Preseason 2017

Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:22 pm

DComeaux wrote:2015... heat to the Canadian border at this time.


Apparently record heat. At least what I showed in the Fargo forecast seemed halfway seasonable, even if it didn't include blizzard warnings :lol:

We'll take that!
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:23 pm

Duck Engr wrote:And if my 2015 memory serves me right we had a really big artic front just at the right time in November and did really well for our opener. Suppose all that to mean the temps right now don't mean much of diddly but some chilly weather wouldn't hurt my feelings! Would definitely help me get in the hunting season mood.
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Heard that, down here the air's got us far from feeling ducky and wanting to go root around in the marsh
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby aunt betty » Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:46 pm

Forget which year but wasn't too far back...when I crossed the river at Cairo, IL it was sort of 7 miles wide.
Maybe that was season of 14-15.
Too damn much water.
I've heard that it's incredibly stupid to fuck around with a crazy man's head.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Fri Oct 13, 2017 12:32 pm

Not quite the big blow that will come hopefully later this month, but this is welcomed with regard to strength and direction

front winds.JPG



Few lease members going out to build a new blind in our north pond tomorrow and will make a pass to the two I frequent, including the one that was installed just a couple of weeks before Hurricane Nate's visit. Bet my buddy two empty shotgun shells it's still there watching over the pond

Hope to get down myself in a couple more weeks when it's time to start harvesting bushes
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Mon Oct 16, 2017 11:42 am

All good news coming off the weekend; front made it through today as advertised with a significant punch and legit north winds. Report off the lease from Saturday's blind build was all ponds were found to be in good shape and the blinds still there with no obvious impacts from Hurricane Nate. Water has been lingering on the high side because we haven't had a good wind direction to let it out from the storm just yet but this front should help a bit.

IMG_5323.PNG


With today's frontal passage got first report of grays and teal showing in the greater Delacroix area. In the spirit of the reported grays arriving, wanted to share a few new faces that will go to work in a few weeks. I believe these to be the most accurately colored grays on the market right now, from Avian X. They are not as "rubbery" as I recall of some of the first runs a few years back, in which I had concerns of them caving in since shell was pretty soft, and seem like the color should be very durable; awfully nice in hand and should serve us well next month.

IMG_5249.JPG
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:21 pm

Darren wrote:All good news coming off the weekend; front made it through today as advertised with a significant punch and legit north winds. Report off the lease from Saturday's blind build was all ponds were found to be in good shape and the blinds still there with no obvious impacts from Hurricane Nate. Water has been lingering on the high side because we haven't had a good wind direction to let it out from the storm just yet but this front should help a bit.

IMG_5323.PNG


With today's frontal passage got first report of grays and teal showing in the greater Delacroix area. In the spirit of the reported grays arriving, wanted to share a few new faces that will go to work in a few weeks. I believe these to be the most accurately colored grays on the market right now, from Avian X. They are not as "rubbery" as I recall of some of the first runs a few years back, in which I had concerns of them caving in since shell was pretty soft, and seem like the color should be very durable; awfully nice in hand and should serve us well next month.

IMG_5249.JPG


I run some Avery pro grade gadwalls. I think those and the avian X are the top 2 by far. Great coloring and poses.


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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:34 pm

Ericdc wrote:
Darren wrote:All good news coming off the weekend; front made it through today as advertised with a significant punch and legit north winds. Report off the lease from Saturday's blind build was all ponds were found to be in good shape and the blinds still there with no obvious impacts from Hurricane Nate. Water has been lingering on the high side because we haven't had a good wind direction to let it out from the storm just yet but this front should help a bit.

IMG_5323.PNG


With today's frontal passage got first report of grays and teal showing in the greater Delacroix area. In the spirit of the reported grays arriving, wanted to share a few new faces that will go to work in a few weeks. I believe these to be the most accurately colored grays on the market right now, from Avian X. They are not as "rubbery" as I recall of some of the first runs a few years back, in which I had concerns of them caving in since shell was pretty soft, and seem like the color should be very durable; awfully nice in hand and should serve us well next month.

