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2017-2018 September Teal:

Blue-wing Teal - 146

Green-wing Teal - 3

September Teal Total: 149

100+ shy of par.

Well with our unseasonably warm Sept. (record highs in the 90's) here in WI and the amount of Teal we tied into on opening day of Southern Duck season... I can understand why you came up a bit short. In my 15 years of waterfowling I've never gotten into gobs of teal like that... I felt like the late Wade Bourne tucked in the swamps of LA banging away at those little rocket ducks, minus the cotton mouths and gators.

I'm not about to reference global warming, but I will say it seems like birds are hanging around longer and wintering a bit farther north than in the past.

It vas duh Russians.
Always...duh Russians.

2017-2018 First Split:

BW Teal - 29

Canvasbacks - 2

Gadwall - 14

GW Teal - 59

Mallards - 23

Mottleds - 6

Pintails - 14

Ringnecks - 23

Scaup - 14

Shovellers - 28

Wigeon - 2

Wood Ducks - 14

Specks - 4

First Split Totals - 228 ducks and 4 geese

Corrected(2) first split -

2017-2018 First Split:

BW Teal - 31

Canvasbacks - 2

Gadwall - 14

GW Teal - 59 (1 banded)

Mallards - 23

Mottleds - 6 (1 banded)

Pintails - 14

Ringnecks - 23

Scaup - 14

Shovellers - 28

Wood Ducks - 14

Specks - 4

First Split Totals - 228 ducks (2 banded) and 4 geese

2017-2018 Second Duck Split:

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks - 5

Gadwall - 12

Green-winged Teal -159

Mallards - 168

Mottled Ducks - 9 (one banded)

Pintails - 34

Red Head - 1

Ringnecks - 41

Shovellers - 31

Wigeon - 1

Wood Ducks - 5

Speckle-bellied Geese (as of 1/21) - 2 (one banded)

Second Split Total Ducks: - 466 ducks

Rick wrote:2017-2018 Second Duck Split:

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks - 5

Gadwall - 12

Green-winged Teal -159

Mallards - 168

Mottled Ducks - 9 (one banded)

Pintails - 34

Red Head - 1

Ringnecks - 41

Shovellers - 31

Wigeon - 1

Wood Ducks - 5

Speckle-bellied Geese (as of 1/21) - 2 (one banded)

Second Split Total Ducks: - 466 ducks

WOW............looking at that big Mallard number,.........very impressive Rick!!!!!!!!!! With as many teal as you had early this year, I am surprised you didn't have any Blue Wings during big duck season.

Deltaman wrote:With as many teal as you had early this year, I am surprised you didn't have any Blue Wings during big duck season.

Good eye!

Amended Second Split


]2017-2018 Second Duck Split:

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks - 5

Blue-winged Teal - 31

Gadwall - 12

Green-winged Teal -159

Mallards - 168

Mottled Ducks - 9 (one banded)

Pintails - 34

Red Head - 1

Ringnecks - 41

Shovellers - 31

Wigeon - 1

Wood Ducks - 5

Speckle-bellied Geese (as of 1/21) - 2 (one banded)

Second Split Total Ducks: - 497 ducks

Now you're talkin'.............touching the 500 mark! Great Season totals Rick! Congrats brother, and glad you have the personality needed to absorb (or...... more like endure), some of the infrequent a-holes that make it to your blind!

Numerically, I couldn't call our second split "great," but it sure felt that way after the poorest teal season since Hurricane Ike blew them out and probably my poorest first split in a lot longer than that. Missing it already.

We shot more second split mallards than the past few years, but they were so scarce the first split that the total was lower than most, except 2015-2016 which really sucked. Still haven't recovered my records prior to 2014 from a hard drive crash, but remember that we broke the 200 mark as recently as 2010 and/or '11, when summer drought had the mudhole exactly that with a thin sheen of water over thick sludge ground out of the turf. Would think drought to our north contributed to that much the same as the weather there contributed to this late season.

Grrr... been going over log and found another first split error, left out 2 wigeon from 11/21.

Latest versopn:

2017-2018 First Split:

BW Teal - 31

Canvasbacks - 2

Gadwall - 14

GW Teal - 59 (1 banded)

Mallards - 23

Mottleds - 6 (1 banded)

Pintails - 14

Ringnecks - 23

Scaup - 14

Shovellers - 28

Wigeon - 2

Wood Ducks - 14

Specks - 4

First Split Totals - 230 ducks (2 banded) and 4 geese

Grrrrrrr... Found another error: omitted 3 specks from 1/7's "birds by species".

