Season log

[Ericdc]

season totals
43 green winged teal
47 gadwall
63 mallards
18 pintail
29 shoveler
2 ring neck
1 wood duck
11 wigeon
82 specks
1 blue goose
1 snow

Totals for our blind

I went on 23 hunts during the 60 day season and we killed 226 of the 298 on those hunts.

Did pretty good this year picking when to go and when not to go.

I used to go every chance I could and miss church through the whole season, I've decided in last 3 years to hunt the best weather days during the week, all Saturday's and only on Sunday when the weather was really good. I've eliminated some lousy days where my time can be better spent at work or church and enjoy the season more.


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[Ericdc]

One of my blind partners brought 2 friends and hunted layout blinds today on dry end of our field.



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[Rick]

Better hang onto that lease.

[Ericdc]

Better hang onto that lease.

This was my 3rd year there, don't plan on leaving.


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[Ericdc]

Post season wrap up:

I've had this pit for 3 seasons now.

I should go through my logs and add up what we killed on days with any wind with some north in it, and see how much many more birds we killed than on southerly winds.

The only time we do well on a southerly wind are those cold, frosty light SW wind mornings...usually in January or very late December.

Temperature is important too, we do so much better when it's colder.

Growing up in SWLA hunting rice around kinder and Fenton, we always got excited about SE winds. Always had a good teal flight early and big ducks from north later in the day. That pretty much is not the case up here.

You can almost bet on a good shoot when we have colder temps, clear skies and a decent wind out of anywhere but S or SE. That makes our spot predictable but it also means that those warmer or cloudy days we are usually VERY slow.

The speck hunting usually gets good for us around Christmas and stays pretty consistent through the end of season, especially when it's clear and cold.

Rainy weather you just never know, but it's usually not very good. Although the last Saturday of the first split we had a fun spoon and teal shoot in the rain. New Year's Eve it was nasty and we killed 1 speck with 4 men in blind....

Adding 2 dozen FB specks seemed to really help catch the eye of passing larger groups of specks along with aggressive calling. I would consider adding more FB specks to our spread next year if I have some extra cash laying around....

Off-season goals will be to learn some more speck calling techniques on the new redbone. Would like to be able to finish more groups of birds (3 or more), and I think adding to my vocabulary through lots of practice will really help. It will also help me finish those "easier" singles with confidence.

The mallards were kinda screwy this year, and not as easy as I can remember them being in last few years. We still had some good mallard shoots but never decoyed anything more than a group of 5. Lots of singles this year, while the gadwall, no matter how many, worked like a dream until about the last few weeks when they pretty much disappeared.

Saw more teal in January than we did in November and December combined probably. I guess we are getting the leading edge of the later migrating green wings, because my buddies about an hour north of me near mcgehee Arkansas starting hammering them about middle of January.

Finally killed some pintail in the last few weeks of the season, including some really nice drakes that a few guys are going to mount.

Keeping the blind freshly brushed, which usually meant cutting grass about every 3rd hunt helped a good bit I'm sure. Brown Johnson grass seems to work well for us, as it's very similar in color to the stubble and it's too "bright". It's pretty sturdy and doesn't take much to hide the pit when it's about 5 foot tall.

One of my members had never done any field hunting before and really enjoyed learning how to work specks and also got his first wigeon. He had always hunted a couple spots in the woods off Miss river and it was pretty much a mallard and gadwall shoot. He just recently purchased a lab puppy and will be sending it to trainer at appropriate time to be trained this offseason, so it'll be nice having a dog on a more regular basis.

I hope to get one myself in the next few years, but I'm just not ready for one yet.


Enjoyed the season and keeping up with you guys down south. Y'all have a good spring and summer. I'll be planting red potatoes next week.





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[Darren]

Good deal! Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed keeping up.

[Rick]

He just recently purchased a lab puppy and will be sending it to trainer at appropriate time to be trained this offseason, so it'll be nice having a dog on a more regular basis.

