2016-2017 Season Log

[Rick]

Date: 12/4

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy and mostly raining

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW strong to moderate

Temperature: a lot colder than when we finished the first hunt

Moon phase: n/a

Special Notes: "after hunt" when we get to break the 9:30 curfew at hunt's end

Waterfowl Activity: Saw what turned out to be the last bunch of teal on our end as we were getting in the blind. But there were enough periodic high flights of big ducks coming out of the south to pass jacks and spoons.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Bobby hid a whoooooole lot better than the morning crew, and the birds broke down surprisingly well for their altitude and wind.

Hunters: 1, buddy hunt with Bobby

Guns: Still shooting the Browning Gold I love to razz him about.

Malfunctions: Was hinky again.

Dog(s): Everything fell pretty close but the woodie and a gray gave Marsh a good run. In hindsight, I wished I'd gone home for Peake, though the weather might have been tough on an old dog unconditioned to it.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: None at all.

Kudos: Bobby shot well, and I was kind of glad I shot teal earlier when I had the chance.

Birds By Species: 4 gadwall, 1 mallard and 1 wood duck

[Rick]

Awesome, we killed 6 teal yesterday and I hope we get some "jam up" shoots in the 2nd split. Absolutely love them little dudes.

First time this season that guests broke into my emergency shell stash.

[DComeaux]

Very nice!!! Glad you got to finish up the split with a bang.

[Ducaholic]

Damn string finish!

[Rick]

Damn string finish!

Aside from a few "What the hey?" days near the end, and apparently given how many others in the area were doing, it seemed a strong split in general until I started looking at the numbers.

[Rick]

Wood ducks were way up and ringnecks better than average but not the record woodies were. Never do kill many pintails.

(Some dumbass failed to backup his computer and lost his logs before those on this site to a crash. Looking into hard drive data recovery if anyone knows a good shop?)

[Ericdc]

Wood ducks were way up and ringnecks better than average but not the record woodies were. Never do kill many pintails.

(Some dumbass failed to backup his computer and lost his logs before those on this site to a crash. Looking into hard drive data recovery if anyone knows a good shop?)

I keep all mine on my iPhone as notes saved to "the cloud".

Don't know if you've thought about maybe keeping up with your stuff on a mobile device like an iPad or iPhone?

Realize you've probably got a system you are used to and comfortable with.


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[Rick]

My cell phones are $15 crack dealer throw-aways I don't miss when they're drowned. Can barely answer Sweet Chereaux's smarter-than-me phone.

[Ericdc]

My cell phones are $15 crack dealer throw-aways I don't miss when they're drowned. Can barely answer Sweet Chereaux's smarter-than-me phone.

Haha I figured as much. You are smarter then you let on, but don't want to change haha.


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[Darren]

Thought is was strong for you considering how bad Cherry Ridge struggled

Rick,

what do you hear from next door? Haven't gotten many reports out of Oak Island since our thanksgiving chat when they said it had been pretty good for them.

[Rick]

Haven't managed to run into Robert or Todd, so you've more news of their season than me. But if I hear something, I'll pass it along.

[Darren]

What's been your assessment or heard word on Cherry Ridge's first split? Par for the local course given the givens?

[Rick]

I often have morning coffee with Clark and some of their crew, and other than Clark's blind, which can usually hang with most anything anywhere, they seemed to have had a tougher split overall than our marsh did.

[Rick]

Date: 12/17

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: Southerly light to fairly strong

Temperature: hot

Moon phase: 82% waning

Special Notes: second split opener

Waterfowl Activity: Swarms of teal and a fair big duck show for the first hour or so, then precious little of anything but locals.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Could have finished on teal in ten or twenty minutes, as they came pretty as could be. Early big ducks wanted in, but were usually banged out by other shooting. Later big ducks appeared to be the same local veterans that earned their stripes in our marsh the first split. Used the teal cut DC for most everything.

Hunters: 2, father and son Phil(4th) and Phil(5th) who've hunted with us for years.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had a good morning.

Special Equipment: SOS. Forgetting to kill the spinner cost us some big ducks when early flight was hot and heavy.

