Looking Ahead to 2018-2019...

[Rick]

There have been September teal seasons when I've opted to hunt elsewhere, rather than grind (and re-grind, and re-grind and re-...) it in the heat, but I doubt that will be an option this year. Just going to have to cross fingers and toes and get after it early if I can.

[Rick]

Our last two drought years were 2010 and 2011 which, if memory serves, were my two best mallard years. But I doubt that was feed related, as cattails tend to take over the marsh in dry years and don't seem to do anything but the nutrias any good.

[Rick]

Our last two drought years were 2010 and 2011 which, if memory serves, were my two best mallard years.

Should have added "at the mudhole". Best mallard (and speck) years for me by far in that marsh were when we just had the east blind for a few seasons a couple years before taking over the whole marsh in 2006.

Might also add that drought hastens the natural process of the marsh's filling in with vegetation. Will take a storm's salt surge (or wide-spread intensive spraying it won't ever see under our "management") to reopen much of it. Prior to 2010, I could take a small natural trail from my pond to a large lake-like expanse of open water pocked with small islands to its north, which has since been inaccessible other than by airboat and is now just a scattering of small potholes, barring a cold wet winter that sinks the flotant and covers winter-killed vegetation. Things change...

[Ericdc]

Grinding and regrinding aside, do you find low water in the marsh during summer months beneficial as far as duck food production? Been able to correlate it with increase or decrease in game using the marsh in the fall?

our low water years always produce more food which helps us hold more ducks which helps us kill more ducks ... 14-15 season was the most recent “lower” water season that produced a fun season.... I believed Comeaux will agree for sure


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That year also featured an arctic front in early November that absolutely loaded y’all up.

We had a field of solid ice up here that Saturday for our youth hunt while y’all opened.


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[Rick]

our low water years always produce more food which helps us hold more ducks which helps us kill more ducks ... 14-15 season was the most recent “lower” water season that produced a fun season.... I believed Comeaux will agree for sure

Are you brackish and wishing for wigeon grass, as he is? All we get (or have gotten during my time there) is cats and crap like water primrose at the cost of the coontail, which at least fosters invertebrates.

They and their like also knock the pins out from under my plans for clear line of sight for low flying teal and ringnecks from their favored water to my spinners. So I'm back to praying for a good mallard year and don't mind a bit if they're headed for Flores' well managed duck paradise, as long as they come by close enough for me to see them and them to hear me.

Just occurred to me that instead of grinding, I might ought to plant corn on the mudhole and start rain dancing...

[Rick]

"All we get (or have gotten during my time there) is cats and crap like water primrose at the cost of the coontail, which at least fosters invertebrates." (I've no idea whether the birds also eat the plant.)

As near as I can tell, coontail is our primary beneficial sub-aquatic and dwarf spike rush, with it's tiny topknot seed, our primary beneficial emergent - at least as far as I can see. With low water we should see some barnyard grass along the eastern-most end of the boat run, but I've never seen a stick of the Walter's millet many here call"wild rice," even after the storms when marsh a few miles to our south has come back thick with it.

[Rick]

Have you ever been kept out of the mud hole during duck season due to low water?

There have been September teal seasons when I've opted to hunt elsewhere, rather than grind (and re-grind, and re-grind and re-...) it in the heat, but I doubt that will be an option this year. Just going to have to cross fingers and toes and get after it early if I can.

My mind is gone. We'd not have been able to hunt at all in one of those drought years if rich neighbors hadn't spent serious money pumping...

[Darren]

So I'm back to praying for a good mallard year and don't mind a bit if they're headed for Flores' well managed duck paradise, as long as they come by close enough for me to see them and them to hear me.

Haven't you been paying attention? Zero mallards come to Louisiana any more, none to be had at all, they say.

Photos from the Mudhole and also Lacassane Lodge from last season would argue otherwise, however.

[Rick]

Seems like when the Lake Arthur Club doesn't have 'em no one does, not even their AMACO/"White Lake Complex" neighbors. Ours are definitely the cheap seats compared to theirs.