IMG_5249.JPG


I run some Avery pro grade gadwalls. I think those and the avian X are the top 2 by far. Great coloring and poses.


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I'm a fan of the Avery Pro Grades, have been running a doz and a half of them with no complaints. They are a little on the lighter side of reality as far as the backs on the drakes, but the postures are really nice and they kill ducks. This switch was more out of a desire to tweak something to be excited to try in a new season as much as anything else. :thumbsup:

As a contrast to the "lighter side", saw some Cabela's brand gadwall at the Gonzales store recently.........like a whole different species, very dark. In hand looked nothing like what's shown on their website or catalog
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:36 pm

Darren wrote:
Ericdc wrote:
Darren wrote:All good news coming off the weekend; front made it through today as advertised with a significant punch and legit north winds. Report off the lease from Saturday's blind build was all ponds were found to be in good shape and the blinds still there with no obvious impacts from Hurricane Nate. Water has been lingering on the high side because we haven't had a good wind direction to let it out from the storm just yet but this front should help a bit.

IMG_5323.PNG


With today's frontal passage got first report of grays and teal showing in the greater Delacroix area. In the spirit of the reported grays arriving, wanted to share a few new faces that will go to work in a few weeks. I believe these to be the most accurately colored grays on the market right now, from Avian X. They are not as "rubbery" as I recall of some of the first runs a few years back, in which I had concerns of them caving in since shell was pretty soft, and seem like the color should be very durable; awfully nice in hand and should serve us well next month.

IMG_5249.JPG


I run some Avery pro grade gadwalls. I think those and the avian X are the top 2 by far. Great coloring and poses.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



I'm a fan of the Avery Pro Grades, have been running a doz and a half of them with no complaints. They are a little on the lighter side of reality as far as the backs, but the postures are really nice and they kill ducks. This switch was more out of a desire to tweak something to be excited to try in a new season as much as anything else. :thumbsup:


I hear you. I started adding more variety the last couple years.

We run pro grade teal, spoons, wigeon, and gadwall with our mallards and pintails in our field. We saw all those species regularly so I figure it’s best to replicate that.


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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby DComeaux » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:53 pm

HA!.. most of my decoys I've been having since the late 80's early 90's. Mud dauber nest stuck to some and in bad need of paint. We did acquire a few dozen used from a couple of people that are a bit younger. I hate paying the big money for decoys today. I remember complaining when I saw a dozen flambeau mallards @ $45.00. I see you can get a dozen storm front for $70.00.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:56 pm

Simmons has a deal on right now.

Image


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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:58 pm

DComeaux wrote:HA!.. most of my decoys I've been having since the late 80's early 90's. Mud dauber nest stuck to some and in bad need of paint. We did acquire a few dozen used from a couple of people that are a bit younger. I hate paying the big money for decoys today. I remember complaining when I saw a dozen flambeau mallards @ $45.00. I see you can get a dozen storm front for $70.00.


Seems like birds tend to check out field spreads a lot more and don’t come in as quickly as marsh birds, so I try to use only real good looking decoys.






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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:03 am

We have to put out our dekes and pick them up each day, we're only talking about anywhere from 20 to 40 dekes. The way I figure is I've got so much invested in everything else, I'm not going to leave realism of my dekes to chance after all else I've gone to great lengths to address.

Would be a much different approach if I were a regular in the rice with much larger quantities, though even there we've begun steadily mixing in newer blocks to my buddy's collection, but still need the old ones for bulking the numbers. Have taken advantage of plenty of those Flambeau Storm Front deals in the process, hard to beat them for the money. Also Academy's Game Winner brand has come a long way with realism and durability at a really low price, especially at end of season. Only knock there is that they tend to be on the smaller size compared to other brands
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Rick » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:08 am

Darren wrote:Also Academy's Game Winner brand has come a long way with realism and durability at a really low price, especially at end of season. Only knock there is that they tend to be on the smaller size compared to other brands


Can't speak to paint durability, but I was pleasantly surprised by the construction quality of Game Winner's coots. Doesn't hurt my purpose a bit that they're gallinule sized.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby aunt betty » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:17 am

Mini decoys don't count on the public places I use.

