2017-2018 Season Log

Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Ducaholic » Thu Nov 30, 2017 1:50 pm

Marsh coming in chest out head high. How’s Peake?
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:26 pm

Ducaholic wrote: How’s Peake?


Peake's very well, thanks. Getting tricky about looking the other direction when he doesn't want to listen to hand signals, but generally healthy as an old dog can be and enjoying life. Still gets lots of unstructured field time and spends most of it in the water.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:29 pm

Jarren wrote:Did you tell them it was banded after they missed?


Naw, they're once a year social trip hunters, it wouldn't likely mean much to. Just another bird that didn't fall.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Thu Nov 30, 2017 5:23 pm

I'm guessing he was an out-of-towner, as he dropped to the call like a falling leaf. And I doubt he found us welcoming.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Ducaholic » Fri Dec 01, 2017 4:10 am

Rick wrote:
Jarren wrote:Did you tell them it was banded after they missed?


Naw, they're once a year social trip hunters, it wouldn't likely mean much to. Just another bird that didn't fall.



Good to hear!
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Fri Dec 01, 2017 11:54 am

Date: 12/1 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: light N to E

Temperature: cool

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw a few more ducks, especially woodies, than yesterday.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Theirs was much better than ours. Had a bunch each of both greenwings and woodies sitting in the decoys get out without a shot fired. And a sweet op at eight or ten mallards was banged out on final approach by a single shot from the next blind.

Hunters: 2, super nice older fellows, Al and Howard

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had an easy morning and made new friends with a long woodie retrieve behind the blind, where they didn't think he'd find it.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Old age sucks, and so did I for exclaiming in exasperation that someone was going to have to shoot if we were going to kill anything.

Kudos: Still a pleasant morning with nice folks.

Birds By Species: 1 gw teal, 1 mallard and 1 wood duck

Photo Ops: A sneak shot of one reason I hate O/Us:
001.JPG


How coots migrate:
016.JPG


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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Deltaman » Fri Dec 01, 2017 12:47 pm

"Old age sucks, and so did I for exclaiming in exasperation that someone was going to have to shoot if we were going to kill anything."

Facts is Facts.............can't knock'em down with your eyes :o
Know that gets the frustration bone hard, and can't say I blame you for stating it, as hard as you have had to work to get birds over the decoys this year.
oh yeh...........I always thought coots migrated at night :lol:
"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: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Bud » Fri Dec 01, 2017 6:43 pm

I always thought coots and gallinule pecked their way south together.
All in a day's work.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:52 am

Deltaman wrote:Facts is Facts.............can't knock'em down with your eyes :o
Know that gets the frustration bone hard, and can't say I blame you for stating it, as hard as you have had to work to get birds over the decoys this year.


Still no sense in taking my frustration out on them. Not like getting old was their fault.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:19 pm

Date: 12/2 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: light ground fog early but soon clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Had a few greenwings moving on our end early and enough specks to give us a couple good chances to work them, but no big ducks early, late or in-between.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Teal and woodies came as they should, and second woody even turned to the call and returned after we shot her mate. First speck pair couldn't have worked prettier and was shot at eye level over the pond in front and glowing in the sun, and a later bunch tried to die just over the blind but caught the guys gawking and slid at the last second.

Hunters: 2, Greg and Blake, who was on his first hunt.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh got his arse whipped by a goose, took it to the island, rather than the stand, dropped it and proceeded to get wing walloped every time he tried to obey my fetch command. Pretty much a matter of waiting until it wore itself out before he got it handled.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just the lack of game and that we got busted by the second goose op.

Kudos: Nice guys, and Blake had a big time.

Birds By Species: 5 gw teal, 1 shoveller, 2 wood ducks and 2 specks

Photo Ops: Marsh with his nemesis:
001.JPG


Second speck fell farther out but was a whole lot easier to handle:
005.JPG
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Darren » Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:56 pm

Surely they were some perty spotted gooses over the mudhole in the sunshine! very nice
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sat Dec 02, 2017 7:40 pm

The specks eye level over the mud hole gave me a mental picture that was pretty neat.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Dec 03, 2017 4:59 am

DComeaux wrote:The specks eye level over the mud hole gave me a mental picture that was pretty neat.


Would be sweet to shoot them all so, but I was ready to call the shot of the next little group as they got nearly overhead and probably should have anyway when they caught us about 30yds out. Just had the picture I expected locked n my head and didn't get it. Blessed to get to work them down at all before someone else bangs them out most mornings.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Dec 03, 2017 4:10 pm

Date: 12/3 Sun

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: ground fog to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: light SE?

Temperature: comfortable

Moon phase: full

Special Notes: Thankfully the last day of the first miserable split.

Waterfowl Activity: Seemed like lots of shooting on the east end, but still nothing but a very few teal and fewer big ducks happening on my end.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Teal came pretty as did a little group of hen pintails.

