Duck Season 2014-2015

[Darren]

Sun. 12/28/2014
SE La public marsh
Johnny and I
Wind zero mostly to 5 sometimes from S/SW, 60's to start, light to moderate fog with a few sprinkles

Gave a new little broken marsh hole a shot for first time, we've passed it many times and had been holding mallards and teal fairly regularly. A few teal showed mostly early but not a whole lot overall, shot fairly well with about all we had. Got a few surprise redhead flights across us and picked up a stud mottled that's planned for the wall in addition to a few green wings. Really need the front coming through today, Wednesday looks promising so we'll hold out hope for then.

4 GW teal, 2 redheads, 1 mottled

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[DComeaux]

That's a good looking mottled! and you got my redhead drake...

[Darren]

Wed. 12/31/2014
SE La public marsh
Johnny & I
N/NE winds as forecast...rippin' 10-20, 30's to start, clear skies

Against my better judgment gave Spoon Island one last try, even though I saw no birds around it on yesterday's scout mission.....mistake. Only took about first 20 minutes of LST to see there was nothing working it and then when it got light enough saw a pile on south end of our big water via binoculars, grrrrr. Pack your stuff, I said. Made a move and they were trying to come back in around us in the pirogues, grays, few teal, some spoons. Haphazard decoys hurt us at first but started getting a few then the BIG wads started working us. It was a helluva show to see but really not ideal at all for actually killing them and too much season left for me to shoot into these big flocks. They'd get iffy close then flare for another swing, etc. Cool to watch but we didn't shoot, should have just shot camera. That shut down and left us with really nothing else, no teal around strangely. Had one last 3 pack of grays commit and took them all. Packed it up at 10:00 after hoping to wait out a later flight but didn't happen. Saw some birds in other places we hunt but a post-hunt scout showed they really weren't piled up anywhere else so where we were was really the best general area. Just need to figure a better set up. May even give Johnny's layout boats a try in middle of bay because that's really where they want to be. Tons of birds, just hard to get the big numbers to commit to shoreline or point setups; we've had this exact problem many times in past seasons in this exact place......a trend indeed!

7 grays, 1 spoon, lost one long-off crip gray in next pond to our south

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[Darren]

Sat. 1/3/2015
SE La public land
Beau & I
Wind 5 to 12+, 60's to start, pt cloudy then fog rolled in for about an hour then cleared back up to just pt cloudy

Scouting yesterday showed a bunch of grays just south of Spoon Island, and a bunch of spoons and teal north of Spoon Island, so it was Spoon Island for us this morning. The spoons and teal hardly showed and the few that did wanted zero to do with the blind, lit wide on us every time, not one worked our decoys. Grays showed later in hunt in impressive wads, with good many working us but getting them to the gun was worse than pulling teeth. The thick snotty grass around this blind doesn't help since it keeps the decoys from moving. Had but one group of 4 give us a decent chance and we put down 2, had another trio stay just on edge of dekes we didn't try. Typical late season stuff, they want the middle of bigger waters. Lost two other crip big ducks from early that sailed off a good bit, searched to no avail.

Front coming through this evening so we'll try again in the morning. Areas just west of us a couple of miles were blazing away this morning so hopefully a westerly wind blows them back to us.

2 grays

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[Duckdog]

Excellent pics!

[Rick]

Agreed. Except that Beau guy's pretty funny looking, and you can tell him I said so.

[Darren]

These were all camera phone pics; wish I'd had some with the DSLR but it was in blind bag stashed in my pirogue outside the blind because marsh is so flooded from high water I had no land to set it down on. We'll go try again in the morning and hope we're in the game. Frustrating when we have birds in the area but not able to get on them in the right locations under the right conditions which has made all the difference in the world lately. Well, that, and I had to endure all the photos from buddies hunting west of us with pretty straps full of grays.

[Darren]

Sun. 1/4/2015
SE La public land
Beau, Johnny & I
Wind 10 to 15+, low 50s to start and stayed there, cloudy, frontal passage over night, saw cool moon set while setting up

Back in the comfy big blind for first time since 12/7 with a front coming through over night. Had a few grays work us early and that looked encouraging but the bulk of the flights, just as on 12/7, would hang over us but had their sights plainly set on the large bay to our immediate north. Very few would swing to give us a chance so we had to just pick at what we were given while a few other blinds in the game absolutely blistered them today, all within a 500 yard radius of us. Frustrating again, but just how it goes I guess. We missed a few but not much, and had zero teal flight or anything else, just the grays. As tough as it was to see the masses drop in on others, had we been given a lil teal flight we'd have probably scraped together a pretty nice strap.

We'll make the proper adjustments this coming week/weekend.

3 grays, 2 redheads, 1 spoon

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[Rick]

Watched that moon set going to the blind this morning and wanted to get a pic, but it was behind the trees when we reached the blind. Glad to have seen it, anyway.

[Darren]

Watched that moon set going to the blind this morning and wanted to get a pic, but it was behind the trees when we reached the blind. Glad to have seen it, anyway.

