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Made it out in some local stompin grounds around mid-morning today to see how the marsh was looking and check out our teal holes. Marsh is as lush as I've ever seen it, vibrant and tall as far as you can see. Think it's a product of the fact that we haven't had a big tropical storm, knock heck out of wood, in a while and plenty freshwater running through the area. Made a visit to a teal hole we scouted last year but didn't hunt, and found it looking even more ideal than last year as it appears much of the bulrush stands have died back. Not sure if that occurred due to the small storm surge back in June, but it opened up the pond and left some shallow flats of where the stands used to be......and ideal depth for dabblers, and the 5-pack of mottleds that we bumped on arrival were sure nice to see. While we were in the area they tried working back in so that's promising for sure. Planning to give this hole a shot over last season's teal spot which is nearby since this spot offers better visibility up-flight-path, so less likely to get burned as we often did at last spot from limited visibility.

Ideal depth given the rest of the marsh is usually 1 ft deep or more on higher tides

Had such a good time out there yesterday, had to venture out again today since sometimes opportunities to get over this way are limited. Started a bit earlier, just the hound and I in the boat. Back in and around the teal holes just doing some marsh stomping, ground truthing some aerial imagery. No mottleds in the main spot this morning on arrival, but watched 5 squealers light in it a little later, always enjoy hearing their calls. Generally our teal game is: find the locals, find the teal, and it's paid off for us in recent years, especially when there are very few or even no teal at all prior to the opener. Saw a few mottleds working about but strangely no woodies, whereas last year they were pretty thick.

Harry burned some energy and had a blast romping around and enjoying the shallows



Really liking the teal potential in these holes, about shin deep all the way across. May try a few full bodies with the teal dekes for more visibility.



Pretty lil spots in the vicinity



Much cooler today with the storms around and plenty breeze; yesterday was just miserable, about what one should expect for a typical early August day in Louisiana. My earliest teal sighting in this area was Aug. 17th (2012 season), so about 10 days left till that mark. In 2014 and 2016, though, not a blue-winged bird until opening morning......just had to set up where the locals had been hanging.

From Delta's site, excerpt below. It's not the USFWS survey but a glimpse of findings we might see later this month.

https://deltawaterfowl.org/state-duck-s ... l-hunters/


North Dakota
Of vital importance to Mississippi and Central flyway hunters, North Dakota’s May survey estimated 2.95 million breeding ducks, down 15 percent from 2016, and dropping below 3 million for the first time since 1994. Still, the estimate is the 24th highest since surveys began in 1948, and remains 23 percent above the long-term average.

“Fortunately, we still have a lot of ducks,” said Mike Szymanski, migratory game bird supervisor for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.

Bumps were observed among canvasbacks, which increased 23 percent, and for pintails, up 5 percent. Mallards remain relatively stable, down 5 percent. Redheads increased 2 percent, while shovelers were unchanged. Ruddy ducks, down 36 percent, showed the largest decrease.

All other ducks were 16 percent to 28 percent below 2016 estimates. However, most species remain well above long-term averages.

The estimate of temporary and seasonal wetlands was higher than last year, but Szymanski says that doesn’t tell the whole story.

“Last year’s water index was very low during our survey, and was followed by a lot of rain in late spring,” he said. “When you combine that with winter snow melt, the temporary and seasonal wetlands had water during the survey, but were struggling to hang on. It’s been quite dry since we did the survey, and once again those wetlands are dry.”

Szymanski said duck production in North Dakota will likely be lowered by the dry conditions affecting essentially all but the northeast and northern portions of the state.

“We’ve lost a lot of nesting cover since 2007, and now we are going into summer without much water,” he said. “I just don’t think the ducks will have very good production in a lot of areas.”

North Dakota is just one piece of the puzzle and "...remains 23 percent above the long-term average."

Rick wrote:North Dakota is just one piece of the puzzle and "...remains 23 percent above the long-term average."

Right; it's not sunshine and rainbows like we'd all want to always hear, but it's also just one piece of the whole production machine we rely on. Birds have adapted to this on similar years by overflying and doing their thing in Canada instead. We'll see what the USFWS report says, should be out within next few weeks based on last year's timing.

With the thunderstorms this week, we've been seeing wildlife other than ducks. Two squirrel nests have fallen from our big oak on to our driveway since Monday, a total of 6 baby squirrels taking the plunge. We've got a decent recovery rate as 4 have survived and were taken to the LSU wildlife rescue group at the vet school after we got them warmed up on a heating pad.