Hunters: Just Marsh and I, had a couple guys party themselves out of going, and I jumped at the chance no to disappoint anyone else.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh found a tipped bluewing I wasn't even sure went down, but everything else was in the pond.

Special Equipment: sos and see photo ops

Curses: Since it was just us chickens, I'm not complaining. Well, maybe about picking a greenwing out of a mixed teal and spoon group and suffering a Scotch double that included one of the later.

Kudos: Pleasant, no pressure morning.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 3 gw teal, 1 pintail and 1 spoon

Photo Ops: After only 11 and a half seasons of having the dogs do their level best to gum my guns' actions with shake water and sludge, I've taken preventative measures:
003.JPG


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2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sun Dec 03, 2017 4:20 pm

Solo hunts are nice, I enjoyed my time yesterday, but it would have been nice to take a few birds too...I usually end up doing a pseudo solo hunt at some point in the season by staying a couple hours later than the rest of the guys want to on days I know it’ll be worth it, to either fill out my limit or just take a few more birds of my choice.


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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Darren » Sun Dec 03, 2017 7:38 pm

Nice way to close out the split, Rick. I like the breech raincoat
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sun Dec 03, 2017 7:44 pm

Darren wrote:Nice way to close out the split, Rick. I like the breech raincoat
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:15 am

Feel pretty silly that I didn't think of it before. Doesn't impede getting underway at all, but there's still the matter of getting used to making its use as automatic as reloading...which isn't always as automatic as it should be, either...
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:18 am

Ran the Species Log numbers to put that depressing task behind me and found we were 86 ducks short of last year's previously sorriest first split in recent times. Simply next to no big ducks to help compensate for being off the broken marsh grid our little ones prefer and extremely low water isolating the Mudhole even farther than usual from their routes. Could sure use both some rain and cold weather to sink some of the flotant on that last count. Or some big ducks to salve the misery of listening to the blinds to our east rock and roll on little ones.

Know it was my decision, and I shouldn't be feeling sorry for myself, but I've not second guessed taking on the challenge of making my spot work so much since finishing the labor of initially mucking out its present form by hand back in the summer of 2006. And while I know it's probably better that I hunt it than most others, I just don't know how to fix empty sky.

That concludes my pity party, bring on the second split...
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sun Dec 10, 2017 9:18 pm

Rick I thought of you this weekend while my wife and I were road tripping and I saw these on sale at Rogers. Image

I know you shoot a 20, but that’s a great price on a great load I’m sure. They had 3’s and other sizes at same price.


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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Mon Dec 11, 2017 5:45 am

One of our annual parties brings us 2 3/4" 12ga 4 Rios that I used to shoot my after-duck-season specks with, and I've also shot a few boxes of their 20s. The only negative thing I have to say about them is that they burn dirty like Federals and can be a pain in the eyes to shoot into the wind. But that's been enough to keep me from buying more at around $90 a case at G&H.

(Am currently shooting some "$100 rebate" Nitro Mags that should have run $69 a case after rebate - if Remington doesn't crater first...)
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Mon Dec 11, 2017 8:20 am

I asked the guy at Rogers about that and basically Remington made a huge batch of nitros specifically for the rebate and sent them to Rogers. Believe he said they’d sold over 10,000 cases this time around during the rebate period.


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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sat Dec 16, 2017 12:06 pm

Date: 12/16 Sat

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: East moderate

Temperature: mid 40s

Moon phase: waning 2%

Special Notes: second split opener

Waterfowl Activity: Swarms of teal early with enough of a big duck show to inspire a halt to the teal shoot to wait them out, after which there was a spooky long lull before even high mallards showed, but they eventually did.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Teal ate it up and big ducks tried to, but were usually banged out by other blinds. Still managed to get enough of those where they needed to be, too.

Hunters: 2 long time favorites, grandfather and grandson, Tommy and Hunter

Guns:

Malfunctions: Hunters gun wasn't making it into battery until I dug out some oil, then he was in business

Dog(s): Marsh had a good morning.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: none at all

Kudos: We were blessed with a sweet one.

Birds By Species: 9 gw teal, 6 mallards, 1 pintail and 2 ringnecks

Photo Ops: Hunter and Tommy:
004.JPG


Lagniappe: Age is getting the better of Tommy and he's become quite frail, taking what seems forever to complete simple tasks like putting a shell in his gun. But when the first duck after LST came zipping by like the wide-open ringneck it was, Tommy struck like a snake and crushed its head with a load from his little Beretta 20. Was no show to my "Great shot!" Was flat awe.

Didn't always go that way, but that's the one I bet all three of us remember.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:00 pm

Nice way to start if off...... I see a predator in the background.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:33 pm

Not just a Predator but a genuine POS Predator. Hope yours proves a lot less problematic.
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Re: 2017-2018 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sat Dec 16, 2017 7:08 pm

Rick wrote:Not just a Predator but a genuine POS Predator. Hope yours proves a lot less problematic.


Me too....
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