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Date: 1/20

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: none to light southerly

Temperature: warm

Barometer:

Moon phase: new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: other than a few spoons and fewer teal, what little we saw was serious high

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully, the mallards would fall from the heavens to the call. But what few spoons and teal came bounced off the spinner like they knew exactly what it is.

Hunters: 2, Ken and John again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Peake saved our hunt catching chipped birds.

Special Equipment: sos

Kudos: pleasant morning in spite of the lack of birds.

Curses: just the lack of game.

Birds By Species: 4 mallards, 1 pintail and 1 spoon

Photo Ops: One that wasn't going to get away:


and one that was:


One of "those" mornings:

Date: 1/21

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: dense ground fog

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE nil to moderate

Temperature: warm to cool

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Was clear and calm again when I aired the coyote this morning, and I vowed to hail every duck I saw this morning to try to send my guys home on a good one. Turned out to be easy, as we couldn't see squat.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Blackbellies liked the herding dog whistle.

Hunters: 2, John and Ken's last morning

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Coyote celebrated his 8th birthday by snoozing most of the morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Kudos: Ken made a sweet double on the only dogris/scaup we've shot this year.

Curses: sure would have liked to send them home on a better hunt.

Birds By Species: 1 blackbellied whistling duck, 1 gadwall, 2 gw teal, 2 scaup and 1 shoveller

Photo Ops:

Date: 1/22

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy

Wind Direction and Velocity: Easterly strong

Temperature: cool

Barometer: 30.03 flat

Moon phase: crescent waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: strong mile high flight but next to nothing working the marsh

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Like to blew the reed out of the MVP doing screaming contest hails but enough broke to have the only full strap in the marsh - and quickly, in large part because of the spoons which were most apt to power dive from the heavens and often drug some big ducks with them.

Hunters: 2, Timmy and Ryan

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS

Kudos: Good guys who were tickled by the show and would have been happy shooting 18 spoons if I'd not talked them into letting them pass after we had a mess.

Curses: Wasn't a lot of shooting in the marsh, but the timing when we had specks or big ducks on final approach was frustrating.

Birds By Species: 4 gadwall, 1 gw teal, 4 mallards, 1 ringneck, 8 spoons and 2 specks

Photo Ops: Timmy and Ryan:


Runaway Susie:

Very nice! Much better than the "show" I had today for my season closer.

NICE!!!

Sounds like you earned your keep! Great report Rick!!!!!

Good deal, I'm going after them up here in northeast corner of state the next 3 days to close it out. Hope this weather change brings us some birds from somewhere.

Ours were all going south, but fickle as they are could be at your place tomorrow.

Rick wrote:Ours were all going south, but fickle as they are could be at your place tomorrow.

Ha true, I just hope we have a good shoot one of the next 3 days.

Hell, I hope we all have good shoots all three of the next three days. But we'll see...

Date: 1/23

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy with occasional mist

Wind Direction and Velocity: Strong north

Temperature: cold

Barometer: 29.96 rising

Moon phase: cresent

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Might have been beat up from the all afternoon and night rain, might have been scattered on new sheet water, might have just been on the wrong end of the marsh but we saw precious little beyond a few early teal. Better teal blinds to east had appreciably better hunts today.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: what few high ducks there were almost all refused to break down for me in such strong wind.

Hunters: 2, Kevin and Bruce

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Peake plainly didn't want to be there, was balky and even let a bird get away from him after having worked his tail off to catch it the first time.

Special Equipment: sos

Kudos: nice guys

Curses: poor flight and dog work

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 4 gw teal and 3 mallards

Photo Ops: photos I took were crappy, too.

I did think about you while driving into work this morning in that rain and wind. Brrrrr! Tell Peake, just two more days.
I'll be out there in the morning.

DComeaux wrote:I did think about you while driving into work this morning in that rain and wind. Brrrrr! Tell Peake, just two more days.
I'll be out there in the morning.

Trust he'll be able to sit back in the house on the miserable days next year and say, "Go get 'em, Pup. And no bitchin'. When I was your age, the marsh was always iced up, the hunters always wing-tipped everything, and we had to swim to the blind and back everyday. Uphill both ways."

Addendum to "Birds by Species" January 23, 2015: 1 blue and 1 snow

Addendum to "Birds by Species" 1/8/15: 1 speck

We had a decent mixed bag of 16 today. Was NASTY, 40 degrees, misting, and north 10-20 mph.

Ericdc wrote:We had a decent mixed bag of 16 today. Was NASTY, 40 degrees, misting, and north 10-20 mph.

OMG. 40 degrees, misting, and 10-20 mph wind. That is NASTY.

It's going to practically be t-shirt weather around here tomorrow. 41, 10 mph wind and chance of snow in the evening.

I guess it's all relative.

SpinnerMan wrote:

Ericdc wrote:We had a decent mixed bag of 16 today. Was NASTY, 40 degrees, misting, and north 10-20 mph.

