2017-2018 Season Log

[Rick]

Right up front (where it's easy for me to copy), here is the template I will be using:

Date:

Time:

Location:

Cloud Cover:

Wind Direction and Velocity:

Temperature:

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity:

Waterfowl Responsiveness:

Hunters:

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Curses:

Kudos:

Birds By Species:

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[Rick]

Date: 9/15

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: light SE

Temperature: comfortable

Moon phase: 23% waning

Special Notes: September teal opener

Waterfowl Activity: Birds seemed extra slow starting and extra high, but we did see a good many big north to south flights.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: I flat squalled at everything and felt the fool doing it, but every now and then a bunch would break and once on the deck, they were generally easy to bring around pretty if I didn't let up while they were over the better water behind us. Shot birds over both the squacky DC "teal" and crisper MVP "teal" and don't know but what the cleaner call fared better on the really high/wide ones - which would seem the opposite of last year's marsh trend.

Hunters: 2, Jack and Ed

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh did a fine job of recovering what fell on flotant, to include a long track I nearly called him off of.

Special Equipment: 2 spinners (teal and standard Mojo) and modified Mallard machine.

Curses: None at all, given how the rest of the marsh struggled, I felt flat blessed.

Kudos: Guys got the misses out pretty quickly once the light was good, and were dropping multiple birds. That, and they were fine company.

Birds By Species: 18 bluewings, but I lacked presence of mind to note sex ratio

Photo Ops: Had camera but, again, no mind.

Lagniappe:

[Deltaman]

Great report Rick, glad ya'll smacked'em!!!!!!

[Rick]

9/15/17 Addendum: Remembered a "curse" - perhaps the warming weather or just the mudhole being that, but there were big black dirt mudhole pies on her surface this morning. Tried to hit those I could on our pick-up rounds, but didn't get them all, and reckon there'll be more soon.

[Rick]

Great report Rick, glad ya'll smacked'em!!!!!!

We were very lucky. Spooky quiet out there for a while. Even the woodies and mottleds were mostly AWOL.

[Rick]

Date: 9/16

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: dense ground fog nearly all morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light southerly?

Temperature: warm to too warm

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Ground fog was thick but could see nearly blue above and NO flights were seen or heard up there all morning. Nothing seen anywhere the first hour or so, but then occasional low flights cam by becoming more common as fog thinned. Shot half our birds in the last 30 minutes before 9:30 curfew.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thank golly goodness most came pretty as they could. Used both calls successfully, though tended toward MVP for farthest.

Hunters: 2 very well traveled bird hunters, Jeff and Larry

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had another good day

Special Equipment: 2 spinners and MMM

Curses: We all shot poorly.

Kudos: Super nice guys.

Birds By Species: 8 bw teal

Photo Ops: Marsh doing what he does this time of year:

001.JPG

Lagniappe:

[Rick]

Date: 9/16

Time: afternoon

Location: H

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light variable

Temperature: hot

Moon phase: waning 14%?

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: nothing moved in our area prior to 6:30

Waterfowl Responsiveness: pretty good, but not what I'm used to. Did not hit on a favorite DC?MVP call, and momma call seemed the most consistent attraction.

Hunters: 4 who've made a couple afternoon teal hunts with me every year for a dozen, AKA: The Crippling Crew.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Just like this crews first hunt last year, we wore Marsh to a nub chasing fly-off crips - only this time in soupy hot rice water. Left 3 birds out there somewhere.

Special Equipment: big mojo and a handful of decoys

Curses: Liked to have killed the poor dog in the heat.

Kudos: NIce guys and a good time given the slow to show flight.

Birds By Species: 13 bw teal

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[DComeaux]

It was awfully hot this afternoon. Heck, by 9:00 this morning I was beginning to sweat in the blind.

[Rick]

Marsh is way too wooly for this weather. (I'm just too old and fat.)

[Rick]

Date: 9/17

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: fog missed us until late in the hunt

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light southerly

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: waning crescent

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: This morning we could see that there were very few teal around, with the betting being that we blew them all out to Belize Friday morning. Were lucky to fill right at curfew. Saw more of both woodies and mottleds than the past two mornings - and one pintail.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Aside from singles with jet packs that seemed to know what was where and were rubbing our noses in it, what we did see came pretty as could be. Still found they, or myself, favoring the teal cut MVP.

