WaterfowlForum.Net

8/19:
For the past seven seasons, these logs have been maintained as public ones in a now defunct Internet web site’s collection of logs from around the country, and the commitment to participate has been enough of a flame to my feet to keep me at it. Now, without that public commitment…well, we shall see.
We’ve been blessed with ample rain this Summer, and water levels are good in the marsh. In fact, the mudhole looked downright sweet when we passed through picking eggs in mid July:


So it was perhaps more of a surprise than it should have been that rising water temperatures brought as much of the floating humus we call “black dirt” to the surface as I found on my next first August visit:


That black dirt will have to be ground and reground until the decomposition gases are released and it settles below the surface, making a show of open water for the coming teal season.

And, as expected, the floating marsh continued its encroachment, which is particularly evident around the blind’s “island,” where cattails had all but closed the previously wide boat trail passing behind it:


The island of flotant helps conceal the blind, it won’t hold the dog’s weight and is the devil for him work his way through, so we began the process of knocking it back to what’s needed for concealment and opening swimming water or slush the dog can more easily traverse:


Didn’t grab an “after” shot, but after shredding the cats to the water with a weed eater, the ongoing process of doing the same with their subsurface root system with a prop was given a good lick. (Should a reader wonder about using poison, I find it much easier to finely shred live cattails and cut grass than dead, which become leathery tough and more apt to wrap than cut.)

Other “bad news” from the marsh includes the fact that our access to it is yet again impaired by a landowner’s failure to live up to his lease agreement and maintain the access road, which is again under water. That, and my Go-devil’s carburetor is boogered and down for cleaning.

The “good” news is that I saw a teal – and thoroughly enjoyed my morning of being in the marsh doing something ducky.

Looks like work. Hope it pays off for ya

It's been a whole lot worse, so I'm counting blessings and looking forward to getting back out there. Might even take the big mud boat from another marsh piece to expedite things - if the access road is passable. Seems like we've been getting serious rains almost daily and the principles (land and camp owners) seem to be sitting on their hands, rather than getting a pump cranked. Whole lot of "gonna" and no "done".

The coyote and I still haven't found any migrant teal on our morning rounds, but I'm getting twitchier and twitchier to do ducky things and spent a fair bit of yesterday working on my Go-devil, which I think I fixed, and out in Nic d'Aigle (nest of eagle) marsh scratching my head over how best to make this:


a duck pond. "Supposed" to be a chop-chop (run cutter) coming tomorrow that's "supposed" to be able to get around in there despite its shallow depth and sandy knolled bottom. Definitely a case of "we'll see..."

But it got me out in a marsh.

I lacked the presence of mind to take a shot of the mudboat I used, should any be interested in what that was before folks started calling anything with an air-cooled motor (something mudboats don't have) one, but I did snap a photo of something else that might not be common in other parts of the country, a lily boom raised for boat passage and then lowered to help keep floating hyacinths and salvinia from encroaching into areas where they're better controlled:

Are you using Photo bucket or something? I can't see any photos.

Works from Tapatalk

Flightstopper wrote:Works from Tapatalk

Web filter at work doesn't allow photo hosting sites.

Yep, photobucket.

Access to our big marsh is so boogered by water on the farm road to the boathouse that I've been reluctant to run out there until that's resolved, if it ever is... But others were going and we truck-pooled in for a work day. First order of business for me was knocking down the black dirt brought about by my work on the run behind the blind's island:


Then made umpteen passes at the pond's black dirt and vegetation and took on the cattail encroachment from the flotant "bank" of the pond in front of the blind:


Doing my best to shred the cats top to bottom to make passage through what remains of them this Fall as easy as possible for the poor coyote, but there's no getting around the fact that his job sucks.

8/25:

Took the big mudboat out to my Nic d'Aigle project this morning and remembered to take a couple photo's of it:




Basically an inboard with, in this case, a Chevy 350 "keel cooled" by circulating water through channels built into the bottom of the hull. They've stick steering that works great in the direction the prop's torque pushes and sucks in the other.

Also remembering Olly's video of a ride in the Mobile Bay(?) marsh, I shot one of the ride out - as best I could while trying to operate the throttle with my knee, which was plainly a skill I lack:


Hopefully, more than doubled the pond's width by poisoning beyond the single pass wide brown strip a crop duster had knocked back:


On foot and towing my supplies in a decoy sled. How much was accomplished remains to be seen, but it's certain a couple hours or so of slogging around in the midday, "feels like 115 degrees," heat pretty well stomped an old hillbilly's arse:

That Dave's rig? If I remember correctly he had some kind of rig out of the norm.

Jealous of you guys doing cool stuff

That's a neat ole boat! If you ever think about it, I'd like to see the back end/prop area. I've never seen anything like it.
What a cool area. Is that a private marsh area that gets leased? I'm just curious. I really don't know anything about your part of the world there... Very cool though!
Thanks for sharing!

Flightstopper wrote:That Dave's rig? If I remember correctly he had some kind of rig out of the norm.

No, the one Dave (not our man Comeaux) uses is a little fiberglass ratabout type mudboat. Same basic setup with a little keel cooled Toyota R200, but not half the work boat.

DeadEye_Dan wrote:Jealous of you guys doing cool stuff

Trust me, nothing cool about it today.

Duckdog wrote:That's a neat ole boat! If you ever think about it, I'd like to see the back end/prop area. I've never seen anything like it.
What a cool area. Is that a private marsh area that gets leased? I'm just curious. I really don't know anything about your part of the world there... Very cool though!
Thanks for sharing!

