2022-2023 Season Log

[MARSH BEAR]

Great mixed bag. I will be headed to the camp this afternoon, hope we have a few ducks.

[Rick]

Sic 'em, MB. I'm not seeing many at the mudhole, but some of the other guys have been talking about the number of grays around, so you may have been restocked, too. Hope so.

[SpinnerMan]

Curses: Would have been nice to fill with something pretty.

A mature drake spoon is very pretty. Even a mature drake ringneck is pretty sharp looking. Sounds like you had a lot of chances to fill with something pretty

Those mixed bags are my dream. You usually get 2 or 3 species I've never gotten. I'm hoping to get a cool mixed bag a couple weeks from now in Maine and add a couple new species to my list. Although, I'm guessing a little bit different variety of ducks than you see in the mudhole.

[jrock75]

Well, that and more mallards. Gone are the days when they were always second (behind green-wings), if not first, in our annual regular season bag.

I was always surprised at the number of mallards you shot historically and frankly still am at what you shoot today. Just a lot more than we find in the marsh or rice in SETX.

[Rick]

Curses: Would have been nice to fill with something pretty.

A mature drake spoon is very pretty. Even a mature drake ringneck is pretty sharp looking. Sounds like you had a lot of chances to fill with something pretty

A mature drake spoon is gaudy to my eye (as are the drake woodies most appreciate more than I), but I'll agree about a bright Jack.

The real purpose behind our selectivity was, of course, giving guys who'd been without since 2020 more blind time.

[Rick]

I was always surprised at the number of mallards you shot historically and frankly still am at what you shoot today. Just a lot more than we find in the marsh or rice in SETX.

Coming from a stretch of the Mid Ohio Valley that seldom saw mallards until they were snowed out elsewhere, "coulda knocked me over with a mallard curl" when I first found myself shooting them in November down here.

[Ricky Spanish]

I was always surprised at the number of mallards you shot historically and frankly still am at what you shoot today. Just a lot more than we find in the marsh or rice in SETX.

Coming from a stretch of the Mid Ohio Valley that seldom saw mallards until they were snowed out elsewhere, "coulda knocked me over with a mallard curl" when I first found myself shooting them in November down here.

? When I first started hunting ducks November 1-30 was the season. You had to kill them in November or hunt out of season.
In 1975 oakwood bottoms looked like Arkansas.
Covered in mallards in November. Now? Yeah right.

[SpinnerMan]

The real purpose behind our selectivity was, of course, giving guys who'd been without since 2020 more blind time.

I hope it came across that I understood that.

I do the same on the rare occasion that I expect to have more opportunities than necessary to end the day quicker. It's been a couple years since I've got to be selective.

[Rick]

Date: 12/2 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy to clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: E moderate to strong

Temperature: warm to chilly once Marsh had my cotton hoody soaked and the wind came up

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Was slow enough for us to be in "ducks is ducks" mode from the onset - then got slower.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Seemed like most everything we saw knew us.

Hunters: 2, corporate hunters who were good shots and sports

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning with but one long fall

Special Equipment:

Curses: Just how slow it was for nice guys.

Kudos: Still a pleasant morning.

Birds By Species: 2 blue-wing teal, 1 gadwall, 5 green-wing teal, 1 mottled, 1 pintail and 3 shovellers

[Deltaman]

Slow days make good days even better Glad your party could shoot, and you ended the morning with a respectable bag of birds

[Bud]

Curses: Would have been nice to fill with something pretty.

A mature drake spoon is very pretty. Even a mature drake ringneck is pretty sharp looking. Sounds like you had a lot of chances to fill with something pretty

A mature drake spoon is gaudy to my eye ...

We have mounted three shovelers. They are very colorful, though one might call them the "Cyrano De Bergerac" of ducks.

Picture borrowed from www

[Rick]

I'm not a mounted bird, or anything, guy, but will say one of the most lifelike mounts I've ever seen was a pair of spoons done by a Chevron engineer for whom taxidermy was his art. Would work on one subject species until he felt he got it "right" then move on to something completely different. Could almost see a bird louse on his.

[Ricky Spanish]

Have shot perfectly plumed spoonies and I always felt bummed because it's a greenhead that isnt...
Finally I studied one long enough to decide thst if it has a white chest and a brown butt to give it a pass.
Brown chest with white butt gets no pass ever because it's a mallard. Shoot it.

[Rick]

Date: 12/3 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: ground fogged in tight until, literally, the last couple minutes before curfew

Wind Direction and Velocity: nada to light to NW mod

Temperature: warm

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: very little moving until the wind came up and blew out the fog, then ducks everywhere - when we had to quit.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Teal tweeted all stinking morning, and very occasionally something showed to be called normally

Hunters: 2, James and Mark

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: the dang fog and that the teal were too fast for us

Kudos: Nice guys made it a more pleasant morning than it might have been

Birds By Species: 3 blue-wing teal, 1 gadwall, 2 green-wing teal, 2 mottleds, 1 pintail, 1 ringneck and 2 shovellers

[Ricky Spanish]

Hey this might help.
How to determine moon phase without seeing it.

Screenshot_20221203_123813_Chrome.jpg

I think that's for tonight tho.
How often to you get to type "waxing gibbous" or whatever

[Darren]

Dang nice strap to salvage a ground fog today.

[Ducaholic]

Strong first split Rick!