The rules say you have to have 12 full-size decoys because there have been guys who bend the rules. (myself included)
The idea is to keep "wanderers" pinned down.
One wanderer was wandering around jump-shooting with 12 decoys on a key ring. :clap:
Another had 12 blow-ups in his pocket.
There's always one of these guys out there.
Never was the wanderer but am not very good at counting past 5.
I've heard that it's incredibly stupid to fuck around with a crazy man's head.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby DComeaux » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:27 am

We had purchased a few dozen game winner as fillers 7 years ago when we got the rice blind and I think we may have a half dozen or less remaining today. Very fragile, rot and crack quickly.
We did get a dozen fancy pintail dekes a couple of three years ago to add a splash of color. I'd also like more coot decoys,and might have to break down and get the high dollar ones.

I'd sure like a few dozen of those purdy gray decoys you have. I'd pull the majority of the mallards from the spread for those. I'll probably break down in the next season or two and revamp the spread. It's just this years cost of getting set up was a bit high and hasn't ended, yet.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:29 am

We tend to use less decoys in our field than most field spreads that I’ve seen. 8-9 dozen ducks and about 3 dozen geese.




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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:40 am

Rick wrote:
Darren wrote:Also Academy's Game Winner brand has come a long way with realism and durability at a really low price, especially at end of season. Only knock there is that they tend to be on the smaller size compared to other brands


Can't speak to paint durability, but I was pleasantly surprised by the construction quality of Game Winner's coots. Doesn't hurt my purpose a bit that they're gallinule sized.


They should suit your use fine; only issue I had with one was sand-filled keel cap popped off and dumped the sand, likely from the rigors of loading and unloading in my boat, rough boat rides, etc. ......issues you don't have
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:42 am

DComeaux wrote:We had purchased a few dozen game winner as fillers 7 years ago when we got the rice blind and I think we may have a half dozen or less remaining today. Very fragile, rot and crack quickly.
We did get a dozen fancy pintail dekes a couple of three years ago to add a splash of color. I'd also like more coot decoys,and might have to break down and get the high dollar ones.

I'd sure like a few dozen of those purdy gray decoys you have. I'd pull the majority of the mallards from the spread for those. I'll probably break down in the next season or two and revamp the spread. It's just this years cost of getting set up was a bit high and hasn't ended, yet.


They've really stepped up their game in last year or two with the Academy dekes, you might give them another shot. Have a buyer at home lined up for a doz of my GHG Pro Grade grays but if falls through can make you a great deal on them if you're interested.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Deltaman » Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:12 am

Darren wrote:
Rick wrote:
Darren wrote:Also Academy's Game Winner brand has come a long way with realism and durability at a really low price, especially at end of season. Only knock there is that they tend to be on the smaller size compared to other brands


Can't speak to paint durability, but I was pleasantly surprised by the construction quality of Game Winner's coots. Doesn't hurt my purpose a bit that they're gallinule sized.


They should suit your use fine; only issue I had with one was sand-filled keel cap popped off and dumped the sand, likely from the rigors of loading and unloading in my boat, rough boat rides, etc. ......issues you don't have


I generally run 8 dz Gadwalls on marsh bay hunts (gadwalls are 90% of what we have), and probably 6 dz of them are the Game Winner Brand. Had a friend give me a new box of 6 ea. a few years ago, and i was impressed enough with the painting and posture, that I have been adding to them. Also have 5 dz Flambeau coot decoys that we will use from time to time, as they add realism to the spread. Another thing I add that I think looks good is that 18 or so of my gadwall decoys are butts only. I have repainted Mallard butts to match, and they pass muster for gadwall butts in the spread as well. Bought a pack of flock-a-flicker last year, but have yet to use. From the feedback I've been seeing, they eat a lot of batteries.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Tue Oct 17, 2017 12:26 pm

A fellow gray duck specialist!

Usually have run the coots but not so much on the Delacroix lease, just don't see many of them. Public lands further north of there, we'd routinely see huge rafts of them and the grays love them.