Hardest part has been keeping them from the cat but neat lil critters. Hope the remaining nests are built better

HA!...Is that fox?

johnc wrote:And the Bunkie ,LA area has now become a speck hot bed

We'll be expecting heavy straps there, Darren.

DComeaux wrote:HA!...Is that fox?

Presume to be the lil gray squirrels that are so prevalent in our yard. Who could blame them, they get free ears of corn a few times a week, the suckers we are. At least all of us, Harry, the cat, and the baby included, enjoy watching them from kitchen window.

Rick wrote:

johnc wrote:And the Bunkie ,LA area has now become a speck hot bed

We'll be expecting heavy straps there, Darren.

My first few trips up there in 2010 season really opened my eyes to the "where are the geese?" question that so many long time SW La goose-chasers have had for a while now. Staggering traffic over that farm we hunt each day, primarily south to north as I've mentioned in other posts. Since the cut we hunt is back in rice this year as well as those in our immediate vicinity, hoping to see the low & looking speck traffic again. Won't know if we'll have water until sometime during regular season and it's likely to be a later season thing again.

Darren wrote:

DComeaux wrote:HA!...Is that fox?

Presume to be the lil gray squirrels that are so prevalent in our yard. Who could blame them, they get free ears of corn a few times a week, the suckers we are. At least all of us, Harry, the cat, and the baby included, enjoy watching them from kitchen window.

I have fox in my yard. Love to sit and watch them interact. I don't feed em, as road poachers will wipe em out. I've found a few shot dead in the yard over the years. Went home for lunch one day and had a drive by. He drove off when I ran outside.

I got delayed on my travels to the camp. I'll be heading out later this evening..... Work always finds a way to ruin things.

Back when I was a kid we had a similar squirrel occurrence. My brother and I discovered that the squirrels were hungry so we started feeding them almonds. Real quick, I mean in one afternoon, we'd tamed the whole bunch.
That night there was an awful storm and one of the younger squirrels was clinging to our screen door wailing,
We took it in and kept "Sparky" for two years until she'd chewed up one too many chair legs and started in on my dad's thumbs.
That squirrel lived to be around twenty years old and every time it had babies had to introduce us to the family.
The only difference in our stories is that ours was from a Chinese Elm tree.
You can get in trouble for having a squirrel in captivity but we never bothered to check.

Had a boyhood friend whose family brought an orphaned squirrel in. Turned out there's a reason or twelve squirrels aren't popular pets.

Re: feeding, my MIL had Alzheimer's, and we kept her with us for most of her last five years. One of her pleasures was watching the humming and other bird feeders outside our front window. Her favorites were cardinals, and their favorites sunflower seeds, which most will know are also a great squirrel favorite that drew them from far and wide. Which included across the state highway which I scraped them off of on a too regular basis, least the sweet smell of carrion draw our pets or others to a similar fate. We miss Rena Mae, but it's nice to be back down to just the residents of our own and neighbors' oaks and only very occasional road scraping duties. (Most recent being a possum and a toad I can only assume he was eating.)

Rick wrote:Had a boyfriend

Red this three times before I caught the "hood" part. Maybe I better buy glasses. Been going without for a good six months.

BGcorey wrote:Pretty lil spots in the vicinity

IMG_4709.JPG

It looks to me like a brackish marsh huh? Maybe a little fresher when we have seasons of high rain fall?

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Historically has been brackish but in recent years has seemed to trend increasingly fresh, with more and more species of grass that are known freshwater varieties; more cattails, bulrush, etc. for example, in addition to the typical spartina marsh grass.

Though DComeaux's got this up already, wanted it here for my long-term recordkeeping all in one place. This breakdown by Delta also shows the pond counts broken out between US and Canada. Looks like despite the reported dry portions of the Dakotas, the US still made out OK, which is probably a significant contributor to BWT numbers.



For the primary species I see, gadwall and GW teal, we're looking good, despite a dip in green wings. The high BWT numbers are always welcome, as are the mighty shoveler, to which we give no quarter.