Curses: Got caught gawking more than I'd like, but have seen worse.

Kudos: The guys shot the best I've seen from them, particularly "little" Phil, and we eventually filled out after I foolishly talked them out of shooting more teal in favor of waiting for big ducks the south wind must have swept to Arkansas.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 3 gadwall, 5 gw teal, 6 mallards and 2 widgeon.

Photo Ops: Marsh being lazy:


Two Phils:


And one I took of "little" Phil to compare with another from his first hunt with us in 2009:




Lagniappe:[/quote]

[Rick]

Date: 12/18

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: raining sideways

Wind Direction and Velocity: Screaming N

Temperature: low 40s

Moon phase: 74% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: The big surprise was that there were still a lot of teal around, not like yesterday's show but plenty.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Birds were flying crazy and high big ducks would often break, then decide not to fight the wind. Teal were harder to turn for a "pretty" shot, but usually would.

Hunters: 2, long time annual regulars, Tom and Eric

Guns:

Malfunctions: Doppler lied.

Dog(s): Marsh did an exemplary job of marking and hunting down a looong chipped bluewing I'd of bet was lost.

Special Equipment: Spinner only

Curses: Weather radar had me thinking the rain would stop about the time we hit the marsh, so I took my insulated hip boots out of the truck, resulting in half-filled shrimp boots and a wet butt from what ran off my long rain parka and leeched up and down my jeans. Dumb arse.

Kudos: We opted to pretty much shoot what came, shot well given the wind and made a relatively quick hunt of it that had me in dry britches by 9, even after a big brunch at the camp.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 14 gw teal, 1 mallard and 1 ringneck

[Rick]

Date: 12/19/16

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly to clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE screaming

Temperature: low 30s

Moon phase: 64% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Some teal early on our end and seemingly all morning at the east blinds, but not nearly as many big ducks as hoped.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Some fought the wind to join us, some gave up and went on and the same old show of "locals" frustrated us.

Hunters: 2, Tom and Eric again.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Was reminded that the way to get the most out of Marsh isn't yelling at him.

Special Equipment: Messed with the spinner while teal flew but its slow stop in high wind probably hurt us some on big ducks.

Curses: Lot of crowd control problems, perhaps because the teal spoiled them.

Kudos: Had a fine time on a "brisk" morning that let us know we were alive.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 6 gw teal, 7 mallards and 4 wood ducks.

[Darren]

Save for the boring 'ol gray duck, the GW's, woodies and mallards had to have made a perty strap

[Rick]

Must have had a frozen noggin, because I strung a mottled as a hen mallard at the truck.

[Rick]

Addendum to 12/19 one of our "mallards" was a mottled, plus two pics I forgot I'd taken:





Bet Marsh wished we shot better.

[Rick]

Date: 12/20

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE moderate to fairly strong

Temperature: low 30s

Moon phase: 45% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Had a couple teal chances early, then so only one bunch the rest of the morning. Wigeon came with our one bunch of spoons, and "new" mallards were far and few between.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Number of mallard pairs that have become "locals" was frustrating, but our new chances mostly worked pretty, until banged out by others in our marsh or Cherry Ridge. Lone gray was actually shot at and missed then called back to die. My favorite MVP has been sounding anemic lately, and I may have to finally break down and cut a new reed for it after more than a dozen seasons with its original.

Hunters: 2, Mike and Stewart

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Made a long mark and chase on a chipped greenhead and is all I could ask for in terms of hunt, just needs more handling work, though he was good about that this morning, too.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: just the slow flight

Kudos: Nice guys who weren't disappointed by what they said would be a good hunt in their usual Wax Lake area lease.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 4 gw teal, 6 mallards, 1 ringneck, 1 spoon and 1 wigeon

[Ericdc]

We've been dealing with paired mallards too. Hoping the groups show up soon, they work so much better.


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[Rick]

My favorite MVP has been sounding anemic lately, and I may have to finally break down and cut a new reed for it after more than a dozen seasons with its original.