[Rick]

Date: 12/4 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy hazy

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light

Temperature: cool

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Per usual, a lot more going on east of us early.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: As per too usual, once we did start seeing some birds most got banged out by others' shooting.

Hunters: 2, James and Mark again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Failed to catch a chipped wigeon that went down in the big water south of us.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Our gang was still having crowd control issues and still killing teal one at a time.

Kudos: Nice folks who eventually did well enough to get over early frustrations.

Birds By Species: 6 blue-wing teal, 7 green-wing teal, 1 mallard, 2 shovellers and 1 wigeon

[BGkirk]

Mighty frustrating when you got limited ops and only one bird stays. Had that happen multiple times Friday knowing that the teal would eventually slow down after the first 30 min or so


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[Rick]

Mighty frustrating when you got limited ops and only one bird stays.

I hate it that my guys usually have to listen to others banging and clanging away, while we see little or nothing early on, and even worse when I'm not capable of making it work for them when our chances do come.

[Rick]

Date: 12/17 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy to nearly partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: N brisk

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: 38% waning

Special Notes: second split opener

Waterfowl Activity: Listened to the blinds to our east shoot for a good while before we saw anything, but eventually had a fair show of teal and spoons.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Much better than ours.

Hunters: 2 Troy and Jared

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Wore the bug out with long chips.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Just that middle-aged guys were so slow getting under way, Trying to aim??

Kudos: Both were fine company and had masks to help hide our crowd control issues.

Birds By Species: 3 blue-wing teal, 9 green-wing teal, 1 mallard, 1 ringneck and 4 shovellers

[Duck Engr]

Not bad for guys that were slow to get going. Assume that means it was one’s and sometimes twos at a time?

[Rick]

Not bad for guys that were slow to get going. Assume that means it was one’s and sometimes twos at a time?

Very much so - when shots were fired at all. Surprising given their ages, but even when Troy's recent college grad son, Hunter, was in Jared's seat there was this from the log of their party's second day last season:

"Curses: Embarrassed myself by begging 'Someone please shoot.' so often."

Tough to shoot with vape(?) thingy in hand frequently in Troy's case, but also so slow and inaccurate that I suspect both were trying to aim at their birds. Tried to get them to loosen up and just focus on a bird and let 'er rip, but still ended up calling shots so early the birds sometimes had time to veer off out of good range - when guys shouldering guns way early didn't do it. Blessed to eventually have enough ops to fill.

Hopefully be more "in the groove" this morning (and gosh awful thankful for the masks most parties are too cool to wear).

[Rick]

Date: 12/18/22 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light to fairly strong

Temperature: frosty

Moon phase: small crescent

Special Notes: Was what I've always thought of as "a mallard morning" - 'cept they've been scarce in recent years.

Waterfowl Activity: Fewer teal than yesterday, as many spoons and a few more big ducks.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Excellent, except most working big ducks were banged out by one of the however-many blinds we were downwind of.

Hunters: 2, Jared and Troy again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Only thought we wore the bug out yesterday but outdid it today.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Once again like hunters much older than they, quick to jump around and slow to shoot. And while they hit more birds today, most were usually Forest-Gumped "in the buttocks".

Kudos: Had enough birds and a big time.

Birds By Species: 1 black-bellied whistling duck, 2 gadwall, 7 green-wing teal, 2 mallards, 1 ringneck and 5 shovellers

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe: I won't let my guys pee in the brush around the blind, so it won't smell like a bus station urinal. They either have to get on the dog stand and pee into open water or pee in a gallon detergent bottle I've cut the bottom our of and dump it in open water. Jared chose the later means only to discover there was noting in the jug to dump. Seems, instead of peeing in the open end, he took the cap off and peed down the pour spout without ever realizing he was peeing on his boots.

Just never know what you'll see next while hunting with the general public.

[Ricky Spanish]

Ever notice that a wide mouth sweet tea bottle is perfect for pissing into? Dump it in the water NOT ON MY BLIND.
OK?

1671386829659585794798285005181.jpg

[Ericdc]

Wide mouth


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[Duck Engr]

Hahaha man I hope his buddy gives him hell from now on for that one. May want to put a label on it “this side up”

[DComeaux]

I laughed....

[Rick]

Date: 12/19 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy w/occasional fits of rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: Easterly light to strong

Temperature: Mid 40s dropping

Moon phase: waning crescent 18%

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Not what we hoped, or needed to fill, and no big duck flight whatsoever, save a pintail flight that came a long way to get banged out, but enough to help hook the boy.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Most teal did just as bid, and another mottled fell to single quacks.

Hunters: 2, father, Bud, and 115yr-old son, Brayden (sp?).

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh stopped to chow down on what appeared a fresh duck (but had the milky eyes of a prior kill), I met him on the flotant and we went to war. Not sure how that will effect his future temptations, but do know my feet like to froze in water-filled shrimpers. Lucky I didn't sink to my ass or worse.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Would have liked a faster hunt for Brayden and, of course, the bug's "indiscretion".

Kudos: They had a big time and after Bud asked if we'd shot anything banded this year and been told not, I noticed the first bird on the strap, Brayden's, was, in fact, wearing one.

Birds By Species: 11 green-wing teal (1 banded), 1 mottled, 1 ringneck and 2 shovellers

[Deltaman]

Glad the teal are helping fill your straps, and hopefully, the cold blow this week will bring you some big ducks!
The Pee story made me laugh, but also, better appreciate some of the teeth grinding bullchit you have to put up with at times