Think you'll find that, while most speak of the downed birds recovered by a good dog, the oft underappreciated advantage is how many more shooting opportunities are gained by not having a man out of the blind mucking around to recover birds.

Thanks for sharing.

[Ericdc]

He just recently purchased a lab puppy and will be sending it to trainer at appropriate time to be trained this offseason, so it'll be nice having a dog on a more regular basis.

Think you'll find that, while most speak of the downed birds recovered by a good dog, the oft underappreciated advantage is how many more shooting opportunities are gained by not having a man out of the blind mucking around to recover birds.

Thanks for sharing.

That's true, although we try to pick our times when we go pick up birds as best we can, and 2-3 guys can make quick work of it. BUT if we are out of blind picking up and something decides to come in we are caught for sure.

Doesn't take too long for me, still being young to hop out and fetch one out of the decoys...but with cripples the dog would definitely beat me even though I pride myself in being able to halfway run through our field in my breathable waist waders haha.


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[Darren]

........ the oft underappreciated advantage is how many more shooting opportunities are gained by not having a man out of the blind mucking around to recover birds.

Indeed. Harry's kept me out of a pirogue a whole lot in last two years already

[Rick]

...but with cripples the dog would definitely beat me even though I pride myself in being able to halfway run through our field in my breathable waist waders haha.

Just don't forget to take the gun - and more shells than what's in it. The later of which resulted in this tackle:


By a fellow John will recognize:

[Ericdc]

I bought my decoys from Garrett haha.

Yes, anytime I go on a cripple run there are 3 in the gun and about 5 in my pocket.


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[Ericdc]

Got after the squirrels this evening with some buddies and a good dog.




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[Deltaman]

Got after the squirrels this evening with some buddies and a good dog.




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Oh what fun!!!!!! Nice way to end the hunting season, and hunting with a dog just makes it that much better. We had our annual "end of season" snipe hunt over the weekend as our last hoorah, and the birds were plentiful.........but with the temp in the mid 70's, so were the snakes. We usually have a group that hunts rabbits with dogs, but after losing two dogs and killing 40 moccasins on two previous hunts, they opted out this year

[Ericdc]

Still cool enough up here to keep the snakes in hiding I guess. Thankfully. The bottom we hunted is a popular area for timber rattlesnakes.


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[Rick]

One of my grandfathers always had good squirrel dogs. Was a major right of passage to be allowed to take one of them hunting without his accompaniment that came long after we'd been allowed to hunt on our own.

[Ericdc]

One of my grandfathers always had good squirrel dogs. Was a major right of passage to be allowed to take one of them hunting without his accompaniment that came long after we'd been allowed to hunt on our own.

Mr johnny (pappy), the older guy on left) has had good dogs for decades, and there's no telling how many squirrels have met their end because of him. Still gets around good at 72, including crossing beaver dams and slick bank creeks. A great guy to know and a blast to hunt with. His grandson took the picture and is a real good of mine who loves to get after the ducks and geese too.


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[Ericdc]

Off season fun

Potatoes did real well this year.


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[Rick]

Mmm... Had new little potatoes braised in butter, onions and other goodies they soaked up at Sunday's bbq. Was a treat.

[Darren]

Very nice! That in a raised bed? How deep you put them?

Only dug some lil potatoes like that one time at a buddy's farm, they just had them scattered in a lil area off a road. Was as much a treasure hunt as anything else since they weren't really concentrated

[Deltaman]

Off season fun

Potatoes did real well this year.


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Love those little new potatoes!!!! Now you just need a sack of crawfish, some corn and sausage, and a cooker

[Ericdc]

Very nice! That in a raised bed? How deep you put them?

