2016 Preseason:

2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Thu Aug 06, 2015 1:59 pm

I'd like to start this season's log with thanks to Olly for hosting us, the hope that more folks will take advantage of the opportunity to share their seasons with the rest of us and thanks to those who do.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:19 pm

8/6:
Not much in the way of bird activity, much less action, to report this early on, but our preseason preparations are well underway, albeit mostly pretty dull stuff like trying to restore farmland-returned-to cattail marsh into something more attractive to ducks and geese. Sort of like NASCAR in super slow-slow-slow mo:
Image

Or digging through said born-again wildernesses in search of water controls that may or may not be there, some dang where, much less effective. Was doing some of that this morning when I got video these characters enjoying one of my failures to find meaningful plumbing:


Mostly fulvous tree/whistling ducks with a few of their black-bellied cousins and mottleds. Nary a teal I could discern, but I did get to see a lone lost or perhaps lame until his/her molt into eclipse phase spoonbill drop back into that gone to marsh field I've as yet failed to get the water off.

And our man DComeaux may be pleased to hear that his leaky pit is at the pump and its replacement may, or may not..., be in. Hope to get back out there this afternoon to see how that project's faring.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Fri Aug 07, 2015 8:21 pm

I'd love to share like you, but with as competitive as leases are up here and some of the stories I've heard, I choose to keep fairly quiet.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:29 pm

Good video, what device are you using?
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Sat Aug 08, 2015 5:18 am

Don't think I've ever flat "lied" about locations, but I'm sometimes "less than forthcoming".

That video was shot with a little Casio EX800 travel zoom that's cheap enough to carry most everywhere without fear of drowning.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:43 am

Haven't done pecans, other than field some phone calls, by way of other preseason preparation today but did get the hounds out for a morning spin in flooded stubbles and found that young Marsh Fire can count to three by running his first few simple triples. Don't know that we'll let him see another for a while, as we need to work on his handling before getting too tricky, but it's nice to know his memory functions.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:54 am

Good deal. That's a cool dog name.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Deltaman » Mon Aug 10, 2015 7:54 am

Cool video Rick :thumbsup: Those white asses on the Whistlers sure stand out when they are jumping up. The long necks and legs make them seem almost clumsy looking, and sometimes look like a shore bird in flight. Seems like you have mentioned them as a good eating bird. What other duck would you compare them to as table fare?
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so"
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:10 am

Deltaman wrote:Cool video Rick :thumbsup: Those white asses on the Whistlers sure stand out when they are jumping up. The long necks and legs make them seem almost clumsy looking, and sometimes look like a shore bird in flight. Seems like you have mentioned them as a good eating bird. What other duck would you compare them to as table fare?


I've eaten quite a few of them. The skin is a little tough best I remember, but the meat is really good. Very mild from what I remember.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Darren » Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:07 am

Deltaman wrote:The long necks and legs make them seem almost clumsy looking, and sometimes look like a shore bird in flight.


Took a whole lot of convincing for me to pull the trigger the first time one of those fluttered in over the dekes. Just didn't seem right, or at all "duck like"
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:54 pm

Deltaman wrote:Seems like you have mentioned them as a good eating bird. What other duck would you compare them to as table fare?


Presumably because they don't fly fast or far, they've less oxygen (read "blood") need in their breasts and are more like domestic duck than other wild ones.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:55 pm

Rick wrote:
Deltaman wrote:Seems like you have mentioned them as a good eating bird. What other duck would you compare them to as table fare?


Presumably because they don't fly fast or far, they've less oxygen (read "blood") need in their breasts and are more like domestic duck than other wild ones.


Favorite ways to dress and eat them?
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Mon Aug 10, 2015 1:13 pm

Pot-roasted whole after slicing pockets, front to back, between ribs and breast meat and stuffing them with chopped bacon, onion, green peppers, garlic, salt and Kitchen Bouquet. Or the breast fillets and legs simply sauteed in butter to medium rare and topped with a sauce made from stewing the thin sliced heart and gizzard until tender in water/apple juice/7-Up/whatever and seasonings until tender and then combined with the saute pan scrapings.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Mon Aug 10, 2015 1:39 pm

Rick wrote:Pot-roasted whole after slicing pockets, front to back, between ribs and breast meat and stuffing them with chopped bacon, onion, green peppers, garlic, salt and Kitchen Bouquet. Or the breast fillets and legs simply sauteed in butter to medium rare and topped with a sauce made from stewing the thin sliced heart and gizzard until tender in water/apple juice/7-Up/whatever and seasonings until tender and then combined with the saute pan scrapings.


Sounds good, they pretty hard to pluck from what I remember?

I've never tried stuffing the whole ducks for a pot roast, need to try it.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Fri Aug 14, 2015 6:18 am

8/13:
Talked to a friend just back from fishing Toledo Bend who felt he'd seen a couple hundred teal there, though my skeptical nature makes me suspect wood ducks wad up there like they do in our marshes this time of year.

All the same, it put me in "teal watch" mode and inspired me to check on the spot where I videoed the tree ducks. Water's much lower, though still not draining as hoped for plowing, and the tree ducks were gone. Just a couple dozen mottleds and six or eight little ducks that jumped too far out for positive ID but appeared and acted more like woodies than teal.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Fri Aug 14, 2015 7:58 am

I usually catch some flights at my pond when they are pushing through, especially in dry years like its getting. The 20 live mallard decoys tend to draw them well.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Sun Aug 16, 2015 12:16 pm

At our house training young master Marsh Fire is a mighty important part of our preseason preparation, so I may as well start including it here.

