2017-2018 Season Log

[DComeaux]

I'll trade you some educated GW for a few mallards?

Good to see you have some birds to play with.

[Rick]

Amazes me that the dog can mark something after taking its eyes off it , which I assume he does by getting out of the blind and into boat.

Don't know how they translate the memory of the mark from their stand to the very different view out in the marsh that so often befuddles me after boating to what I think the right area, but it often seems as if they're operating by GPS. Not all the time, mind you, but sometimes it's a real head-shaker. Peake was an absolute master marker in the marsh and generally jam-up in training, too, but Marsh is so lazy about it in training that I've cused him for being "the worst marking dog ever" time and again - until the real deal is on the line and he starts surprising the heck out of me.

If you do your homework, get a pup from parents you'd like to own and put some time into bringing it on to suit your purposes, you're going to love having a retriever. Won't just help put more of what you've shot on the strap, but by doing so quicker and mostly on its own will let you take advantage of more potential shooting ops.

[Darren]

Won't just help put more of what you've shot on the strap, but by doing so quicker and mostly on its own will let you take advantage of more potential shooting ops.

Undoubtedly; you stay hidden in blind, and of course locked and loaded presuming retrieve being done in a safe location. That and I've found birds not to care much about a dog in the area, but a person is a flashing red light.

[Deltaman]

Strong hunts Rick, and well deserved

[Rick]

Date: 1/15 Mon

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: flat calm to moderate easterly

Temperature: upper 30s - was peeling clothes as soon as the boat stopped.

Moon phase: new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw quite a few more teal than the past few days, but mostly very high, as were most big ducks.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Calm weather made it easy enough to break a good share of really high birds, but not nearly enough of them were blind.

Hunters: 3 guys on a corporate hunt (FOX)

Guns:

Malfunctions: A new Winchester 3 1/2" SXP wouldn't eject fired 3 1/2" hulls, but worked fine with the 2 3/4" ones I keep for such issues.

Dog(s): I was lulled by the warmer air temps into letting Marsh do too much water work for his comfort, then broke my rule of getting after birds on the flotant ASAP on a mallard pair that both appeared crushed and hit just past the pond. Wound up having a very long track to nab the drake and the hen's track dead-ended in open water. My bad all around.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Knew we were in trouble when one pintail fell out of the morning's first flight over the blocks of eight or ten. And we showed an amazing lack of respect for the birds' vision and jumped, ducked and mooned a much better hunt away.

Kudos: Nice guys who ended up having the "big" hunt, anyway. (Not that that's such a big trick most high flight days.)

Birds By Species: 5 gw teal, 3 mallards, 1pintail, 1 ringneck and 3 shovellers

[DComeaux]

31/2" shells!?

I think I might have put a box of those through my Versamax over the last 6 or 7 years, and only early on. After a broken link assembly, and hearing the awful noisiness it would make, I decided that those weren't needed. I may have mentioned this before, but after talking to a few guns smiths, it seems no matter the make of gun, those guns that can accept the full gamut get beat up petty badly with 31/2 inch shells. These repair shops receive a steady stream of these broken 31/2" guns.

[Rick]

Not too many mornings after I'd questioned one party's choice of 3" Blackcloud 2s, a fellow showed me a 3 1/2" Blackcloud BB hull he found in the blind. Always fun to see how much unnecessary misery and money is represented in the blind's trash bucket. (Which reminds me that I need to put a trash bag in my shell box...)

[SpinnerMan]

a fellow showed me a 3 1/2" Blackcloud BB hull he found in the blind.

I guess they thought you were shooting late season giant Canadas at 40 yards

Even a big speck only weighs about 7 pounds I believe.

I center patterned a spoon at maybe 20 yards or so with a late season goose load. The breast looked like Swiss cheese from the BB's passing through it. They hit a teal with that, there won't be much left.

[DComeaux]

a fellow showed me a 3 1/2" Blackcloud BB hull he found in the blind.

I guess they thought you were shooting late season giant Canadas at 40 yards

Even a big speck only weighs about 7 pounds I believe.

I center patterned a spoon at maybe 20 yards or so with a late season goose load. The breast looked like Swiss cheese from the BB's passing through it. They hit a teal with that, there won't be much left.

Those are the ones that broke my gun. I found them extremely hot.

3" #3's and #4's seemed to work pretty darn good on specks that got right.

[Ericdc]

3 1/2” shells and hevi shot have degraded hunting


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[SpinnerMan]

a fellow showed me a 3 1/2" Blackcloud BB hull he found in the blind.

I guess they thought you were shooting late season giant Canadas at 40 yards

Even a big speck only weighs about 7 pounds I believe.

I center patterned a spoon at maybe 20 yards or so with a late season goose load. The breast looked like Swiss cheese from the BB's passing through it. They hit a teal with that, there won't be much left.

Those are the ones that broke my gun. I found them extremely hot.

3" #3's and #4's seemed to work pretty darn good on specks that got right.

They would not cut it on a late season giant Canada that can go 14 lbs with most weighing around 12 lbs.

Last year a buddy must have gotten some #4's mixed in by accident. I remember him hammering the geese and then watching them limp off. We were shooting geese feet down over the decoys only. While everyone else was killing them stone dead, he struggled. Well, when I started spitting #4's out of the sausage I made from the geese, I'm pretty sure that was the problem and I picked up one of his geese after the group photo. I only shoot #2 during early season (when geese have less fat and down) and I might get ducks and BB late season when its only geese and #3's or #4 when its ducks only.

