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Have a couple of offseason projects planned that I hope I get to tackle once our spring busy season for work slows down.

The first is making a flash board riser. Found them for a good price here (http://www.osceolamachine.net/flashboard-risers/) but they’re a 7 hour drive from me, and the shipping costs just about wipe out any savings I’d have from buying it locally. So I’m thinking of trying to make one out of a 50 gallon plastic drum. Will take some headscratching, but we’ll see how it goes. Im aware I’ll probably end up buying a new one.

The second is making a panel blind for a new lease we picked up. It’s a little over 100 acres, but doesn’t have a pit on it. The lease members all have layouts, but we want to have a blind over there in case we bring kids or guests who don’t have layouts. I’m skeptical of an above ground blind working very well but we have friends who have some good success out of them. I did a couple of cartoon sketches on my iPad and plan to do autocad fabrication drawings to work out all of the details so if I run out of time to build it, I can send it to a fabricator. Key decisions we need to make are do we want a floor and do we want a bench seat. Both of my answers to that are yes, but it needs to be modular so we can haul it out there in our trucks. I have an idea for that using pipe as pins. Also planning to build two of them 8’ Long so we can push them side by side when we have more than a couple guys hunting or we can just use 1 if there are only a couple guys there for a weekend. Makes moving them much easier.

One of our camp's lessees used one that looked like a big tepee this year that the bug and I may go take a look at and will snap some shots if anything about it appears useful or promising. (Our guys hunting next door hated them for sky-busting, but most folks do that from pits, too.)

Rick wrote:One of our camp's lessees used one that looked like a big tepee this year that the bug and I may go take a look at and will snap some shots if anything about it appears useful or promising. (Our guys hunting next door hated them for sky-busting, but most folks do that from pits, too.)

Thanks Rick! That’d be much appreciated if you’re able to make it over there. I always prefer borrowing the ideas of others instead of reinventing the wheel.

Afraid it wasn't prefabbed:


Sorry to have raised the possibility of help where there was none. But I now know where you can get some free for the picking up wire, if I don't get to it after the next couple good rains have cleaned some of the soot off.

No worries Rick, I appreciate your efforts. We have kicked around the idea of doing something simple like those fellas did, but decided we want a floor.

One more offseason project, though it’ll come later, is I’m planning to plant some rice on our little one acre duck hole in hopes that it’ll be something the hogs won’t eat. Current plan is to soak it for 24 hours submerged in water, then another 12 hours in a wet burlap sack before broadcasting on a mud flat immediately after we’ve drained the water from our pond. An immediate dose of fertilizer, followed by more fertilizer when it gets 4-6” high and 2,4-d as required.

All of my plan is based on seed manufacturer recommendations and internet searches. Anyone ever done rice on a small scale for ducks?

Know hogs will get into rice and assume they're eating it.

Rick wrote:Know hogs will get into rice and assume they're eating it.

Rats, though that doesn’t surprise me, as I haven’t found much that they won’t eat that ducks will.

My brother is looking for a hog hunting trip. If we could be pretty confident of killing one, we'd be happy to come and work on the problem for you

I’d love to have y’all if I thought I could give you good odds of killing some. Unfortunately for eradication purposes, most of them stay on our neighbor’s place, and only venture over to our place to root up fields at night or wreck whatever crop I’ve planted about the time it gets ready to make good seed. There will be a week in August where they’ll be in there day or night to get my browntop, but otherwise it’s a crap shoot without running them with dogs.

I'm well aware that hog hunting isn't easy. If it were, there would be no hog problem. If I lived closer, I would have been serious, but its too far to go for a DIY on something that requires dogs or a lot of luck.

We are actually looking to go to Texas as much for hunting the hogs as hunting the unique terrain. We're from PA, so this would be a big change of scenery We haven't decided, but that is what we are leaning towards. Depending on the timing, I might add a couple days for hunting something else, maybe ducks or geese. maybe predators. Deer seems too expensive for something I can hunt on my own. Just depends. We are in the early stages of doing our research.

Sounds like a good time! They have them thick out there. I’ve read you can do hog hunts from helicopters since the terrain is so open. That’d be fun to do once but I’m sure it’ll cost ya $$$$$$$$

My plans, subject to completely changing, is to look for a place where we are all but guaranteed of getting a hog or two. There will probably be 4 of us all together. One of my buddies and one of my brother's buddies. I think 4 is a good group for traveling to hunt. Also, while I'd love to be the one that kills a couple, with 4 of us, odds are up that somebody will do well.