Bowie Outfitters has their big annual pre-season sale going on this week that's full of killer deals on jackets, fleece pullovers, gloves, etc. which are hard to buy on a 95 degree August day under a parking lot tent, but not if you let your mind wander to those cool mornings to (eventually) come. Its too hot to even try the stuff on! Trying to stay in teal mode but look forward to whipping out the gray duck dekes as well. Countdown rolls on to the next local offseason/preseason milestone, the Gueydan Duck Festival next week.

Will be interesting to see if we make it back up to 2 for next season, i forgot what the threshold is for that management option. The Delacroix area proper is typically bluewing bonanza but not a whole lot out on the fringe of the marsh (deeper marshes) where we are, mostly the green variety and grays. Think we only killed a very small handful of bluewings from our blind last year, while friends of mine a few miles closer "in" would sometimes see nothing but bluewings at their blind (much shallower/fresher marsh closer in).......but they're usually super jealous of our grays


For the log record, got a 2nd hand report yesterday of good many groups of teal being seen near Grand Chenier this week, for what it's worth. Log entry regular Johnny is in northern Indiana this week, 55 deg. this morning there.

Darren wrote:Log entry regular Johnny is in northern Indiana this week, 55 deg. this morning there.

Hope he packed a winter coat.

Rick wrote:

Darren wrote:Log entry regular Johnny is in northern Indiana this week, 55 deg. this morning there.

Hope he packed a winter coat.

Why? That's a cool summer day. Normal low for the day never gets above 64 up here in the summer.
In July, 5 days got down into the 50's. 6 days so far in August with the low of 52.

That's still shorts weather.

SpinnerMan wrote:

Rick wrote:

Darren wrote:Log entry regular Johnny is in northern Indiana this week, 55 deg. this morning there.

Hope he packed a winter coat.

Why? That's a cool summer day. Normal low for the day never gets above 64 up here in the summer.
In July, 5 days got down into the 50's. 6 days so far in August with the low of 52.

That's still shorts weather.

brrrrr, break out the hunt coats

??? 52 is sweat shirt weather until it rains.
You're not much of a waterfowler (round here) if you can't hunt in a drake MST in 20 degree weather.
When it gets to the teens it hurts.
Single-digit? Fuck that or it better be a quick hunt.
Them hardcore late-season goose hunters have electric clothes.

There are days when it starts out raining at 39 degrees then the cold front hits and your shotgun ices up. Of course those are the days where we pound the ducks.

Sometimes geese.

Darren wrote:Though DComeaux's got this up already, wanted it here for my long-term recordkeeping all in one place. This breakdown by Delta also shows the pond counts broken out between US and Canada. Looks like despite the reported dry portions of the Dakotas, the US still made out OK, which is probably a significant contributor to BWT numbers.

2017 breeding numbers and pond counts.JPG

For the primary species I see, gadwall and GW teal, we're looking good, despite a dip in green wings. The high BWT numbers are always welcome, as are the mighty shoveler, to which we give no quarter.

Bowie Outfitters has their big annual pre-season sale going on this week that's full of killer deals on jackets, fleece pullovers, gloves, etc. which are hard to buy on a 95 degree August day under a parking lot tent, but not if you let your mind wander to those cool mornings to (eventually) come. Its too hot to even try the stuff on! Trying to stay in teal mode but look forward to whipping out the gray duck dekes as well. Countdown rolls on to the next local offseason/preseason milestone, the Gueydan Duck Festival next week.

.....Topper.....

aunt betty wrote:There are days when it starts out raining at 39 degrees then the cold front hits and your shotgun ices up. Of course those are the days where we pound the ducks.

Our best day last year was in freezing rain.

My MOST important advice when hunting in the freezing rain is park your truck so your windshield is not facing into the wind

All 4 of us parked into the wind and had a lovely sheet of ice on our windshields that was way too think for the ice scrapers. I managed a little peek hole that allowed me to drive. I made it by a common deicing trick. Rub your bare hand on it until it melts

Left the defrost blasting while I loaded my truck, which melted the peek hole enough that I felt safe to drive slowly on the back roads to the clubhouse so I could sign out. Then I left it run while I was inside BS'ing so I was good to for hopping on the highway. The back of my truck was almost ice free

Then it got cold. The ice didn't melt off the decoys for a week. All decoys had to be placed with the ice covered side away from the sun. Good thing there was wind with the freezing rain or the decoys would have been unhuntable. Breaking the ice off of them just made them white from the busted ice. They looked better if you left the ice alone.