Season Log

Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:54 pm

Date: Nov 4 goose season opener

Time: hunted till 9

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: heavy clouds

Wind Direction and Velocity: SSW 5-10 mph

Temperature: 67 stayed cool thankfully due to clouds and wind, in 80’s once I got back to Monroe

Barometer:

Moon phase: full

Special Notes: got all the duck decoys put out after hunt and had everybody there to help do it.

Waterfowl Activity: specks didn’t move much at all, lots of ducks using our farm. Lots of teal, pintail, spoons, gads, ring necks and saw a couple mallards and wigeon. All the geese are bodied up undisturbed west of us still.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: had 2 singles work pretty well, gave the first one a one more pass and it left.... 2nd did just right and was shot with its feet down. No luck with higher groups because they are in a preseason pattern and not interested in new places yet.

Hunters: 4 members

Guns:

Malfunctions: none

Dog(s): ace and delta.

Special Equipment: redbone and 24 full body specks

Kudos: Ridge’s new pup ace made his first retrieve, and did pretty well for his first hunt. shack’s dog delta is a vet and just enjoyed the morning.

curses: might should have tried the first single, but don’t like 40 yard shots.

Birds By Species: 1 speck

Photo Ops:
Image
Ace

Image
Delta Image

Big body down the road, pic only shows a portion. Lots of specks and snows in plowed corn.



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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sat Nov 11, 2017 3:45 pm

Date: nov 11 east zone youth hunt part 1

Time: finished up around 9

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: mostly clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: 5 mph ENE to dead calm

Temperature: 38 early but 60’s when we left

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: brought my 15 year old nephew Colin and my wife came along to take pics and cook breakfast

Waterfowl Activity: our teal left but saw them come back in a big big bunch later in the morning. Lots of geese bodying up to our west, good duck flight from the south till 9 am

Waterfowl Responsiveness: bad skiddish early but once the sun got up they did better. Decoyed scaup, wigeon, mallards, and shovelers

Hunters: Colin

Guns: my browning gold

Malfunctions: none

Dog(s): Colin tried out his new waders and did a fine job

Special Equipment: 2 mojos on remote

Kudos: Colin shot very well on decoying puddlers and clipped a few fast moving scaup

First duck from new pit was a mallard...so that’s good?

curses: teal didn’t show up and specks decided they wanted to try and work once wind completely died. Had it been our group of adults we would have killed a few specks, but they were on wrong end of blind for Colin.

Birds By Species: 2 mallards, 1 wigeon, 1 shoveler, 2 scaup

Photo Ops:
Image
Colin making first retrieve
Image
ImageImageImage
Cut another good load of grass for next weekends opener.



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Re: Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Nov 12, 2017 4:38 am

Looks like a great day all around. And, damba, that's a big pit to anchor.
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sun Nov 12, 2017 7:12 am

Rick wrote:Looks like a great day all around. And, damba, that's a big pit to anchor.


I don’t know much about anchoring pits other than seeing the before and after of moving my old pit on north end of farm after re leveling field and putting a turn row through the middle.

Colin had a great day yesterday, would have been all time had he not missed a big spike yesterday evening, but I told him everyone misses. We hunted for blood for an hour from where he was standing right in front of my camera. I’m convinced it was a clean miss...guess he yanked it, 50 yards broadside.

Image


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Re: Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:46 pm

I've told my grandkids to watch the crosshairs until they see the bullet hit. Of course they can't, but it sure seems to have upped their averages.
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Re: Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sun Nov 12, 2017 6:07 pm

That's an awesome hunt, Eric. As Rick mentioned,that is one huge pit!
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sun Nov 12, 2017 8:17 pm

DComeaux wrote:That's an awesome hunt, Eric. As Rick mentioned,that is one huge pit!


Thanks. It’s a comfortable pit, not as long as most pits up this way but will comfortably, safely hunt and hide 4 men.


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Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Wed Nov 15, 2017 5:57 pm

Good news on our farm, holding lots of ducks. Lots of geese down the road in the dry fields too.

The last 2 years our farm has been, and I’ll quote Larry Reynolds from one of his surveys, “void of ducks” in the week or 2 leading up to opening day.

Last year I couldn’t believe it, with how dry it was and how much flooded rice and beans we had, but there were just no birds.

Pumps cranked up the last week of October and I’m sure we benefited by having water in time for that big cold snap at end of October. As we all know, ducks attract ducks so I guess since then we’ve been catching migrators for the last 2 weeks.