I shoot 3.5" It's about 10% extra shot. The tradeoff between buying a 10 gauge. I don't think it is that important, but every little bit helps when dealing with big birds that can take a pounding.

[aunt betty]

Have killed Canada geese with dove loads. (was all I had)
You gotta gettem close close like club em with the gun close.
The story of shooting the geese with dove loads is epic but can not be re-told publicly.
Maybe next time you ask me about it eh?
The story of Big Rock and the Big Flock.

The last one that day was crazy. Another huge flock of way high Canada geese in a blizzard. I started yelping and honking with my mouth. They came down, busted into like ten groups circling low. One group flew over about 10 yards from me. Had to fish in my pocket for the very last shell and...pow.

[Rick]

Since we're telling smallest pecker stories, I've killed specks, blues/snows and resident/giant Canadas with 7 1/2 or 8 lead, a fair number of specks with 5 steel and quite a few big Canadas with the early 4 steel (the only thing available to me when steel was first mandated in Ohio's North Zone) said by many to bounce off ducks. Dave pegged it with "that got right". Light steel will crack a big goose's skull just fine at applicable range.

[Rick]

...I know the muzzle jump created on the 12 3.5" makes getting on another bird difficult...

And that, plus a light gun's handling, is why I love light loads: follow-up shots are so much quicker/closer.

[SpinnerMan]

Since we're telling smallest pecker stories, I've killed specks, blues/snows and resident/giant Canadas with 7 1/2 or 8 lead, a fair number of specks with 5 steel and quite a few big Canadas with the early 4 steel (the only thing available to me when steel was first mandated in Ohio's North Zone) said by many to bounce off ducks. Dave pegged it with "that got right". Light steel will crack a big goose's skull just fine at applicable range.

People don't kill giant tom turkey's with big loads. Like you said, if you can hit them in the head and neck, it doesn't take much.

[Rick]

Date: 1/16 Tue

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy (but we beat the sleet out)

Wind Direction and Velocity: Building to STRONG shortly after LST

Temperature: mid 40s falling to freezing

Moon phase: new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Very few high flights seen riding the front, most of what relatively little we saw, high or low, was coming from the south. Believe we had but one teal op, while the biggest hunt in the marsh, Issac's had 11 greenwings in its 16 duck mix.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Poor, as nearly all the high birds that locked were apparently unwilling to fight the wind down and went on. The spinner did most of our real good drawing low mallards from the south that were too low for me to see until they cleared the canes.

Hunters: 2, annual regular, Bruce, and grown son, Justin, on the later's first hunt with us.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Kept Marsh dry most of the hunt until running his buns all over the marsh for a pintail that eventually bled out and I apparently miss marked.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: just the lack of flight and lost bird

Kudos: We had a nice visit, shot a few ducks and didn't get wet.

Birds By Species: 2 gw teal, 5 mallards and 1 shoveller

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[DComeaux]

I was anticipating nothing but green for you this morning, with others as fillers..... Seeing birds here locally today which brings to mind the way back years when we had a winter. The swamp just down the road from here is producing nice straps of mallards and pintail this week.


I wish I had the piss and vinegar of my younger days. I'd be sitting in that swamp right now.

[Rick]

Lots of geese moving when I was on the way home this morning, which made me wonder if I'd have detoured for a pair if we still had something on Dixie. Not at all sure I would have hunkered in the sleet for however long it might take...

As for "nothing but green," our light strap was the big mallard shoot for the marsh. Maybe tomorrow...

Or not...

First hunt of the morning is apt to be for an open bridge across the Mermentau.

[Rick]

I wish I had the piss and vinegar of my younger days. I'd be sitting in that swamp right now.

Just talked to a fellow who's group limited on ducks and specks this afternoon. "A special hunt" I was just as happy to miss. Yet another sign that I'm officially old.

[Rick]

Date: 1/17

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE STRONG

Temperature: Teens: "feels like 4"

Moon phase: new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Don't know that we saw a teal or more than a small handful of jacks or other "miscellaneous ducks". But the miserable weather had scads of mostly high mallards and pintails about along with some low ones that were plainly looking for a place to get out of the weather.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Started out thinking the high ones just weren't going to fight the wind to get down, but the windier I got with the Deceiver, the more willing they did. And we frequently ended up with way the hey "too many" mallards and pintails, sometimes literally hundreds, dropping down to supplement the more reasonable stuff.

Hunters: 2, Bruce and Justin again.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The guys were good with leaving Marsh at the camp and forgoing all but gimme shots apt to fall where I could recover them without, so Marsh got a break, and I was the dog. A few birds still fell on the flotant behind/downwind of the blind, but I managed to break ice Marsh could of run on without breaking through the flotant to recover them.

Special Equipment: Lost several ops to the spinner's slow stop in the wind, as well as operator error.

Curses: Might bitch about the weather if it weren't what gave us such an incredible hunt.

Kudos: All God's waterfowlers should have been at the Mudhole to see the show with us this morning, and I'm glad Bruce and Justin got to be.

Birds By Species: 12 mallards, 3 pintails and 1 ringneck

Photo Ops: Justin and Bruce:

004.JPG

[Ericdc]

Can’t wait for some of them to come back this weekend for the thaw.

Great hunt, it was 10 at my house this morning.


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[Darren]

Just awesome

How'd the other blinds make out, Rick?