Preseason 2016

[Ducaholic]

Gotta be resourceful and use stuff we find out there, which considering the storm history of the area and the proximity to camps.........scrap wood is usually easy to come by in the wrack.

And the nails and screws...

[Darren]

Gotta be resourceful and use stuff we find out there, which considering the storm history of the area and the proximity to camps.........scrap wood is usually easy to come by in the wrack.

And the nails and screws...

...........tends to work better than mud and moss.

[Ducaholic]

Gotta be resourceful and use stuff we find out there, which considering the storm history of the area and the proximity to camps.........scrap wood is usually easy to come by in the wrack.

And the nails and screws...

...........tends to work better than mud and moss.

[Darren]

Delacroix area teal from yesterday, mostly (if not entirely) blue wings



Passed on to me by a friend, not my video.

Neat to see them, though they're not really our birds since our area is typically a gray duck stronghold and don't see many teal other than those pressured toward the outer marshes once the shooting starts. Youth hunters should enjoy them down there this weekend if tomorrow's north winds don't blow them down to Cancun.

[DComeaux]

Looks like we need to open teal the first week of November and big duck in December.

[Darren]

Looks like we need to open teal the first week of November and big duck in December.

Undoubtedly that is what it was supposed to look like in September, but the masses hadn't shown. For the youth hunters that will likely get plenty of these blue wings this weekend down there, would be very curious to know the drake/hen makeup of the harvest. E.g. much more balanced ratio vs. the very high number of drakes most saw during September??

Maybe Rick will get a few at his blind and can report.

Have been getting sporadic, fairly trustworthy reports of good numbers of grays in our vicinity down that way, but nothing better than third-hand so far and that will likely be the case until next Friday when I can ride around to see for myself.

[DComeaux]

Looks like we need to open teal the first week of November and big duck in December.

Undoubtedly that is what it was supposed to look like in September, but the masses hadn't shown. For the youth hunters that will likely get plenty of these blue wings this weekend down there, would be very curious to know the drake/hen makeup of the harvest. E.g. much more balanced ratio vs. the very high number of drakes most saw during September??

Maybe Rick will get a few at his blind and can report.

Have been getting sporadic, fairly trustworthy reports of good numbers of grays in our vicinity down that way, but nothing better than third-hand so far and that will likely be the case until next Friday when I can ride around to see for myself.

I'll be out at our place on Sunday and hope to see some birds. Never hear or see many reports from where we hunt now, ever...it stays quiet.

[Rick]

Maybe Rick will get a few at his blind and can report.

Heard a wood duck at my blind this morning, so I'd be thrilled to show my hunter some bluewings.

[Darren]

As grim as that is we'll just hope your blind/marsh is doing it's usual pre-opener sandbagging, and all will be well Saturday.

[DComeaux]

Rick and his marsh are masters at sandbagging....

[Rick]

Rick and his marsh are masters at sandbagging....

Proper expectation management makes most surprises good ones.

[Darren]

Rick and his marsh are masters at sandbagging....

Proper expectation management makes most surprises good ones.

As expected, Rick, the mudhole delivered Saturday, even if the young gun couldn't connect.

Youth hunt reports I got from Delacroix area included a whole lot of blue wings out and about, and the youngins connected on a few, and educated a boat load. All blinds I know of were in areas known primarily for teal rather than grays out further in the marsh by us so hopefully the big birds were out that way.

Report/picture I got from Venice had grays and pintail filling the strap.

East winds are rockin for the next couple of days at least so that will bring water way up. Hoping the swing toward northerly anticipated by thursday will be enough to get us back down to manageable levels for Saturday's opener. Otherwise we might be shin deep in the blind......

[Rick]

Given the usual order of things here, I'm pretty sure all the gray ducks we saw were lost and looking for something more brackish.

[Deltaman]

"Report/picture I got from Venice had grays and pintail filling the strap."

Glad to hear that report Darren, Thanks! We are headed down that way Thursday for the opener Saturday, and have had concerns that we might be doing more fishing than hunting based on the reports I have been hearing.

[Darren]

"Report/picture I got from Venice had grays and pintail filling the strap."

Glad to hear that report Darren, Thanks! We are headed down that way Thursday for the opener Saturday, and have had concerns that we might be doing more fishing than hunting based on the reports I have been hearing.

Couldn't tell you a thing about where they might have been because all I was given was the pic and report third hand. But pins and grays in Venice sounds about right for early season and I'm sure some BW's are still going to be around as well. Didn't get any other reports from down that way but working down below Belle Chasse tomorrow so will keep eyes open.

