Post-Season Ponderings

[Darren]

Ended up being a productive weekend at the camp once water went down.

Friday got after the cleaning which turned out to be just some pressure washing on the dock and slab to get rid of the silt from what looked to be about 2-2.5 ft of water that sat there a couple days. Some had loads of marsh grass to deal with but we had none, thankfully.

IMG_4415.JPG

Gathered up scrap wood that had drifted up and got to constructing a few items that had been on the list a while. One a rack under our shed to pile up scrap wood to be used for duck blinds or misc. tasks around the camp. The second was a boot/wader rack inside the shed. Both complete!

IMG_4421.JPG

With all the work done by friday evening, figured why not try the fish for a little while saturday morning. Water was fairly dirty most places but found a few trout in pockets of cleaner water. Weather was nice regardless

IMG_4422.JPG

At end of it all, Harry got a much needed bath before we headed home.

IMG_4430.JPG

Thankfully we encountered none of the famous monster rattlesnakes I've heard stories about down there following flood events but did see what looked to be quite a healthy one swimming across the ship channel on our way out Sat morning.

[DComeaux]

Harry appears to be a bit upset about his bath..... The stare has me wondering what he's thinking about ya at that moment.

[Darren]

Harry appears to be a bit upset about his bath..... The stare has me wondering what he's thinking about ya at that moment.

Not a happy camper but he was good about it, stayed put. He was getting pretty funky so we got extra sudsy

[Darren]

RE: Teal Tactics

Any of you have thoughts on heights of spinners for teal season? Favor the taller poles for visibility at a distance or shorter poles that make the spinner look like it's landing with the spread? Both?

Debating whether I should retrofit my mojo "tree" to a longer pole. Definitely sat lower than I preferred in our location last year because of deeper water and very soft bottom. That said, some places will have a hard bottom and much shallower water.

[Rick]

Just wasting batteries if they can't see it. Started pegging mine to flash toward the two predominant flyways that pass my blind two seasons ago and watched our teal take make a big jump up. (And bumped it up again by getting crazier than ever on the call this past one.)

[Darren]

(And bumped it up again by getting crazier than ever on the call this past one.)

Have seen you make reference to that a few times now and saw some results myself in one of my only three teal hunts last September when I was able to bring back a couple of large wads to the guns that had initially gotten down flyway of us. Look forward to hollering more this time around.

Thinking I need to hunt up a longer piece of pipe for my tree. Do already have one long piece of conduit that can get a single unit pretty high but think getting the dual units higher above the grass could do us some good in that particular area. We can also employ the 3 new flock-a-flickers I got at end of last season for some ground level appeal. Don't know anyone that's used them for teal season yet but have a hard time thinking they'd be detrimental to the cause.

This was too low for us last year when water was deeper than usual in our spot though the thick grass on surface wouldn't seem to indicate as much. Regardless, love the toys, gimmicks and gadgetry of teal season down here

IMG_2280.JPG

[Rick]

The Flock-Flicker video I saw looked like something teal should like - but I've read several reports of them croaking.

[Darren]

The Flock-Flicker video I saw looked like something teal should like - but I've read several reports of them croaking.

Beau and I were curious so split a box between us. My 3 are still in the box though my first observation is that they're much smaller in hand than I thought them to be from catalog and online viewing. I do think they'll be tealy though

[Darren]

Just wasting batteries if they can't see it. Started pegging mine to flash toward the two predominant flyways that pass my blind two seasons ago and watched our teal take make a big jump up. (And bumped it up again by getting crazier than ever on the call this past one.)

Rick,

so you made the beak face the direction they're usually coming from? Such that the length of the wing faces the flyway rather than the tip of the wing(s)?

[Rick]

I try to face it either north or south, depending on wind direction, so the wings show best from the more open water flyways north and south of the blind.

When I was letting it swivel freely into the wind, it was usually facing an easterly direction with the broadest part of the wings largely hidden by the tall canes and cattails to the east of the pond. Also tried poisoning some of that high stuff last fall but likely too late in the year to do any good. Would be nice to find the extended high water has been hard on both shallow water favoring plants, but figure their turf will have risen with the water. Guess we'll eventually see...

[Darren]

Got into a piece of our marsh over the holiday, including the part we focus on for teal season. Despite the storm/flood tides, it looks stellar, with SAV as thick as I've seen it and the marsh grass itself as vibrant and tall/thick as ever. Also seeing more stands of freshwater varieties like cattails, no complaints there. Water was too low, however, to really get back to a few honey holes without too-much-for-summer-heat effort so bailed on that plan after the first push poling episode which also rendered one of my two poles with a broken off foot. Add to preseason to-do list.

Took a ride to another area where they've begun a huge restoration effort and sure enough they're getting after it with a dredge running to discharge lines that we could see and a number of machines spreading material within an area that was levee'd off last fall. This area will be shot for this fall but will be interesting to monitor how it evolves in coming couple of years. Harry came along too but was kept almost entirely out of the waters we were running.......alligators everywhere.

IMG_4481.JPG

IMG_4485.JPG

Rigged up some BWT dekes that had still been in the box and also got going on a new mojo tree for my teal season rig. This one just under twice the height of the previous edition, and put the spinners a bit closer to one another on this one.