OMG. 40 degrees, misting, and 10-20 mph wind. That is NASTY.

It's going to practically be t-shirt weather around here tomorrow. 41, 10 mph wind and chance of snow in the evening.

I guess it's all relative.

Well humidity makes a difference....right Rick?

I'm sure SpinnerMan is ever so much tougher than us, but it was plenty cold enough for me in a blind facing that crap, and the last time I hunted Yankeeland I was comfortable in long sleeves and a vest at 15 degrees - albeit following pointing dogs, instead of standing in a blind.

Rick wrote:I'm sure SpinnerMan is ever so much tougher than us, but it was plenty cold enough for me in a blind facing that crap, and the last time I hunted Yankeeland I was comfortable in long sleeves and a vest at 15 degrees - albeit following pointing dogs, instead of standing in a blind.

We get humidity up here too. Granted not as frequent as you guys. Coming off of a stretch where it was well below zero on a few mornings, when it warmed back up into the 30's, it feels a whole lot warm. The 41 for tomorrow is literally 50 degrees warmer than are low a couple weeks ago.

It's pretty amazing how the body adjusts.

Date: 1/24

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: WNW light to moderate

Temperature: kinda cold (frost)

Barometer: 39.22 rising slighty

Moon phase: crescent waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: seems like we didn't see pecans, but ended up being enough for a decent hunt

Waterfowl Responsiveness: aside from what got banged out, it couldn't have been much better. Even tripped up several plainly local mallards that knew better.

Hunters: 2, Brady, a deer hunter, and Kyle (Bills QB?), a brand new duck hunter.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Still acting balky, but also made a couple super sweet long tipped crip retrieves. (That, and he may have eaten a teal bill - unless we happened to shoot it clean off.)

Special Equipment: SOS, though the spinner was mostly off in response to precious few teal and mostly local birds about.

Kudos: Guys were anxious to take direction and wicked quick shooters that let us take advantage of birds most parties would have no chance at.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 4 gw teal, 7 mallards, 2 pintails and 1 spoon

Photo Ops: Kyle and Brady, on left, with their pals:

Good hunt,Rick!

Looks to be Kyle Orton of the Bills, indeed. Apparently he became the starter late last season and finished strong.....but then announced his retirement in December. Never know who will walk through the doors huh.....

nice hunt!

I didn't know him from Adam, but heard some guys talking about getting his autograph and asked a grandson if he knew who Kyle Orton was. Super nice guy who was anxious to learn and a quick study.

Date: 1/25

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: SW moderate

Temperature: cool

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: last day of ducks

Waterfowl Activity: Nil high or low.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Virtually everything we saw gave us a chance. BBWs came sweet to "begging" chirping on herding whistle.

Hunters: Brady and Kyle again

Guns:

Malfunctions: Only that I wasn't loaded for the first bunch of BBWs

Dog(s): Peake did a super job on three long chips but got beat by one, too.

Special Equipment: SOS

Kudos: A pleasant morning with nice guys who made the most of slim opportunity.

Curses: Could say the lack of game, but maybe it's best to end it on a slow one.

Birds By Species: 4 black-bellied whistling ducks, 2 mallards, 3 pintails and 1 spoon

Photo Ops: A pin comes in:

Took a friend out to the mudhole to see what the afternoon might bring and ended up sky watching for five or six hours without firing a shot. Unbelievably barren.

Excellent strap for the last day of ducks, Sir Rick. You sent them home with a quality strap. Good luck with the geese.

More like a "fortunate strap," as it was the big one for the camp from eerily empty skies. Was a little surprising how much I missed seeing the local mallards we apparently killed or ran off yesterday occasionally stretch their wings and act like they might be tripped up now that they had been. But I don't have to look beyond last season to be thankful this one ended as well as it did: the mudhole averaged just 4 birds a morning that final week, compared to 10 birds per this one. Hope the sorry reports from around the region for the past few weeks has given the geniuses that successfully lobbied to move our season back a week cause to rethink the "later is better" mentality...

Rick wrote: Hope the sorry reports from around the region for the past few weeks has given the geniuses that successfully lobbied to move our season back a week cause to rethink the "later is better" mentality...

YES!

Rick wrote:More like a "fortunate strap," as it was the big one for the camp from eerily empty skies. Was a little surprising how much I missed seeing the local mallards we apparently killed or ran off yesterday occasionally stretch their wings and act like they might be tripped up now that they had been. But I don't have to look beyond last season to be thankful this one ended as well as it did: the mudhole averaged just 4 birds a morning that final week, compared to 10 birds per this one. Hope the sorry reports from around the region for the past few weeks has given the geniuses that successfully lobbied to move our season back a week cause to rethink the "later is better" mentality...

Yeaaa...probably won't. Survey continues to show that idiots want to hunt late, yet they're not actually killing anything in doing so. Shared this on my FB page last week:

http://www.nola.com/outdoors/index.ssf/ ... es_on.html