I can photograph the steering setup inside the boat but would have to pull it out to show you what's underneath, which is a major undertaking due to how boogered the launch site is right now. And it would disappoint, as it's just like a ship's prop and rudder, only with cutlass bearings and heavy cord packings for bearings and seals around the shafts. But if we do take a fit to haul it to one of our other marsh pieces, I'll try to remember photos.

And, yes, that and most anywhere you can run a mudboat outside major navigation channels in our area is going to be private marsh. Can't commercially hunt most of our public stuff, either.

Rick wrote:8/25:


On foot and towing my supplies in a decoy sled. How much was accomplished remains to be seen, but it's certain a couple hours or so of slogging around in the midday, "feels like 115 degrees," heat pretty well stomped an old hillbilly's arse:

Not much breathable air out there, is there? It's tick tick...

Because I was poisoning, I wore "breathable" waders, instead of wading wet, and they were sloshing with sweat when I finished.

But while we're getting our usual dose of August dog days, now, I'm not going to complain about our Summer. Would take another just like it next year. 'Cept I'm beginning to worry some about our teal...

Rick wrote:Because I was poisoning, I wore "breathable" waders, instead of wading wet, and they were sloshing with sweat when I finished.

But while we're getting our usual dose of August dog days, now, I'm not going to complain about our Summer. Would take another just like it next year. 'Cept I'm beginning to worry some about our teal...

I do agree. We have only seen our true summer for about three weeks now, It has been nice. Yeah, the teal now have me concerned as well. Full moon is on the 8th of September. Maybe that will get things moving?

8/26:

The coyote and I took a three mile stroll through some flooded second crop rice in Klondike this morning and finally saw a couple small bunches of migrant teal. Peake was 200 or so yards out each time he moved a bunch, and while the second arced my way for a possible photo, the coyote saw me crouch to work them and came running to see if he could help, which ran them off. Saw the "bigger" of the two groups, maybe a dozen, one more time in the distance when the farmer pushed them out, but, again, no photo op.

Was still nice to see some. Little boogers are fun to watch, even headed the wrong direction.

Just checked last year's preseason log and found I'm at least ahead of last year's sorry schedule, when I saw my first lone teal on the 27th. Also found:

...for the six recorded years, beginning in 2007, I've seen my first teal 8/21, 8/19, 8/21, 8/18, 8/26 and 8/8.

Rick wrote:8/26:

The coyote and I took a three mile stroll through some flooded second crop rice in Klondike this morning and finally saw a couple small bunches of migrant teal. Peake was 200 or so yards out each time he moved a bunch, and while the second arced my way for a possible photo, the coyote saw me crouch to work them and came running to see if he could help, which ran them off. Saw the "bigger" of the two groups, maybe a dozen, one more time in the distance when the farmer pushed them out, but, again, no photo op.

Was still nice to see some. Little boogers are fun to watch, even headed the wrong direction.

Just checked last year's preseason log and found I'm at least ahead of last year's sorry schedule, when I saw my first lone teal on the 27th. Also found:

...for the six recorded years, beginning in 2007, I've seen my first teal 8/21, 8/19, 8/21, 8/18, 8/26 and 8/8.

So 8/26 is not out of realm of normal, though on later end of those 6 years. "Normal", as in you had a decent teal season after the 8/26 sighting of 2011. Well then...... one can only infer now that we shall have good season

Hearing of a few on our end though not specifically in my marsh, then again no one I know has been in our marsh since my brief ride on 8/15.

Darren wrote:So 8/26 is not out of realm of normal, though on later end of those 6 years. "Normal", as in you had a decent teal season after the 8/26 sighting of 2011. Well then...... one can only infer now that we shall have good season

We'll hope it's on omen, as 2011 was our second best September of those logged. But I've been through a lot of prime habitat the past couple days without seeing more, and the guys I'm talking to in other usually good areas aren't seeing much, if anything, yet either. Reckon it will just make it that much neater when they do show in force.

Was 46° here this morning, guessing it won't take much more of that before they move on from here

Los like fun marsh for my gatortail

Last guy who said that cracked my ribs with his. Too many sandy knolls in sections of it. And, while it may of been an operator thing, the surface drive seemed a lot more prone to wrapping cutgrass.

8/31:

Told myself I was done looking for teal that just aren't here yet, but still found myself taking the coyote for a long hike in the rice that looped back by the spot we'd found the only two little bunches seen to date on the 26th. And true to this year's form, nadda - until we got around to that same area, where there were again a small and a bit larger group. This being the later:



Pee poor video for sure, but I was holding the tail end of a super large coffee in one hand and the camera in the other, while a deer fly drilled a hole in my temple.

RICK, get out there and film some teal in the rice, or anywhere for that matter, and post videos. I'm having withdrawals.

I'm getting some reliable reports, but still not seeing much myself. Probably take the coyote for a spin this morning to re-familiarize myself with a "new again" piece the farmer tells me has a mess.

We'll we took that hike and tried to video while the deer flies ate my ears and eyes, but as you'll see:



The few smaller ducks that flushed with the mottleds were undoubtedly woodies, as teal tend to stay bunched together and buzz out under the big ducks, rather than with them.

These little plants with leaves about the size of a fingernail were what they appeared to be using:


Anyone know what they are?

Oh, and here's a spot that looks like teal Heaven, but isn't yet:

Rick wrote:We'll we took that hike and tried to video while the deer flies ate my ears and eyes, but as you'll see:



The few smaller ducks that flushed with the mottleds were undoubtedly woodies, as teal tend to stay bunched together and buzz out under the big ducks, rather than with them.

Thank you! My spasm's have subsided some. I plan on being out a the property in the morning. I must keep the deer flies satisfied and full.