IMG_4452.JPG

Will be doing some re-rigging of bulk of previous teal spread to lengthen the lines to match the newer ones, and also will be rigging up the three flock-a-flickers. Had mentioned previously but it's worth noting how much smaller they are in hand versus catalog/promo material. Maybe it was just my perception that was off, but they're little. Haven't put batteries in them yet to see what kind of "flicker" we're talking about.

[DComeaux]

Good to see the restoration work. I haven't seen any movement on the stuff slated for the Chenier area.

I wonder how much influence (work stoppage) is caused by the land owners not wanting to disturb the shrimp and crab population they now have in these large lakes that were once a thriving marsh. I do believe that in my remaining years,if nothing is done or even attempted in that area, that I'll see the gulf lapping at hwy 82 in certain areas.

[Darren]

yea that doesn't seem far fetched at all. The restoration projects on our end have been awfully successful from what I've seen over the last 10 years when they did the first one near us. Basically just building levees in some form of circular area then filling them in with pumped/dredged in sediments from bottom of nearby waterways. Some are now 8-9 years old and are rock solid ground with thick vegetation, so pretty darn storm resistant.

Only bummer about this new one going in is that it will fill in a ton of open water/broken marsh (currently huntable) with solid land, and only leaving a few select portions deliberately designed as ponds. Unfortunately, these ponds will be on the privately held areas of what's otherwise public marsh. Sounds like foul play, but on further digging, found that they are essentially putting back the area together like it was before Katrina, rebuilding legacy ponds that were there for many years surrounded by solid marshland. So yea we're losing some huntable waters but majority of it wasn't that productive anyway and was putting the well being of the whole system at risk if it just continued to degrade. Dredge baby dredge!

Here's a similar project from 2009, not long after they'd finished it. The next fall even more weeds and stuff started growing up in it and as it would flood with rain or high tides.....they tore it up. Looks like mostly open water in the pic but that soon drained and yielded to sturdy ground you can walk all around like on a beach

DSC03118.JPG

[Rick]

Picked Mallard Bay Co. yesterday, and it looks like Robert and Co. have been been doing a pretty good job of opening the ponds back up. (But only three good nests...)

[Darren]

Picked Mallard Bay Co. yesterday, and it looks like Robert and Co. have been been doing a pretty good job of opening the ponds back up. (But only three good nests...)

Great to hear, hope it pays off for them (and hope I visit again this season). Is landowner losing out on $$$ with these non-egg-laying gators around?? Or maybe just not that many gators there? Would seem hard to believe

[Darren]

Got into some more ducky activities over the weekend with another trip back home. Took the crew out for a boat ride on saturday and also piddled with some spread assembly and a partial blind build/pre-cut and pre-fab. Harry got some work in on the boat ride and then spent the afternoon swimming in the pool with the lil one

IMG_4521.JPG

IMG_4525.JPG

IMG_4535.JPG

IMG_4537.JPG

We ready

IMG_4562.JPG

[Darren]

Tis the season - only 67 days until teal season (nine weeks from Friday)
We are going this weekend to our marsh to put in a new blind

Good deal, take it easy out there in the heat. Figure we're only about 6 weeks from sightings starting to trickle in. A few years back it was Aug 18 scout trip that showed me a couple groups in our marsh. Then some years we don't see a one until opening morning, weird.

Also liked this pic from the weekend:

IMG_4542.JPG

[Rick]

Family album shot there.

[Darren]

Family album shot there.

He was just about to show her how much water he can haul into a boat. When the time came, I got in water and halfway wrung him out before getting him aboard, kept us from sinking.

[Rick]

When I first moved to Lafayette, I shared a boat blind some with a big golden named Major who set us to bailing after each retrieve. Pretty remarkable how much water he could haul.

[aunt betty]

There's a bilge-pump in my rig for that reason among others.
Even a short haired dog drags in a good bit of wetness each time in and out.
Milo usually shakes on the front deck before entering the boat-blind but the water still ends up in the bilge.
I like to set in the blind in a fold-up director's chair with the propane heater off to the side. It gets really cold on the central-Illinois part of the hunting season.

[Darren]

Got my teal season shells, had to hit up a home town Academy.

Hard to beat $5.99/box

IMG_4585.JPG

There's a new "sportsman show" this weekend in the dome in Nola, think we're going to check it out Saturday.

[Rick]

Hard to beat $5.99/box

Wow.

[Darren]

Hard to beat $5.99/box

Wow.

http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/winches ... atid=28318

Worked for me last season. Oddly enough, $6.99 for the same shell in 20 ga

[DComeaux]

Hard to beat $5.99/box

Wow.

http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/winches ... atid=28318

Worked for me last season. Oddly enough, $6.99 for the same shell in 20 ga

Ate some teal this weekend with those little pellets in em....... My current choke configuration loves those shells...

[aunt betty]

Cut one of them Winchester shells open and lets see how good the steel is.
I've cut open two's, four's and BB and it never looks very good.
Still shoot them though. At the range I shoot 6's would work.
Got to where I shoot #2 at everything so I'm not crying when the geese go by.
One size for everything. Less stress.

20 years ago I was changing chokes and shot size so often that I screwed myself many times. Hunting at bayou bottoms changed that. I mean when there are eight or ten guys shooting, and nobody knows who shot what, does it even matter?