Yep I thought of trying to grab a shot but not confident enough in new camera to find the right setting just yet. That and we were busy getting set up, and it was well set by time I climbed in the blind. Really neat, but I won't mind seeing it fade as we hit the home stretch of the season.

[Darren]

Wed. 1/7/2015
SE La public marsh
Johnny & I
Wind 5-15 N/NE, temps upper 30's to start, mostly cloudy skies, still big moon

Right place, very wrong time. Had the marsh to ourselves this morning with water levels down considerably from the weekend. Used Johnny's layout boats to put us exactly on what has been the X from recent weeks, including this past weekend. Only problem was birds didn't show, hardly picked up my call, never even thought about raising the gun to shoot. Thought maybe our birds had left but saw massive, massive numbers of mostly grays in two of the usual holding/rafting areas as they'd get up to circle a few times before going right back down. Others had similar luck this morning with little or no flight in the marsh. I'd say "not a feather any where near us" but we actually had quite the jam-up white pelican flight, neat to watch when there's no ducks.

This morning again supports my theory of lower water conditions favoring the ducks as they can loaf on the big water and still get to the feed. When the water levels come up, the big waters are too deep to feed so it forces them into the marsh/smaller waters to feed. Today conditions were 100% in their favor and I don't see that changing through this weekend, we'll just have to try to get in on that big water somehow.

Did Not Shoot, only the camera

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[Darren]

Checked out some old stompin grounds today around lunch time, close to where I took my youth hunter at beginning of season, and found good pile of grays. We're going to try them in the AM with a good N/NE wind forecast.

[DComeaux]

Good luck, Darren!

[Darren]

Sat. 1/10/2015
SE La public marsh
Anthony, Raymond, Justin M., & I
NE winds 15-20+, mid 20's to start, mostly clear skies, lingering big moon, water fairly low

Set up where I scouted yesterday which was just like old times, we used to hunt here a lot but it's been a few years since last visit. With four of us, set out a big spread of about 75-80 dekes and blinded up with the branches I cut yesterday post-scout.......it paid off. We weren't quite on the X which is in middle of this big pond but we were close enough to get our share. Knocked down 26 in total but lost a couple of cripples early on. Grays were working in all directions from the start with a few teal and divers around as well. Later in morning saw quite a few mallards to our immediate north in some broken marsh.......would likely be a mallard slam if we actually took the time to target them because no one fools with them, typical SE La hunters ha!

23 ducks--18 grays, 1 wigeon, 1 dosgris (scaup), 1 pintail, 1 mallard, 1 GW teal

We'll try 'em again in the morning and probably stick to the same set up

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[Flightstopper]

Great morning

[DComeaux]

That's awesome Darren! Hunts like that toward the end of the season seem to overshadow the less successful ones during the season, for me anyway.

[Darren]

Few hat-cam clips from today's hunt using Justin's GoPro:

[Rick]

Excellent. Keep that up and there may be some guy with a S-10 and Go-devil boat shadowing you.

[DComeaux]

Excellent. Keep that up and there may be some guy with a S-10 and Go-devil boat shadowing you.

Pick me up on your way through here. I got a gopro for Christmas and haven't had anything to video. I'll bring the biscuits.

[Flightstopper]

Might have a guy in a jet boat creapin' on the go devil as well. If said guy had it running.

[Darren]

Excellent. Keep that up and there may be some guy with a S-10 and Go-devil boat shadowing you.

Y'all come on! Apparently very mixed results in our area though, multiple other blinds of buddies saw only a few birds while we saw droves. Tomorrow could be very different, I just hope it isn't

[Darren]

Sun. 1/11/2015
SE La public marsh
Anthony, Johnny & I
ENE winds 15-20, low 40's to start, cloudy skies, water back up a good bit

Back to same location as yesterday but different conditions with the water back up and heavy cloud cover. Saw a good many birds still but not nearly what we did yesterday. Those that came in big groups seemed particularly skittish and didn't give us much of a look. Had one good group of about 6 grays fully commit but we didn't catch them till the last second so only able to scratch down 3. Other grays came in singles. Very little shooting in the area overall; we're thinking the higher water bumped them out of these deeper ponds for now. Also seeing some good numbers in other areas we used to frequent nearby so may give those a look as well in these last couple of weeks.

5 grays, 1 bufflehead (season's first), 1 GW teal

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[Rick]

That's a dandy.

[DComeaux]

That is a beautiful bird.

[Flightstopper]

One of the best greys I've seen

[Duckdog]

I agree! That picture really captures that bird! Those golden outlined colors almost look fake...
Beautiful!

[Darren]

Glad y'all too can appreciate the late-season beauty of an ol gray duck, would make for nice wall pieces but I've already got one hanging up. The last two days we've seen some real studs.

Still saw quite a number of birds today but seemed extra skittish, hope they settle down this week.

[sws002]

Damn, that is a stud gaddy!

[Darren]

Another of that stud gray just as I plopped him in the pirogue

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[Flightstopper]

Stud for sure.