Opening weekend should be fun, but then it might get mighty tough if we get stale weather leading into thanksgiving weekend due to the lack of water in northeast LA.

Thankful for what seems to be like an exceptional push of early ducks, specks, and snows that we have.

Hopefully the 80 degrees and big south wind Friday won’t run em back to Stuttgart, but we’ll see.

I’m actually looking forward more to Sunday’s clear colder north wind than Saturday cuz I know the ducks will work better.


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Re: Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:48 pm

Ericdc wrote:. Hopefully the 80 degrees and big south wind Friday won’t run em back to Stuttgart, but we’ll see.
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I'm not sure if there's anything for them in Arkansas at the moment. It's dry.
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ducaholic » Thu Nov 16, 2017 9:51 am

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Re: Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Thu Nov 16, 2017 11:05 am

Ducaholic wrote:https://extra.mdc.mo.gov/cgi-bin/mdcdevpub/apps/wtr_survey/main.cgi


Weather forecast for Missouri show below freezing temps at night for the remainder of the month into December, with more snow than the last few years. Those birds had to move from the northern border states, already.

Missouri is predicted to be in-between the real cold line and the more moderate conditions which will be favorable for heavy snows. Hopefully we get a further dip in the jet stream than predicted and the birds push on south.Weather will be the only thing to push them from those flooded corn impoundments.

I pulled this from the farmers almanac on Missouri weather.

The predictions of good conditions for snowy days start in the middle of November. They predict snow chances for all of December. And very little chances of any snow in January but the snow could start to fall again in February.
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ducaholic » Thu Nov 16, 2017 11:39 am

I share your hopes and optimism but reality and the 15 day forecast says otherwise. The lowest temp. over that time frame in Sumner, Missouri (Habitat Flats NE Missouri) is 26 degrees warming in to the 40's and that is on Sat morning. I think the biggest push will come sometime after the first split has ended.

That's not to say you guys won't have success as you already have but for my personal situation in the East Zone beyond this weekend it's pretty glum.
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Re: Season Log

Postby Deltaman » Thu Nov 16, 2017 11:43 am

"flooded corn impoundments."

Our state shortstops the majority of our Mallards in the Northern end @ the Wheelerville Refuge, where they plant and flood corn, and put it out by the dump truck load too. Kind of a love/hate relationship for me..............guess it's good for the birds, but sucks for those of us South of it in the flyway, as they imprint there, without having to move any further South.
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Re: Season Log

Postby aunt betty » Fri Nov 17, 2017 8:14 am

Deltaman wrote:"flooded corn impoundments."

Our state shortstops the majority of our Mallards in the Northern end @ the Wheelerville Refuge, where they plant and flood corn, and put it out by the dump truck load too. Kind of a love/hate relationship for me..............guess it's good for the birds, but sucks for those of us South of it in the flyway, as they imprint there, without having to move any further South.

There are a couple lakes in Illinois that have vast walk-in impound areas. Standing flooded corn.
Illinois does the same thing but stops the season right before the birds show up in numbers.
I'd kill to hunt mallards in central-Illinois in January. There are allegations that I may have switched pages on calendars in the past. :thumbsup:
I've heard that it's incredibly stupid to fuck around with a crazy man's head.
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sat Nov 18, 2017 5:48 pm

Date: nov 18 opening day

Time: finished on ducks at 7:20, waited on specks till 9

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: partly with peaks of sun to mostly cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: SSW 10-20 mph

Temperature: 70’s

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: our water level has dropped several inches and looks much better...to me

Waterfowl Activity: green winged teal were pretty thick, lots of shovelers and gadwall too. Was told big ducks flew good later on. Only a few small groups of specks worth calling at

Waterfowl Responsiveness: teal decoyed pretty well. Usually had teal coming in before we could think about waiting on gadwall.

Hunters: Eric ridge garrison shack

Guns:

Malfunctions: Ridge’s dogs first duck hunt and they had a few rounds about staying in dog box, but ace calmed down after a little while and later recovered a lively cripple that evaded him for 10 minutes hiding and diving in grass along deep end of field

Dog(s): ace and delta

Special Equipment: 2 mojos on remote

Kudos: first good green wing shoot for me since 2013-14 and we shot pretty well.

curses: specks locked up got banged out, but that was expected.