As for the butts, shhhhhhh, that's a secret. See a portion of my typical spread below with a front line rolling in. I've historically used the G&H Pintail butts with the pins cropped, though these are very expensive. They are very durable and are out there each hunt. Tried the Tanglefree versions last year at less than half the price, had a few issues with keels being too light and that netted me extra butts for free, thanks to their customer service. To me you have to have something for visibility because gadwall dekes just blend into the pond. So I run a handful of butts and also few pintail drakes to help with visibility

IMG_0018.JPG


Photo below is raft of loafing grays I scouted, can easily see the white butts when you view it full size

IMG_0802.JPG


Jury is still very much out on my Flock A Flicker review. Used them for teal with no discernible difference, and they're just not really what I'm going for in my marsh spread, dont want any flashing. I am, however, curious to try them in the rice
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Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:00 pm

Guys in my lease bought some flickers and we used them one hunt. Couldn’t not tell where they helped much at all. Actually picked them up mid morning and shot ducks and specks till about 2 pm on a good front. I like to be able to turn the motion off in our field, for geese, so I have 2 full size Mojos with remotes.


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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Deltaman » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:41 pm

Darren wrote:A fellow gray duck specialist!

Usually have run the coots but not so much on the Delacroix lease, just don't see many of them. Public lands further north of there, we'd routinely see huge rafts of them and the grays love them.

As for the butts, shhhhhhh, that's a secret. See a portion of my typical spread below with a front line rolling in. I've historically used the G&H Pintail butts with the pins cropped, though these are very expensive. They are very durable and are out there each hunt. Tried the Tanglefree versions last year at less than half the price, had a few issues with keels being too light and that netted me extra butts for free, thanks to their customer service. To me you have to have something for visibility because gadwall dekes just blend into the pond. So I run a handful of butts and also few pintail drakes to help with visibility

IMG_0018.JPG


Photo below is raft of loafing grays I scouted, can easily see the white butts when you view it full size

IMG_0802.JPG


Jury is still very much out on my Flock A Flicker review. Used them for teal with no discernible difference, and they're just not really what I'm going for in my marsh spread, dont want any flashing. I am, however, curious to try them in the rice


Lookin' good Darren!!!!!!
Over the years, when scouting and finding rafts of Gadwalls, the white/black colors are what you mostly see, as they pop in and out of the water feeding, and I can remember thinking they were Bluebills at first glance. That is when I started collecting butts and painting them to match, and can't help but think they help some because they look natural, and most hunters around here don't think about making their spreads look "different".
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Rick » Tue Oct 17, 2017 3:02 pm

Marsh Bear wrote:We bought some Academy Game Winner decoys last year - we leave our decoys out all season - and by the end of the season most of the paint had faded and we had pink decoys.


I've seen purplish GW mallards, but have no idea how long they'd been left out, only that they had.
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:32 am

A buddy visited the Bunkie area field yesterday late afternoon; only a few ducks seen but also "four or five groups of 50+ geese"

Tentatively planning to head up there a day next weekend for some camp work
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Deltaman » Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:44 am

Ericdc wrote:Simmons has a deal on right now.

Image


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Damn, wish we had a Simmons store here!!!!!!
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Ericdc » Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:02 am

Darren wrote:A buddy visited the Bunkie area field yesterday late afternoon; only a few ducks seen but also "four or five groups of 50+ geese"

Tentatively planning to head up there a day next weekend for some camp work


Wouldn’t figure there would be any water right now. That’s kinda how it is in northeast LA, we’re bone dry up till the 2nd week of November when the pumps start running.


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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Darren » Thu Oct 19, 2017 3:37 pm

This week's drought monitor, flyway wide, staying pretty dry up and down.

Capture.JPG


Received a number of video clips from a friend of a friend today in Grand Chenier area marshes, north of the highway. Lots and lots of little ducks
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Re: Preseason 2017

Postby Rick » Fri Oct 20, 2017 4:39 am

'
Darren wrote:Received a number of video clips from a friend of a friend today in Grand Chenier area marshes, north of the highway. Lots and lots of little ducks


Shop put a used electric fuel pump on the boat we poled out the other day, and our testing of that last evening turned up no ducks in the portion of our we rode - but the pump turned the trick and chase boat ("Fool me once...) didn't have to pull me out.
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