[Darren]

Seems like when the Lake Arthur Club doesn't have 'em no one does, not even their AMACO/"White Lake Complex" neighbors. Ours are definitely the cheap seats compared to theirs.

I'm so far out of the inner circles that I hadn't even heard of Lake Arthur Club or know of it's rough whereabouts. Must be fancy. Found some pictures from it on FB, seems ducks like it there too.

[Ericdc]

Seems like when the Lake Arthur Club doesn't have 'em no one does, not even their AMACO/"White Lake Complex" neighbors. Ours are definitely the cheap seats compared to theirs.

I'm so far out of the inner circles that I hadn't even heard of Lake Arthur Club or know of it's rough whereabouts. Must be fancy

There are advantages to having “average” hunting spots. Don’t have to worry about people buying it out from under you haha.


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[Rick]

i thought the same thing today, all this talk of no ducks and I’m thinking man I sure did see some amazing straps last year. That’ll be enough to keep me going this upcoming season

If it wasn't for the second split, there'd of been no season at my blind. First split was grim.

Never considered having to pump the marsh but that makes sense. So the neighbors pumped enough to flood the whole marsh and y’all were the beneficiary of their work? I’m obviously not familiar with any levee system you may or may not have in the marsh but that’s a weird concept to me coming from Ag land.

Our marshes adjoin and are landlocked east, west and north by ridges and ag land protection levees and to the south by the intracoastal canal's spoil bank. Neighbors can't flood theirs without flooding ours, as well. Six digit fuel, pump rental and transport bill.

[Rick]

I'm so far out of the inner circles that I hadn't even heard of Lake Arthur Club or know of it's rough whereabouts. Must be fancy. Found some pictures from it on FB, seems ducks like it there too.

LA Club isn't fancy unless something's changed since I was last there - 20-some years ago. Just a huge chunk of prime marsh studded with"lakes" along the west border of the 26,000(?) AMACO's/WLC has water control on. Lee O'Brien et al, if you look it up on something like the actDataScout site.

[Rick]

Seems like when the Lake Arthur Club doesn't have 'em no one does, not even their AMACO/"White Lake Complex" neighbors. Ours are definitely the cheap seats compared to theirs.

I'm so far out of the inner circles that I hadn't even heard of Lake Arthur Club or know of it's rough whereabouts. Must be fancy

There are advantages to having “average” hunting spots. Don’t have to worry about people buying it out from under you haha.


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The pretty average farms we just got priced out of came within $50 a blind of doubling this year.

[Ericdc]

Seems like when the Lake Arthur Club doesn't have 'em no one does, not even their AMACO/"White Lake Complex" neighbors. Ours are definitely the cheap seats compared to theirs.

I'm so far out of the inner circles that I hadn't even heard of Lake Arthur Club or know of it's rough whereabouts. Must be fancy

There are advantages to having “average” hunting spots. Don’t have to worry about people buying it out from under you haha.


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The pretty average farms we just got priced out of came within $50 a blind of doubling this year.

How would you define average in terms of birds per hunt?


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[Rick]

HO LEE CHIT. I’ll stop complaining about my little diesel bill.

Pretty big operation with everything barged in:

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Would have been way ahead, and maybe not had to do it again in 2011 if they'd of put in a pipe with a flap gate to trap water while they had the barge and excavator out there. But my buddy, their camp manager, had it in his head that reopening an old natural run to the intracoastal would miraculously only let water flow in. (Old Cajun apparently told him the marsh never dried up while the run was open - same old Cajun that with his wife has coffee at our house every week or two and has told me of walking the dry boat trails in that marsh and snagging gators from their dens with hooks on sticks during drought years. Very sore subject between my manager friend and I.)

[Rick]

How would you define average in terms of birds per hunt?

I couldn't tell you what my own average per hunt is. Am talking about the blind Jarren had two years ago and six others on the two adjoining farms we leased from that owner. Not a lot of gimme days, but fair opportunity for some specks and/or ducks most days, if you're a hunter.

[Rick]

Am told it's a $7,500 a day camp (single party of 1-10 men and $750 a gun over that), so they've a little wiggle room.

[aunt betty]

Camp Mohawk Duck Club. Where every member has their own private masseuse.