This means shooting them coming to bait. A little too much like when we used to harvest cows by banging on their feed trough and shooting the one destine for the freezer, but if it is not high fences, I'd be happy with it because they are still wild and not that different than hunting over a food plot. It's far from shooting a cow, but not my ideal hunt, but it is the best guarantee of success. In addition, I'd like to be able to try to shoot one at night, which most places seem to do. That seems cool and different. And also do some spot and stalk hunts. I think there are places where all three in a few days of hunting is doable.

Yes, helicopters would be cool, but way out of the price range we are thinking.

In addition to 3 days of hog hunting, maybe 2 days of waterfowl before or after. Not cheap, but still be way less expensive than one cull buck most places.

Plus, I haven't got to hunt with my brother in a long time. So I'm really looking forward to making this work.

I’ve done the rice in a wet sack for a couple days before planting. Planted in a big oxbow off the river. Worked great, then the hogs came. Then it flooded and water stayed high so we never saw if the rice made it or not.
You can put pressure on hogs and they may go away for several days maybe weeks. But they will be back


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BGkirk wrote:I’ve done the rice in a wet sack for a couple days before planting. Planted in a big oxbow off the river. Worked great, then the hogs came. Then it flooded and water stayed high so we never saw if the rice made it or not.
You can put pressure on hogs and they may go away for several days maybe weeks. But they will be back


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Thanks BG. When did you plant?

We’ve had some luck trapping a few of them here and there and as soon as I see the very first one I see in my rice or brown top this year, I have a friend lined up with dogs to come run them. I won’t let them wreck my crop again like they did last year. We didn’t have hogs until 8-9 years ago and it’s really put a damper on anything we’ve tried to plant for other wildlife.

Duck Engr wrote:

BGkirk wrote:I’ve done the rice in a wet sack for a couple days before planting. Planted in a big oxbow off the river. Worked great, then the hogs came. Then it flooded and water stayed high so we never saw if the rice made it or not.
You can put pressure on hogs and they may go away for several days maybe weeks. But they will be back


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Thanks BG. When did you plant?

We’ve had some luck trapping a few of them here and there and as soon as I see the very first one I see in my rice or brown top this year, I have a friend lined up with dogs to come run them. I won’t let them wreck my crop again like they did last year. We didn’t have hogs until 8-9 years ago and it’s really put a damper on anything we’ve tried to plant for other wildlife.

ill have to dig up the photos and see when we planted. We disked as much as we could and threw the rest on the waters edge and in 3” or less of water and it all came up well. Had to use a 4wheeler/disk combo as that oxbow would’ve buried a tractor.
No bottom


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We currently have water on our pond so I’m planning to broadcast the pre-soaked rice on the exposed mud flat immediately after it drains. Did y’all do anything for weed control? I’ve read putting down a pre-emergent is the way to go, but I don’t know how feasible that’ll be for me. Only four wheeler we have now is 2wd, so it looks like I’ll be the four wheeler.

Duck Engr wrote:We currently have water on our pond so I’m planning to broadcast the pre-soaked rice on the exposed mud flat immediately after it drains. Did y’all do anything for weed control? I’ve read putting down a pre-emergent is the way to go, but I don’t know how feasible that’ll be for me. Only four wheeler we have now is 2wd, so it looks like I’ll be the four wheeler.

we did not


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After getting my rear end thoroughly kicked by a big, double-bearded gobbler repeatedly the last two weeks of turkey season when I was finally able to get away from work to hunt and catching up on some of my neglected honey-dos from hunting season, I’ve started to get the itch to turn my mind towards duck season. Cranked up the go-devil for the first time since the last day of duck season (shame on me for going so long between run sessions). Fired up just like the day I got her. Let it idle in the driveway a few minutes before doing some intervals at different rpms. Made me happy and sad all at the same time. I don’t like this time of year and if I ever win the lottery, I’ll move to Montana or Wyoming from May 1 to September 1, but I digress.

Next up will be getting the first stage of dove fields planted in early June followed by my duck pond rice experiment in mid to late June.

Duck Engr wrote:Cranked up the go-devil for the first time since the last day of duck season (shame on me for going so long between run sessions). Fired up just like the day I got her.