Good luck!

[Darren]

We were hit with bad news yesterday......losing access to our go-to pond at the lease due to boundary discrepancy with landowner. They only provide very poor, non-detailed (old topographic) maps for lessee's use and we are fully confident this location is "on" us, albeit near our boundary, they've determined its actually in an area they're intending to hold as a refuge. Grrrrr. I like that just fine but sure won't when we watch them pile into there without harassment. Nonetheless we've got other options so tomorrow morning we'll be running around scrambling to deconstruct, then REconstruct in other locales. We'd continue to fight it but don't want to rock the boat and lose the piece.

I work with all sorts of maps for a living, we're 100% confident in our assessment based on what they provided us, but a neighbor raised the question with them and opened the can of worms, otherwise this never would have come up. Not happy campers over this way........

[DComeaux]

Well that sucks!!!!

[Rick]

That "refuge" may well be too close to something the neighbor hunts. But given that it's a lease you know to be strong and you're new there, I'm with you on not making waves.

[Darren]

That "refuge" may well be too close to something the neighbor hunts. But given that it's a lease you know to be strong and you're new there, I'm with you on not making waves.

Definitely, Rick. My buddy is the official lessee and he's had this tract for 4 years now I think, but last year was my first experience on it. We've been asking for real maps, delineated aerials which are so common from others in the business around here (and I'm sure elsewhere) but they've insisted the old topos are all they have.

Funny thing about the neighbor hunting is that we encountered him in the pond one morning last year on arrival, to which he said he didn't know where the boundary was, didn't know we were coming back after opening weekend, etc. etc. and left on his own accord apologetically. He then raised this issue a couple weeks back and took it to the managing company, and also told them that he was under the impression it was a refuge area. Though that's funny considering he was waiting in the dark in said refuge area last fall with his decoys out. Maybe just to bird watch and photograph? Brought dog along just in case, though.

No one will be hunting it, we're confident in that. "If we can't no one can......." I guess

We have good faith in a couple of alternate holes nearby that actually are far easier to access and friendlier for Harry's retrieves since they're a bit deeper and thus easier for him to swim.

[Darren]

Made the opener-eve rounds Friday morning to see what birds might be around but also to build a new hide at an alternate location after losing access to the primary one we had been hitting. Pleasantly surprised with the birds we saw, mostly grays and some teal, also lot of mergansers in the area which is pretty typical of the salt marsh. Got a nice new blind built so hoping some cooperate this morning.

[Darren]

Though after the fact, the scramble effort to build a new blind went a little like this:

Sanford and his podnah's putting down the bayou

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Found more to the reported "old blind" in the pond than we anticipated, though thankfully some of it was salvageable and came in handy to supplement what we'd packed along. This included a short former bench seat along the back wall of the blind that we converted to a shelf along front wall. We pulled up all of the four corner posts that had the blind with a due west facing orientation in order to rotate it a bit to face the southwest and seemed to fit the pond's odd overall shape better for setting dekes.

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and the next two days:

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We added a good bit more cane on Sunday morning to help with the over-the-top coverage, seemed to help our cause and now its starting to look more like the prevalent cane patches throughout the area.

[Darren]

After a hiatus of a few years, looks like I'll be making a few hunts again up in the Bunkie area at a buddy's place I used to hit a few times a year. We had trouble getting (and keeping) water on it last few years but looks like it's in the game for the remainder of this season if we keep getting periodic rains. This year the field was in beans and the levee doesn't really have much natural cover to work with. I've included a few photos taken this morning by my buddy.

I'm hoping some of you might chime in with suggestions on how to make the best of the given scenario with regard to brushing this blind without making it stand out like a grassy island among mud. Also, it's got no dog box so also looking for ways to make Harry a little hide on the left end. I'm thinking just a small little hide with a couple of short branches

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thanks for any input!

[Rick]

When you can't make the blind look like the levee, make more of the levee look like the blind.

[Rick]

Cedar's worked fine for geese for us on winter green levees:


Supposed to keep the bugs off the dog, too:


Just have to change it out from time to time.

[Darren]

Think the key will just be to keep it low and try to blend the surroundings to it as well. Don't think we've got a cedar source but there's some green-ish shrubbery in the area to be had along with some misc. grasses to harvest to spread around surroundings.

[Ducaholic]

Plenty of Palmetto's in the Bunkie area.

[Darren]

Plenty of Palmetto's in the Bunkie area.

Oh yea loaded up on edge of the field. Just wish I had some that were on the browner side. May just cut some to let weather a bit before putting out next week or so