Birds By Species: 22 green winged teal 2 shovelers

Photo Ops:

Image



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Re: Season Log

Postby Rick » Sat Nov 18, 2017 6:22 pm

That's the teal shoot I was expecting on the south wind. Glad someone had it. (And hope plenty stuck around by the Gulf for Comeaux, too.)
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sat Nov 18, 2017 6:39 pm

This herd of them have been in ours for a couple weeks. Thankfully they still decoyed well and didn’t give us Local treatment.

Anxious to see what the cold north wind and sunshine brings tomorrow.


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Re: Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sat Nov 18, 2017 7:25 pm

Very nice!
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Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sun Nov 19, 2017 3:25 pm

Date: nov 19

Time: finished at 11:30

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: light NW to 10-20 mph N

Temperature: 40

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: my favorite weather to hunt in

Waterfowl Activity: didn’t get covered up with new ducks like expected but hung with it after a fast start to finish at 11:30

Waterfowl Responsiveness: mallards wigeon and teal did great, gadwall being tricky. Specks flying too high in big wind to do anything with.

Hunters: Eric ridge big Joseph and shack

Guns:

Malfunctions: mojo batteries wore down around 10 in the wind. Need to buy 2 more for backups

Dog(s):delta made a few long marks

Special Equipment: 2 mojos on remote

Kudos: another good hunt where we decide to let spoons go and wait on big ducks after getting 8 quick teal, something we only do when everybody is ok with taking that chance. Did see a blue wing come through decoys, was a hen, and let her go.

curses: can’t do anything with specks yet in this big slick bean field

Birds By Species:
12 gadwall
8 green winged teal
2 mallards
2 wigeon

Photo Ops:
Image



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Re: Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:22 pm

Look the big ducks. Nice to know they might be coming...
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:51 pm

Rick wrote:Look the big ducks. Nice to know they might be coming...


Hope so, honestly can’t say we saw a big flight as far as new ducks coming from north... loads of geese though


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Re: Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Sun Nov 19, 2017 7:26 pm

Sweet!
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:17 pm

Duck Engr wrote:
Ericdc wrote:Date: nov 18 opening day

Time: finished on ducks at 7:20, waited on specks till 9

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: partly with peaks of sun to mostly cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: SSW 10-20 mph

Temperature: 70’s

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: our water level has dropped several inches and looks much better...to me

Waterfowl Activity: green winged teal were pretty thick, lots of shovelers and gadwall too. Was told big ducks flew good later on. Only a few small groups of specks worth calling at

Waterfowl Responsiveness: teal decoyed pretty well. Usually had teal coming in before we could think about waiting on gadwall.

Hunters: Eric ridge garrison shack

Guns:

Malfunctions: Ridge’s dogs first duck hunt and they had a few rounds about staying in dog box, but ace calmed down after a little while and later recovered a lively cripple that evaded him for 10 minutes hiding and diving in grass along deep end of field

Dog(s): ace and delta

Special Equipment: 2 mojos on remote

Kudos: first good green wing shoot for me since 2013-14 and we shot pretty well.

curses: specks locked up got banged out, but that was expected.

Birds By Species: 22 green winged teal 2 shovelers

Photo Ops:

Image



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Eric are you the mean mugging fellow on the left wearing the shmedium camo shirt?


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No fat one in the middle


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Re: Season Log

Postby aunt betty » Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:48 am

One day was looking at pictures of me holding ducks. For some reason I tend to hold them where it makes it appear as if I'm flipping the bird at the camera. Purely unintentional but it's in just about every shot of me holding a duck.
Like this.
20171122_064950.jpg
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Re: Season Log

Postby Ericdc » Wed Nov 22, 2017 6:23 pm

Date: Nov 22

Time: stayed till 11

Location: pit blind

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NNE 10-20 mph

Temperature: holding in 40’s

Barometer:

Moon phase:

Special Notes: got to bring my nephews, one who lives up here close and the other up for holiday from oberlin area

Waterfowl Activity: pretty disappointing, no evidence of new birds

Waterfowl Responsiveness: poor, expect the speck that worked in really nice and boosted my confidence about getting them in right at new place

Hunters: me Colin and Hunter

Guns:

Malfunctions: loaner benelli jammed on first volley but some oil fixed it.

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: 2 mojos on remote

Kudos: doubled our bag between 10-11 am and breakfast was good. Boys had a good time, but both have experienced far better gunning with me:

curses: let 4 teal in and out of decoys early...just didn’t see em land...and just no new birds on this front.

Birds By Species: 3 gadwall 1 mallard 1 green winged teal 1 speck

Photo Ops:
Image

Colin on left Hunter on right.


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