That's a nice break. I've been running mine in the yard weekly but had been having periodic trouble getting it to shut off without choking it to death (I kill me) since during the second split. Traced that to corrosion between the kill circuit's connectors to ground, and was proudly starting and stopping the engine when there was an almost imperceptible hint of smoke, and the starting circuitry would no longer so much as click, let alone spin the engine. Wasn't sure I'd even seen the smoke, much less where it came from, but eventually traced the problem to the wire from the mercury (level engine starting) switch somehow finding its way between the flywheel and starter's pinion gear and getting clipped.

Guess there are some time and/or money savings to be had by putting them together with an extra connector at the kill circuit ground and leaving enough extra wire on the mercury switch to wander into trouble. But dealing with those beat pulling the carb for the solvent soaking, you've avoided.

Rick wrote:

Duck Engr wrote:But dealing with those beat pulling the carb for the solvent soaking, you've avoided.

That’s for darn sure

Started the planting phase of hunting season last week. Sprayed glyphosate on 6 acres of the dove field, trying to get a kill on it. Had hoped to just spray and no-till, but the weeds were so tall and thick that i think I’m going to have to drop a match on it. Might even have to mow. Went back over a few streaks I missed on Sunday. Waiting for those to die down before determining my next step. We got rain Thursday for the first time in 22 days, with more forecast this weekend, so that’ll help out with planting readiness. Plan is to plant 6 acres and leave 6 acres. Then about the middle of August, mow and burn the remaining 6 acres.

Opened up the valve on my little one acre wood duck hole Thursday afternoon after work. It was down about a foot or more from full. A few years back, it took 30 hours to drain. Not this year. It was mostly empty yesterday morning, after just 12 hours. I should have been out there yesterday morning scattering my rice seed on the mud flat but work was in the way, per usual. I was saved by a heavy rain shower yesterday afternoon. Currently have 50 lbs of rice on a 36 hour pre-germinating soak here at the house. Next year I think I’ll just spread the rice in the pond, wait 36 hours, then drain.


Already had two hogs in the dove field Thursday, without anything planted. Don’t know what they were eating. Planning to rebait the trap today and have a coworker with hog dogs on standby. Not taking chances this year after last year’s fiasco.

Currently waiting on little Beau to wake up so I can get him up, changed, and fed before I head up to spread seed.

Side note, we did get word mid-week that our leased field was successfully planted in beans. I’d usually complain about beans. Not this year. I’m just happy something was able to be planted. Hope the field south of us is back in rice, as it held a lot of birds year before last.

Update from the honey bees in the duck box earlier in the year. My cousin keeps bees and came to get the box a while back. He finally got around to opening it and sent a few pics. Bummed me out to see eggs at the bottom.

In The Great Scheme of Things, bees are surely a lot more important than ducks, but still...

I keep trying to tell myself that, yet keep coming back to the end of your post, “but still”.

Rice planting went about as good as I could have hoped for. Bottom of the pond was still wet to allow for most of the handspread seed to penetrate a quarter to a half inch. Only thing I didn’t get was a good rain behind it to drive the rest of the seed in. Only got about 0.2” on the pond itself Saturday afternoon though surrounding areas received up to 2”. Maybe tomorrow will be our lucky day with the rain.

Some weeds were already up knee high around the edges where the water had been down from the drought. Even though I did spread seed there i went ahead and hit those few areas with a little roundup from a backpack sprayer. Don’t know if it’ll hurt the seed or not. I marked those areas with flags so I can see how the seed fared with roundup on top.

Baited the hog trap and already had a visitor last night, though he wasn’t brave enough to come all the way in.

Just need to get that first shot in shooting light.

Rick wrote:Just need to get that first shot in shooting light.

Indeed. He hasn’t been seen shooting light or otherwise since that picture.

Checked on the rice experiment yesterday and I have what I’d call a decent stand of rice. It’s 4-6” tall. Black birds got to more of it than I’d have liked. Planted 50 lbs to the acre. May use 75 next year to account for some lost to birds and other factors.

My issue now will be weed control. I have a few little pockets of a needle-like rush coming up that I doubt 2,4-d will kill. There’s also a very fine, almost moss-like grass coming up that’s not 1/2” tall. Again doubt 2-4,d will kill it but I’m pretty sure the rice will out-run it anyway. Plan to broadcast 150 lbs of ammonium nitrate in about a week or so to give the rice a shot in the arm.

Might want to look into Roundup resistant rice seed that's been treated with bird repellent next year. Will cost more up front but may better suit your situation...