The latest development thereof has been the addition of Bieber, a young free-range domestic "flying mallard"/English caller hybrid drake a friend blessed us with. Our plan was just to hang onto him until Marsh was ready to work on search for cripples in water, which nothing can teach as well as a live wing-clipped duck and, especially, one accustomed to dealing with predators as Bieber is. But the plan took a bad turn when I added Bieber to my pigeon loft, and the homers reacted as if I'd tossed a Cooper's hawk in with them. That came as quite a surprise, as many of them had previously hosted two other callers, Bob and Dylan, for several months without discord. All I can figure is that even pigeons have sense enough to hate the Bieb.

Regardless, I'd decided he had to go back where he came from and planned to use him for a couple simple "intro to ducks" retrieves this morning before returning him to his home pond. The drill was straight forward as it could be: clipped wings, shackled legs and a short toss in shallow flooded second crop rice. And, aside from an unexpected break on young Marsh's part, the first retrieve went as planned:
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The second retrieve went sideways. This time Marsh was steady, but Bieber was not:
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"Where the heck did he go?"
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"Psst! He's right there."
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"Now he's behind you, fool!"
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Alas, the pup's conditioning to sit on command for instruction and follow it is still far from strong enough to override his own determination at this point, and it took quite a while to gain the half-trained little dog's attention and compliance well enough to put him on the clever bird and bring it to hand:
Image

Not the pup's fault things went as they did, was the chump who tied his bird's feet's. But it was a circus act we're not anxious to repeat when teal opens, so we'll be stepping up our training efforts, and the pigeons are just going to have to get used to rooming with Bieber, at least until we give it another go in a few weeks.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Sun Aug 16, 2015 12:34 pm

So I assume this helps him develop a soft mouth since the duck will be used again?
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Sun Aug 16, 2015 5:31 pm

Live game's more apt to do just the opposite, as it presents the excitement of prey and desire to keep it from escaping. "Mouth" is a product of both nature and nurture, and Marsh has been soft mouthed with bumpers and birds by nature and kept from developing bad mouth habits by nurture. Marsh is yet to harm a live pigeon, and ducks are appreciably sturdier.

But they'll all center-punch a bird that's hard to catch or pull from cover from time to time.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:49 pm

Rick wrote:Live game's more apt to do just the opposite, as it presents the excitement of prey and desire to keep it from escaping. "Mouth" is a product of both nature and nurture, and Marsh has been soft mouthed with bumpers and birds by nature and kept from developing bad mouth habits by nurture. Marsh is yet to harm a live pigeon, and ducks are appreciably sturdier.

But they'll all center-punch a bird that's hard to catch or pull from cover from time to time.


I see, well here's to bieber having a long happy life....right?
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:01 am

Eggzackly.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Deltaman » Mon Aug 17, 2015 7:47 am

Looking good Rick, and great pics of the slick duck attempts to get away.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so"
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:30 am

8/19:
Heard a reliable report of multiple small groups of teal at Coteau Platte.

Thought the several rain cells around us might help us see a few in Klondike, as well, when I ran the dogs in flooded stubbles there this morning, but no dice. Saw only a small flock of blackbellies, but they were kind enough to make several passes for my whistle, and one lit about thirty yards out from where I stood in a black t-shirt and jeans on a grass road.

Rain cut our outing short, which is a very good thing this ultra dry Summer. Let it pour, my mudhole needs the water.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Darren » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:09 am

Rick wrote:8/19:
Heard a reliable report of multiple small groups of teal at Coteau Platte.

Thought the several rain cells around us might help us see a few in Klondike, as well, when I ran the dogs in flooded stubbles there this morning, but no dice. Saw only a small flock of blackbellies, but they were kind enough to make several passes for my whistle, and one lit about thirty yards out from where I stood in a black t-shirt and jeans on a grass road.

Rain cut our outing short, which is a very good thing this ultra dry Summer. Let it pour, my mudhole needs the water.


Can't say I'm familiar with Coteau Platte; Where about's ? Could be far tip of northern Louisiana, and I'd still be :P
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:29 am

That's a local name for what was one of our area's premier hunting spots, south of 14 and just east of Lacassine Bayou, until Lacassine NWR sucked it up. Rice is still farmed on much of it, and it was one of the farmers, who knows what he's looking at, who spotted the teal.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:55 am

Rick wrote:That's a local name for what was one of our area's premier hunting spots, south of 14 and just east of Lacassine Bayou, until Lacassine NWR sucked it up. Rice is still farmed on much of it, and it was one of the farmers, who knows what he's looking at, who spotted the teal.


That where they do the Lacassine lottery hunts? Streeter road I think?
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:06 am

I don't know if there are lottery blinds on Coteau Platte, as well, but the area generally known as "Streeters" is much nearer the headquarters complex on the refuge's east end, where they also have some ag land.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Ericdc » Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:08 am

Yea they do the lottery hunts off streeter road where the observation area is.
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Rick » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:40 pm

Still haven't spotted a teal, but did encounter this poor fellow in a mixed group of black-bellied and fulvous whistling ducks:
Image

Image

Couldn't help but think of the old Far Side cartoon depicting a pair of bears, one of which having a bulls-eye on its chest and the other saying, "Bummer birthmark."
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Re: 2016 Preseason:

Postby Darren » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:12 am

Look the mottleds keeping to themselves in the background. Maybe 'ol white patch can be one you keep up with in future visits.
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