Amended Second Split (take three)


]2017-2018 Second Duck Split:

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks - 5

Blue-winged Teal - 31

Gadwall - 12

Green-winged Teal -159

Mallards - 168

Mottled Ducks - 9 (one banded)

Pintails - 34

Red Head - 1

Ringnecks - 41

Shovellers - 31

Wigeon - 1

Wood Ducks - 5

Speckle-bellied Geese (as of 1/21) - 5 (one banded)

Second Split Total Ducks: - 497 ducks

Corrected(3rd time) first split -

2017-2018 First Split:

BW Teal - 29

Canvasbacks - 2

Gadwall - 14

GW Teal - 59 (1 banded)

Mallards - 23

Mottleds - 6 (1 banded)

Pintails - 14

Ringnecks - 23

Scaup - 14

Shovellers - 28

Wigeon - 2

Wood Ducks - 14

Specks - 4

First Split Totals - 228 ducks (2 banded) and 4 geese[/quote]

I'm inclined to think grays more brackish than fresh marsh oriented. But to see something really rare at my blind that your marsh saw more of, look at wigeon, which were once thick here. This latest log revision was made to note two wigeon I'd somehow listed as bluewings while sick and one of you folks caught from a photo - and I just did again while copying the log to Word.

you're like the media, we don't know what's real. Too many reports.

DComeaux wrote:you're like the media, we don't know what's real. Too many reports.

I shot a duck once. (or was it twice?)

2017-2018 Regular Season Totals:

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks - 5

Blue-winged Teal - 60

Canvasbacks - 2

Gadwall - 26

Green-winged Teal - 218 (1 banded)

Mallards - 191

Mottled Ducks - 15 (2 banded)

Pintails - 48

Redheads - 1

Ringnecks - 64

Shovellers - 69

Wigeon - 3

Wood Ducks - 19

Speckle-bellied Geese - 9 (1 banded)

2017-2018 Regular Season Totals - 721 ducks (3 banded) and 9 geese (1 banded)


2017-2018 All Inclusive Total - 879 birds (4 banded)


Don't expect to try to kill another goose and thought I'd button this part of the season's log up.

Bottom line being that even a relatively strong second split wasn't enough to save this from being the numerically worst of recent seasons. Our big shortfalls being over 100 September teal shy of all but 2008, when Hurricane Ike struck on opening morning and blew the region virtually clean of birds, an abysmal first split also falling over 100 birds shy of all but the very worst such we've seen at the Mudhole, and green-wings being well below their norm throughout. But we sure had a lot of big duck fun in the second split.

Rick do you keep a season totals tally as the season goes on so you don’t have to go back through each hunt?


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I keep a species sheet on typing paper that I try to update daily. With the problem being that I'm as apt to mess up there as in this online log, where you guys sometimes catch my omissions for me. Or I catch them myself, like the above wigeon omission on 11/28 and possible/likely blue-wing mix-up noticed while transcribing the double wigeon retrieve "Photo Op". (Rather than just add the two wigeon, I assumed a mix-up and subtracted the only two bird entry for that day.)

Anyway, the final numbers recorded on this log are tabulated from the log, itself, and not the handier, but likely more inaccurate, worksheet kept for my own curiosity during the season. Which certainly doesn't mean they're absolutely correct, either. Not going to admit how many times I recounted how many of us hunted each day to get just that as right as I could for the birds-per-hunter-effort figures I expect to include in a season summary.

I go back hunt-by-hunt to tally species, and it's a huge pain that ends up with plenty of mistakes until it all balances out. Can only imagine doing the same for Rick's log, with more than twice the hunts, being a monster nightmare.

Darren wrote:I go back hunt-by-hunt to tally species, and it's a huge pain that ends up with plenty of mistakes until it all balances out. Can only imagine doing the same for Rick's log, with more than twice the hunts, being a monster nightmare.

At least Rick never has to question which days of the week he hunted

Weeell, I did start adding the day of the week to the log's numerical date line, so I could keep an eye on weekend pressure related bumps.

You need to be a nerdy engineer. I have a spreadsheet that automatically tabulates it all for me. I just enter the results every day which takes at most a minute and then it sums it all up automatically.

Just looking at that, much less figuring out how to set up and operate something similar makes my head hurt. But congrats on the skunk. Or was it a buddy's...