2017-2018 Season Log

[Darren]

Nine pretty ducks and a pair of specks, one toting jewelry sounds awfully nice to me. Of course first-timer gets in on a band hunt! Anyone have an obvious claim to it?

[Rick]

Let's just say I know who shot it but don't keep 'em and kept mum. Last I saw, it was going into the more experienced, and likely more appreciative, hunter's pocket. And being the one who spotted them and gave me the heads-up in time to kill the spinner, he was the most deserving of us all,

[Darren]

Let's just say I know who shot it but don't keep 'em and kept mum. Last I saw, it was going into the more experienced, and likely more appreciative, hunter's pocket. And being the one who spotted them and gave me the heads-up in time to kill the spinner, he was the most deserving of us all,

Seems like sound reasoning. Had to break up your ice with boat? Beau hunted solo on a late morning outing near my marsh place this morning, "water LOW and falling", but he did pick up 5 before bailing on it

[DComeaux]

Info from the band please..... Not a bad outing, and I see your yellow 20 hull frozen in the pond.

[Bud]

Maybe talking about specks doesn't hurt a lot?

Specks, mallards, and ice at the mudhole. Ice is so a stranger in coastal GA, hunted with one that wouldn't go near it after his master let him hit it wide open on a retrieve. Our small pond is completely frozen over as we speak. Dropping to 20 tonight.

Sir Rick, as a dog lover and hunter, I really appreciate how you are handling yours. I've heard "That's what they are made for" til I carry their dog off and try to get them out of the water. Good job!

[Rick]

Had to break up your ice with boat?

During my tenure as a Yankee, I came to believe the reflection from shattered ice in the hole a very bad thing. We always tried to break big sheets out as cleanly as possible and slide them under the surrounding ice to keep our holes as clean as possible. That being impossible with decoys in the pond, I took circuitous routes around the spread when boating Marsh to birds on the flotant across it and left the spread as is until near hunt's end. Didn't seem to bother the mallards until they were where we wanted them, and the first four teal we saw actually hit the ice and slid before we popped two on the bounce. (Third was shot on the pass when he shied from us.) The decoy in the photo was the closest to the blind, and the water and broken ice by it from our passages in and out of the boat hide.

Info from the band please..... Not a bad outing, and I see your yellow 20 hull frozen in the pond.

Hope to get that from Curtis in the morning, as we talked about my interest in information and online reporting. We'll see...

The pic of the decoy looks like a Mallard/Wigeon drake cross

Shoulda seen the coot/skunk hybrids.

...as a dog lover and hunter, I really appreciate how you are handling yours. I've heard "That's what they are made for" til I carry their dog off and try to get them out of the water. Good job!

Marsh is family, and I'm much too fat, lazy and "olfactory challenged to do his job myself, so we're doing our best to keep safe. Though having to wait for a ride on chipped birds plainly annoys the heck out of him.

[Rick]

Almost always well under 100yds. As with gator water, the ice has put some chips off-limits where I'll either not send him or call him off tracks that might lead to serious ice trouble.

[Rick]

Date: 1/4 Fri

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: overcast

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to light easterly late in the hunt

Temperature: low 30s

Moon phase: still too full

Special Notes: No ice!

Waterfowl Activity: Marsh was mighty quiet, as exemplified by ours being twice the next best blind's (Clyde's) take. But we did finally get to see, and take advantage of, a fairly strong high pintail flight from the north.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Easily got our pintails early on and took our mallard from another flight that broke from way the hey up with the MVP. (No need to get the SD out of the box the past couple days.)

Hunters: 2, Curtis and Paul, another brand new ducker who scratched with Issac yesterday but killed the first bird he shot at today. Reckon he's going to do fine, given opportunity.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh lost a bird that fell like a stone after tracking it to the big water behind us. Likely upper wing broken.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Just the lack of a flight.

Kudos: Nice guys who took good advantage of what little was offered.

Birds By Species: 1 mallard, 2 mottleds and 3 pintails.

[Rick]

Forgot to include my little rice rat or jumbo field mouse in the species list.

And speaking of fur, I went back to the marsh yesterday afternoon to clean up my weather and hunter related messes and must have seen a dozen nutria rats where we'd seldom see one before the big freeze. No doubt moved in from more alligator free spots in the marsh - and in for a big surprise when the water warms again.

Also saw that the jacks are returning to some of their favored pre-ice locals, notably Gabe's and Ed's ponds. Just about the only big ducks seen got up by the old well location at Gabe's blind, and while I'd never seen such a wad (20-30) of mallards rise from there, I'd think them "locals" using the spot to frustrate Gabe and his hunters.

[Rick]

Date: !/6 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly to clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to moderate easterly

Temperature: low 40s

Moon phase: 75% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Very slow early with a building high flight of mostly pins and mallards as the morning progressed.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Perhaps too good, as we often had "too many" birds working at once, which too often ended up in birds trying to finish being swept away by the flow of others. DC early and MVP once the wind and highest flights got going.

Hunters: 3, "the crippling crew" from one of last year's best flight days.

Guns:

Malfunctions: This year they were "the missing crew".

Dog(s): Marsh had a good morning - except on claimed kills I didn't see go down.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: The guys struggled with easy shots, so I too often passed on good, low overhead ops from poor angles that caught us or were swept away by other birds while I was trying to get them low over the plate in front.

Kudos: Nice guys, and we still managed a good hunt compared to most in the marsh, just not last year's "best ever".

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 3 gw teal, 1 mallard, 3 pintails, 2 ringnecks and 2 shovellers

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe: Clyde was shooting up a storm, and Doug told me my guys asked if they could hunt with him tomorrow, which would have been fine with me. But it did set me on a second round of second guessing my shot calling decisions - and wondering if knowing that all that shooting only put one more bird on Clyde's guys' strap than theirs?

[DComeaux]

Lagniappe: Clyde was shooting up a storm, and Doug told me my guys asked if they could hunt with him tomorrow, which would have been fine with me. But it did set me on a second round of second guessing my shot calling decisions - and wondering if knowing that all that shooting only put one more bird on Clyde's guys' strap than theirs?

Don't even worry about this, just do your thing. They can go to a clay shoot to run through shells. I didn't call a shot on a large flock of GW this morning that made a fast downwind pass literally over my left shoulder. Their posture made me think they'd bank and set up front and center for all to get good shots. Well, one jumped up as they were making the the turn while saying "why didn't you shoot". They flared and left. This was a fairly large bunch.

[Rick]

Had a similar snafu yesterday when a spoon hen floated in ahead of dozens of working pins and mallards: one guy blew our cover by starting up, so I said "Go ahead." and got rebuffed for then suggesting we hold our water and not show our hand until time to. "You said, 'Go ahead." We'll, yeah, after the fact. Just part of it.

Re: the second guessing, I do it all the time. Just part of it. Believe I've the same guys again today and will be even less likely to call low percentage shots in what should be meaningful wind. Though more "social" than "hunters," they really are nice guys, but I'll be fine with them booking Clyde or whoever next time. Still have circa 1980 Eastern Shore goose guide Matt Walsh in my ear driving home the virtue of trying not to let anything get away knowing what's happening at my spot.

That, and being one whose working birds are so regularly banged out by other blinds' shooting, I don't want to be the SOB others are cursing to no good end.

[Rick]

Date: 1/7 Sun

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: hazy drizzle

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead-a--d calm until too nearly curfew, then light SE

Temperature: cool

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Had a sweet SE wind this morning with an increase predicted, then nothing at LST

Waterfowl Activity: Much the same as the past couple of days, with a slow start followed by a high mostly pintail flight with occasional mallards.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: A time or two most years there will be a flight I feel I should be able to break but can't, and this was one of them. What precious few pintail flights I broke got banged out by what little shooting there was around us, and our luck with mallards was nearly as poor. Was tough to stay committed to hailing them all, given the lack of response, but worth it, I suppose, as our mallards were about, if not, the only big ducks taken. Specks roosted in the marsh, and the lack of early little duck shooting let me work 10 or 12 in picture perfect in front of the blind - of which only three were killed.

Hunters: 3, cripplin' crew

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh did a fine job of hunting up a tipped Susie I miss marked.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Hate it when I can't break the flight and hard fought for birds that should be gimmes are missed.

Kudos: Nice guys and we still managed a good time.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 6 mallards and 4 shovellers

Lagniappe Was all excited to see two of my favorite (and skilled) hunters in camp this morning - before learning I was already booked by other annual regulars who are very difficult to help succeed during their stay. So it goes...

[Bud]

I would have enjoyed watching you work those specks. Your words painted a beautiful picture of twelve coming to die. Hope you keep those specks coming, though not while mallards and sprigs are dropping cupped. Watching you work those birds is a large part of the enjoyment I ever had there. Thanks for the pics: keep 'em coming. I hope plenty stay south hearing of southerly winds.

[simplepeddler]

IMG_4605.JPG

my hole Thursday morning, I'm 180 and could not break it.............

[Rick]

Even looks cold.

[Rick]

Date: 1/8 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: socked in with ground fog for much of the hunt

Wind Direction and Velocity: none to SW light

Temperature: pleasantly cool, low 50s

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: I'd not have guessed what we took, given what little we saw. But more teal were around than have been lately.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: If the recent good high flights have continued, we couldn't see them. Just a few high pintails seen and only one flight of them broken down, then lost to? Local big ducks also seemed more scarce and generally remained tough to deal with. Single quacked our mottleds to the guns.

Hunters: 2, Long time annual regular, Brooks, and his ringer, a new younger gun, Matt, who manages a South Georgia plantation and is a fine shot.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The bug had an easy morning with just one long hunt-'em-up.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Just the fog.

Kudos: We managed to pull a pretty good hunt out of a skinny hat.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 8 gw teal, 2 mottleds (1 banded as an adult at Rockefeller in 2015), 1 redhead and 1 shoveller

Photo Ops: The bug tried pushing our second mottled with the first:

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But had to settle for one at a time:

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[DComeaux]

Very nice. Any word on the speckle belly?

[Rick]

No, Curtis got frustrated trying to do it on his cell phone. Maybe he'll remember it next year - if he got through. (Matt had the mottled's info in about three minutes today.)

[Darren]

This e-reporting of bands is a whole new game, very cool! Maybe it was the one that got away other day?

[DComeaux]

Dang it...Give me the numbers, I'll look it up.

[Rick]

Don't have the numbers. Handed the band to my guys as soon as it came in.

[Rick]

This e-reporting of bands is a whole new game, very cool! Maybe it was the one that got away other day?

Don't know. Might be giving his kind too much credit, but I don't expect them to make the same mistake twice. This one and his mate were killed by continuous single quacks from way the hey out (where he got up out of "the veteran's home" by the big canal) which has been a tough sell for a while now.

Two less pilot ducks to lead our working ducks away in any event.

[Darren]

Two less pilot ducks to lead our working ducks away in any event.

No doubt! Haven't even fired on one in our marsh myself but a few were killed in early season by others on lease. Was just observing on sunday how few we were seeing lately, likely laying low until their calendar says Monday Jan 22

[Rick]

Date: 1/9 Tue

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy

Wind Direction and Velocity: N moderate to brisk

Temperature: 50

Moon phase: waning 44%

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Could well have been worse, but still disappointing. Didn't see the teal the more easterly blinds enjoyed.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Tripped both high and local mallards, with the Stanley Deceiver accounting for both mallards and grays way "too high" and "too far" upwind.

Hunters: 2, Matt and Brooks again

Guns: 2 A-5s, old and new.

Malfunctions: Matt's older A-5's recoil spring broke or stuck or something, leaving the barrel free-floating through its range. Then he struggled with pumping my 870 spare and some cheap 3" Maverick(?) shells it didn't want to eject until I broke into my emergency stash of Rios that worked fine. 870 acted like the Mavericks(?) were too long to eject, but wouldn't bet it wasn't op error with the new-to-him gun.

Dog(s): Wore the bug out with a long, fruitless search for a chipped greenhead we weren't entirely sure even went down.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Found the last of my three pintail decoys that apparently got hammered while Marsh and I were out in the marsh during the big freeze sunk. Know it didn't happen while I was in the blind and there were big chunks blown out of the first ones to sink, indicating frozen plastic at the time. And I was so proud of my repaint on those old 'circa '70s G&Hs from my first spread.

Kudos: Nice guys had another nice hunt.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 2 gadwall, 2 gw teal, 6 mallards and 3 shovellers

Photo Ops: Matt and Brooks:

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[DComeaux]

Two less pilot ducks to lead our working ducks away in any event.

No doubt! Haven't even fired on one in our marsh myself but a few were killed in early season by others on lease. Was just observing on sunday how few we were seeing lately, likely laying low until their calendar says Monday Jan 22

I will assume ours are on Rockefeller living the good life, cause I haven't seen one of those in some time.




Another nice hunt Rick... You need to shake some folks...I can't even get with you during the week.