Hunters: 2, Jeff and Larry again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh did a fine job but got HOT working the flotant.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: just worry over how it will be without weather change or weekend hunters to stir whatever is left

Kudos: Great time with great guys.

Birds By Species: 18 bw teal

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[Rick]

Date: 9/17

Time: afternoon

Location: Hardy

Cloud Cover: clear over us, raining to north

Wind Direction and Velocity: thankfully strong (OK, moderate) from south

Temperature: hot again, with the breeze being our salvation

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Next to no teal seen: high, low or sideways.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Our two singles came to die, one from way the hey up, the other was cruising low.

Hunters: 4, Mike and John from yesterday plus two new ones

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh was steady in tall grass and made both marks by sound.

Special Equipment: big spinner

Curses: nice folks, no birds

Kudos: guys were good about it

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:[/quote]

[DComeaux]

It's going to get tough with this stale weather pattern.

[Rick]

I've been watching the 10-day forecast and still no relief in sight. Am guessing a lot of weekenders will also bag it, and even they'll be tough. Killing me that Bruce, who sometimes browses here, flew in from Md for this.

[Deltaman]

Dammit man, we not only need a good front for the birds, wouldn't hurt for steering the impending Atlantic storms away from the mainland too!

[Rick]

Dammit man, we not only need a good front for the birds, wouldn't hurt for steering the impending Atlantic storms away from the mainland too!

Fixin' to get "interesting" again in that regard.

[Rick]

Date: 9/18

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: nada to light variable

Temperature: HOT

Moon phase: waning 2%

Special Notes: same weather for days now and no change forecast

Waterfowl Activity: Very slow with just enough woodies and mottleds to keep us awake.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Aside from a couple singles showing off, thankfully good. Mostly used MVP.

Hunters: 1, Bruce

Guns:

Malfunctions: Benadryl buzz

Dog(s): Marsh did a neat tracking job in one case.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: I couldn't sleep and took enough Benadryl to lose an hour somewhere after waking before my 3:30 alarm and ended up 15 or 20 minutes late getting to the blind. Probably cost us a little shooting. Also lost 2 birds we saw go down and had marked but were nowhere to be found.

Kudos: Bruce was great about my screw-up and, as always, fine company.

Birds By Species:

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[DComeaux]

Birds By Species: ?

[Rick]

9/18 Addendum: 6 bw teal

Sorry about that. Still suffering that Benadryl hangover.

[Rick]

Date: 9/19

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light southerly

Temperature: HOT

Moon phase: new?

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Don't want to say it couldn't be worse, because we did see a very few teal.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had a pair and a single plainly push off known danger, but split a similar pair and tripped one up, plus had another two groups work as they all should.

Hunters: 1, Bruce

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh did a stellar job of figuring out where one of the two we lost from on the west end of the pond ended up.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Lost one of the two lively ones that went down on the pond's west end, and simply that there are no birds. DComeaux texted at 6:38 to say he wished he was in the blind, and we finally heard our first shot of the morning while I was answering that he shouldn't. Was also the last shots heard until we got a chance at 7:30.

Kudos: Morning was made at 7:31 when Clark Cormier on neighboring Cherry Ridge replied to our shots with a text saying, "Quiet down. We can hardly get a shot in over here."

Birds By Species: 4 bw teal

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[Ericdc]

I for one, did not wish I was in the blind and am not really excited about possibly hunting Saturday given the forecast....but we'll see.

I'll send u a "text of encouragement" tomorrow if I can remember.


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[Rick]

Being as how I still use a flip phone, don't count on response beyond "Y" or "N" and those take me a while to find.

[DComeaux]

Regardless of the bird activity, the marsh would be a much better place to be rather than here in this office. Twas a beautiful sunrise. One of many that I didn''t get to watch fully unfold.

[Rick]

Sunrise? Didn't see it. Was way too busy straining to spot game where there was none.

[Ericdc]

Yea fog when it's cold is one thing, but when it's 80 and foggy...yuck.


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[Rick]

Fog was very light this morning, just no birds. And HOT.

[Bud]

It;s time for a cool breeze in the air for you guys.

[Rick]

That's forecast for the season's last couple or three days - but will probably stall.

[Ducaholic]

That's forecast for the season's last couple or three days - but will probably stall.

From Wednesday on next week I predict your business will pick up in the mudhole.

[Rick]

And I predict I'll hope you're right.