Only dug some lil potatoes like that one time at a buddy's farm, they just had them scattered in a lil area off a road. Was as much a treasure hunt as anything else since they weren't really concentrated

Yea it's 8 foot landscaping timbers stacked 3 high in a square. We filled it with cotton gin trash we bought from a local landscaper. It grows some pretty veggies. It stays fairly loose also so it's perfect for potatoes and makes them easy to dig. We put the seed potatoes on the actual ground and as they grow we pull as much of the black dirt over them as possible, usually up to about a foot. It is really fun to watch them grow and dig them. Boiled a few last night...sooo good.


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[Ericdc]

Off season fun

Potatoes did real well this year.


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Love those little new potatoes!!!! Now you just need a sack of crawfish, some corn and sausage, and a cooker

Boiled some last Saturday for the inlaws.


Boiling some this Saturday for our men's group at church.


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[aunt betty]

My yankee taters ain't reddy yet.
Starting to make blooms. Planted them March 20.
I figure in two or three weeks I can dig some new potatoes.

Had some extra seed-potatoes so I planted them about a foot deep in the compost heap.
Those should be huge when I harvest them.

[Rick]

You been hanging out with AB way too long.

[Ericdc]

I just clicked on the video. Thought it was an ad or something.


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[aunt betty]

Silly hobbitses your jedi-mind tricks won't work here.

[Ericdc]

Well, our offseason got a little more interesting than I thought it would. There are 4 blinds on our farm, 3 of which are all in a line that runs pretty much north and south with about a half a mile between each pit. The 4th blind is on northeast portion of farm in a large field with a permanent levee running across it, its the easiest blind to get to but the worst "killing" blind. It's too close to the big tree line to its south in my opinion (about 100 yards). And it shows A LOT of water but the blind is on the deeper end of field and the ducks like the shallower end of it away from the trees.

Well the 2 older guys who hunt south of us are going to leave their blind and move to the aforementioned "easy access" blind". Just too hard to hunt the field they've been in I guess.

So a domino effect, the guys on the south end are going to take the older guys spot. (Probably the best field on farm)

Landowner texted me telling me all this and gave us first option at the south end. At first, wasn't interested, then I've found out for myself today that our field is not planted this year and is just a bunch of disked up mud. Everything on the farm has been planted for at least a month or 2. (Rice and beans)

I talked to my guys and we are going to move to the south field. It's in beans this year, along with every other field on farm except half of the "easy access" blind which is half rice and half beans.

Another plus about the pit we will be moving too is it does not flood when we catch a big rain like the one I've been in the last 3 years. And when I say flood, I mean water completely over the blind. The new blind sits a few inches higher in a bigger field and the water drains away from the blind. In our old blind, the water just didn't run out of the field fast enough to keep our pit dry. It was real easy to hide because it sat so low but a flooded pit 3-5 times a year, no matter what we did with the boards in our drain pipe gets frustrating. That's the only reason I'm leaving my blind. If it was in rice again this year, I would have a hard time leaving it, but I'm confident we can do just as well in the south blind because the guys that had it did well.

We don't have any contact with the guy who farms our farm, we just deal with the actual landowner. I'm not the type to call up a farmer and try to get in their business and I'm real careful with bugging our landowner about "why isn't our field planted and it's June 3rd?". Just told him today we were switching and I'll be bringing him a deposit next week.

This new field will show about 60-70 acres of water compared to the 30 or so we were hunting, but the new blind is in the right spot towards the shallower end of field so the water level will be just right.

To be continued


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[Rick]

Whether or not a field is planted that particular year would be last on my list of considerations, though given half decent water control I'd much rather rough plowed fallow ground than rice stubble.

[Ericdc]

Whether or not a field is planted that particular year would be last on my list of considerations, though given half decent water control I'd much rather rough plowed fallow ground than rice stubble.

Maybe down there. I hunted a fallow field about 5 years ago and it was terrible. The field we moving too has better water control. And it'll have a plowed area around the blind just like the one we've been hunting has had. I know that's frowned upon down there but it seems to work ok up here.


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[Ericdc]

New field

Old field


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