Might just be the weather or I'm just not being assertive enough, but it also might be that the reed on my favorite MVP, which I'd never been able to duplicate, much less better, is so badly eroded from so many seasons of my pounding on it that it's losing its teeth. Had tried replicating or bettering it many times with RNT and Echo reeds but ended up just convincing myself the Mylar on that Reed among reeds had to somehow differ. Today I may have found a winner in that regard with reeds from rivermallard.com.

Pretty anxious to see what tomorrow's birds think of what I've come up with.

[Rick]

Date: 12/21

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: none to nil

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: 44% waning

Special Notes: Thinking of this morning's weather, the word "sullen" keeps coming to mind.

Waterfowl Activity: Spooky quiet in the marsh with very little shooting in ours or Cherry Ridge, but did have a few bunches of teal around early and high, new acting big ducks late. Was the sort of "waiting for something to happen" feel that often precedes wet fronts. Except I'm unaware of more than a low chance of rain tonight.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Pretty darn good, and I'm pleased with the new MVP reed so far: crisp as I'd hoped. But it was uncanny how know one would shoot for long periods, until we'd have a big bunch on final approach. Also got screwed out of finishing what may have been the biggest bunch of mallards I'd ever worked in the marsh by some sort of big old hawk swooping over the pond as they tried to finish.

Hunters: 2, Spencer who loves duck hunting as much as anyone I've known and Bobbly, who's been carved up and put through the grinder by cancer and surgeons and come out smiling - so it would have been a fine morning with or without birds.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Really pleased with the hunt in my "peculiar looking" little dog. If beauty is as beauty does, he's a stunner. (And no doubt about to eat a bird.)

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Shame on me if I could think of one, much less express it, about our hunt, though we couldn't help but feel bad for some of the other blinds that did little or nothing. (One with eighteen yesterday scratched today.)

Kudos: The guys made a big time of a dead morning, wore masks and hid well, and killed our birds in bunches when they gave us the chance.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 3 gadwall, 10 gw teal and 4 mallards

[DComeaux]

Oh so sweet....

I'm really looking forward to being in the blind Saturday morning,and I hope the wind leaves us alone. I left the marsh unfulfilled last weekend. This weekend warrior stuff sucks!

[Ericdc]

Sweet hunt Rick, How many in the big bunch of mallards that the raptor spooked?


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[Rick]

Was far from an Arkansas "mondo wad," much less Midwestern dry field tornado, but several dozen in what seemed a huge high flight I hail Mary-ed and like to crapped when they broke and fell in like Northern birds. Kept thinking "Someone's gonna shoot somewhere," but it was a Harris hawk or some-such big brown bomber that sent them climbing and brought us back to reality. Still neat as could be for a little while.

[Ericdc]

Was far from an Arkansas "mondo wad," much less Midwestern dry field tornado, but several dozen in what seemed a huge high flight I hail Mary-ed and like to crapped when they broke and fell in like Northern birds. Kept thinking "Someone's gonna shoot somewhere," but it was a Harris hawk or some-such big brown bomber that sent them climbing and brought us back to reality. Still neat as could be for a little while.

Yea it's always exciting when a big bunch works. Whether it's green wings or mallards.


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[Rick]

Date: 12/22

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy w/mist all morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead cal,

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: waning 34%

Special Notes: rubber stamp of yesterday's weather and "feel"

Waterfowl Activity: About the same as yesterday.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Better luck getting mallards in before others shooting bumped them.

Hunters: 2, Chris and Chris

Guns:

Malfunctions: One Chris had taken his gun apart since last use and apparently mis-assembled it Ended up shooting the spare 870 I keep in the blind.

Dog(s): Marsh had another sweet day. Knock wood.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Just that our luck may run out if the birds don't come back.

Kudos: Somehow it still worked pretty well for nice guys.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 3 gw teal, 6 mallards, 1 pintail, 3 ringnecks and 1 wood duck

Photo Ops: Chris and Chris:


Marsh ain't pretty, but his work is. Would have bet against seeing this gray again and only took a stab at hunting him up because it was the right thing to try:


Lagniappe: