and while we didn't fill out, I heard we matched the rest of the marsh total. (Be back to reality tomorrow.)

Birds By Species: 4 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 2 gw teal, 5 mallards and 1 wigeon

Photo Ops: My traditional photo of the taking of their traditional tailgate shot:

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[Darren]

Bluewing drake coloring coming along at all? Saw a picture of some nice ones in Venice the other day.

Thinking about trying a field hunt in the morning with the rain and big south wind, alternative would be to go to work at the mostly empty office.

[Ericdc]

Hunt!


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[DComeaux]

Very nice!!

[DComeaux]

Hunt!


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Work!

[Rick]

Bluewing drake coloring coming along at all?

Had a rare one yesterday with a racing stripe meeting at the back of his head, but his head wasn't yet steel blue. "Would have been a real keeper next month." And the brightest in the air of those shot today was also still charcoal-headed in hand.

[Johnc]

Perhaps flight birds result of advancing snow storm mid country?

Would be nice

[Rick]

Perhaps flight birds result of advancing snow storm mid country?

Would think that likely so. But also that the howling south winds will have "short-stopped" most of them well above us.

In other news, this morning was the first time since the full moon that overhead geese didn't serenade us while I aired Marsh.

[Rick]

Date: 12/27 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy and threatening rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: strong to screaming from the south

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase: waning - first morning in a while geese weren't moving overhead at 3:30 am

Special Notes: South winds howled all night ahead of a serious front sweeping in from Texas with Tornado sightings and hail shortly after our marsh curfew. (And lost power at our house. Grrr...)

Waterfowl Activity: East blind "should have limited on waves of teal" while we saw one bunch.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Greenwing bunch turned and came, saw the elephant and went. Did see some high flights of big ducks I couldn't influence beyond locking and looking, some locals that wouldn't come over the pond and a flight of wigeon and one of spoons that bought all the way in, as well as a single gray and spoon.

Hunters: 2, Dusty and Marty, who'd hunted with me on 1/1/18 and 1/2 respectively and "hadn't picked up a shotgun since".

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Even though I hunted them standing up again, the guys were even farther from being in the same game with birds able to use the wind to escape than they were last year with birds fighting strong winds to get out.

Kudos: Nice guys who took it well.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 2 shovellers and 1 wigeon

[Ericdc]

Next weeks forecast shows some pretty cold air making it into north Louisiana. Several mornings below freezing. That should at least send us more non mallards and maybe even some mallards.

We had an awful 2nd split last year up until the week after Christmas.

I always count on the last 30 days to make my season and this Saturday marks day 30. There’s even more water up here now, so I feel like I need to definitely focus on trying to pick the days when they show up because they’ll find safer waters pretty quick after a day or 2 of shooting.


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[Rick]

Date: !2/28 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: parly to cloudy and back

Wind Direction and Velocity: northerly brisk

Temperature: chilly in the wind

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: East blinds had teal again, but we did not. Locals hopped around, and enough new grays to keep it interesting were trafficking.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Hunted everyone standing and too often caught, but we still managed to get some deep enough into the hole for slow guns to get underway.

Hunters: 3, long time annual regular, John, now 80 and his son, Mike, and grandson, Sean who made their "first in 30 years" and first ever duck hunts with John around this time last year.

Guns:

Malfunctions: Both the "Sweet 16" Mike was using and the Model 12 John brought gave them fits.

Dog(s): The bug did a nice job of hunting up a bled out gray I only kinda-sorta marked way down the boat trail.

Special Equipment: SOS spinner poles were both badly bent by yesterday's wind.

Curses: All and all, I'm way to busy being thankful for what went well to bitch.

Kudos: We didn't educate remotely as many ducks as on their last trip and had a fine time.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 4 gadwall, 1 mallard, 1 pintail and 2 shovellers.

[DComeaux]

Glad to see that, Rick.

[Rick]

I worry that every year's hunt will be his last and am ever so grateful that John deemed it a grand success.

Do wish I'd known when he was coming, so I could have eaten with them last night and brought the Model 12 he gave me on this morning's hunt.

[DComeaux]

Awwww That sucks!

[Bud]

The thought counts for something...

[Rick]

Date: 12/29 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy and threatening rain but got out before it

Wind Direction and Velocity: strong NE

Temperature: 50ish but chilly in the wind

Moon phase: 48% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Pretty much what have become the usual suspects with the addition of a nice bunch each of "new" greenwings and mallards.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: First big ducks by appeared locals, and feed calls alone brought them nearly to the spread before they pushed off behind the blind - and got clipped anyway. (Turned out to be grays.) First greenhead also had a local look and pushed off of a more raucous feed at pond's edge but pulled beautifully to triple quacks used with a steady beat cadence. Then turned what's been an ultra rare big bunch of greenwings for an "easy" pass (tried for a triple but took three shells to put two on the pond). And finished with ten or twelve initially high but anxious mallards, the trickiest part of which was picking out what may well have been the only drake in the lot.

Hunters: My absolutely least favorite pair of regulars were no-shows, and the bug and I were blessed with a badly needed "just us guys" hunt.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Everything had the good grace to die in the pond or close behind it, so his was an easy morning, too.

Special Equipment: Having no hunters to distract attention from while they, hopefully, took cover, I left the spinners off to avoid pushing off PhD ducks.

Curses: Not a one, other than finishing before 7 and having to quit so soon.

Kudos: Sweet relief not just to have dodged the scheduled bungholes but to have had the chance to fix the damage the last two days' parties had inflicted on the blind, rather than making it worse. And even sweeter to have no one to hide but myself and get to shoot in a timely manner.

Birds By Species: 2 gadwall, 2 gw teal and two mallards.

Photo Ops: Last bird down and still too dark for good photos with my little camera:

009a.jpg

Lagniappe Had a hen teal land on the north lee edge of the pond, let her sit and forgot about her while shooting the early gray pair until surprised by her kacking a crescendo after Marsh returned with the second of that pair shot out the back (south) side of the blind.

[Darren]

Wonderful morning!

[DComeaux]

very nice.

[BGkirk]

I picture you with a long list of “call options” for your PhD ducks

- triple quack cadence
- feed call
- SD hail call
Etc haha... gonna have to start thinking like Rick and see if it works


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