2018-2019 Season Log

[Deltaman]

Great hunts Rick, and glad that your customer's were able to capitalize on the opportunities and get a limit

[Rick]

Date: 9/24 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: light rain or threatening all hunt

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to light SW

Temperature: hot enough that being wet was good

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Had rained hard most of the night until just before we went out.

Waterfowl Activity: Absolutely dead for the first hour or so, before a very few groups came by.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Some plainly knew us, some worked well, none offered to land.

Hunters: 2, my eleven-year-old grandson, Preston, on his first duck hunt and his dad, Chris

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: First two bunches got through unsaluted (and one of them twice) while Preston tried to adjust to the speed of the game.

Kudos: After nursing a scratch for a scary long time, we ended up having more than a nice visit. Preston hit at least a couple and, most importantly, had a good time - and enough birds for dinner.

Birds By Species: 7 bw teal

Photo Ops: After being so fired up with anticipation, Preston was way too somber in the blind for way too long:

001a.jpg

but brightened considerably when I was out on the pond collecting our first birds:

029a.jpg

and when posing for the obligatory hero shot:

042a.jpg

[Darren]

Glad it worked out for a few for the young gun

[Rick]

Me, too. A "DNS" seemed downright likely for a very long time. Hoping to take them to my afternoon spot Wednesday and show him a little more opportunity.

[Deltaman]

Build those memories brother, good stuff

[Rick]

Date: 9/25 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead-a-- calm to light northerly

Temperature: hot and HUMID

Moon phase: full?

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Almost no woodies or mottleds seen but some squealers and what's been about our weekday norm
for teal. Didn't see any new-appearing high flights over us, but Ed hunted above I-10 the past couple mornings and felt he saw lots of new ones headed south there.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had very good luck getting them where we needed them.

Hunters: 2, father and son, Jim and David, who've been with us for years.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had a fine day and made a couple marks so near to the open water to our SE that I nearly called him back.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: none at all

Kudos: Nice day with nice folks.

Birds By Species: 17 bw teal (16 drakes and 1 hen) and 1 gw teal (shot along with a pair of bw)

Photo Ops: Jim and Dave:

010a.jpg

[Darren]

Aw yea! Saw few other reports from the rice mentioning what appeared to be new birds in large groups. Hoping moon has them coming en masse.

Try them myself tomorrow

[Rick]

Aw yea! Saw few other reports from the rice mentioning what appeared to be new birds in large groups. Hoping moon has them coming en masse.

Dunno but hope so, Darren. Most of what we saw this morning bought in, and there was that greenwing (albeit flying with bluewings). But I saw no remotely migratory looking flight singular, let alone plural, and made a point of double checking that 16/1 sex ratio. Guess "we'll see..."

[Rick]

Great morning - you have been blessed so far...

Absolutely. So much so I've gotten quite cocky about being able to get what's seen to the guns. (And just bought two more loud-a--ed Deceivers on the used market.) But ain't nobody can toll what isn't there.

[Darren]

Great morning - you have been blessed so far...

Absolutely. So much so I've gotten quite **** about being able to get what's seen to the guns. (And just bought two more loud-a--ed Deceivers on the used market.) But ain't nobody can toll what isn't there.

A call tinkerer, I am not, but have a few double-reed J-frame style calls laying around I don't use. Are these some I could piddle around with to make sound like a momma teal? Any pointers or suggestions appreciated

[Rick]

Big ducks or little, I've gotten the most bird breaking leverage out of crisp and clear calling at a higher pitch than most hunters seem to prefer, so I'd think any double reed at some disadvantage, though you should be able to teal tune one. Haydel's Big Blue being the best such example I've run. Better, I'd think, to lose the top reed.

The momma call isn't a breaking call, but a keep-the-leery-ones-coming call, much like continuous single quacks for local big ducks, and I believe the steady beat more important than the tone. Did, in fact, use teal toned single quacks much the same for years prior to hearing mother teal assemble their young and switching to double notes.

In any event, teal tuning is just a matter of taking a sliver at a time of a reed until you think it right. Trick being not to take so much that the call locks up when you jump on it. If you can't get a teal you can jump on hard, that call's design wouldn't cut it with me.

[Darren]

Thanks! Kind of has my wheels turning for something that might be louder than what I think to be "loud enough" right now for birds way out on another line. Love the River Mallard call I'm running for reasonable reach but primarily dead on tone for close quarters finishing to the dekes in which it's never let me down. Would think it's small barrel inherently keeps it from being a screamer though so tinkering with some free calls has me curious

[Rick]

John, I'm not sharp enough to know just what you mean by "bending" a note, and probably not enough to know if I was if I did. I just try to do what I see them respond to - and do something else when they don't.

But it actually bugs me some when I catch myself using extended opening notes, as in the written version you've offered. Noticed that tendency when playing with mottleds recently.

[Rick]

So you must be getting response from elevated teal tone that is clean and loud enough to be heard long ways off. Cadence tempo too

Yep, I'm breaking their momentum to points elsewhere by making enough of a racket that some can't seem to resist checking it out and keeping that racket up long and strong enough to prevent a return to their original goal (or the rest of a flight that didn't all break down), as well as prevent the attraction of the more open water horseshoe around my pothole from drawing them away. Pretty embarrassing how long I let the "too high" stuff pass because I was convinced what did break was just going to follow the open pond chain behind us to more attractive marsh, anyway, before learning I could usually talk them out of that, too.

But I'd not want to downplay the boost in low traffic attraction I believe we're enjoying by my having greatly improved line of sight between my spinners and prime marsh, either.

[Rick]

How did you come about trying the deceiver? Recommended by a friend?

I went on Allan Stanley’s website and listened to a sound file of the deceiver and holy cow is it loud!

It's long been touted as the loudest of standard (.010) reeded j-frames, and I was curious to see if it was louder than a over-bored MVP I was blessed with years back. Turned out it was and increased my distant big duck reach appreciably last year, and I'd been anxious since to try it with a teal-cut reed this September season. So tuned, the sucker flat screams and has more than proven its worth in that configuration, too.

The two I've now in hand both came tuned so low/heavy that I initially found them cumbersome to run, and even tuned as high as I prefer aren't as nimble as the standard MVP I favor for most big duck work. But they'll reach way the hey out with real leverage.

Still have another coming that's one of his earlier, non-CNCed calls with stepped insert boring that I'm anxious to compare.

[Rick]

Date: 9/26 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy to peeing down rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to variable as rain cells hit

Temperature: hot to wet cool

Moon phase: full

Special Notes: Had rained pre-hunt.

Waterfowl Activity: Don't know but what most birds were already in the rice for the rain, as we saw appreciably more movement before it started and very little when it did.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully most worked well or could at least be fooled into returning after initially pushing off the location, spinners or big boat sticking out of the hide it won't fit. (Tom's a big man and Jacob is a very big man, requiring a lot more boat to safely transport than my little 16' Go-devil.)

Hunters: 2, Jacob and Tom from last week

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): So busting proud of my bug's work that he's probably about to eat a duck...

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Hate our big, long-tailed Go-devil such that having to use it makes me ever so thankful for my little one.

Kudos: These two guys had my second slowest hunt to date last trip, so it was sweet to be able to make it right this morning.

Birds By Species: 18 bw teal (Every one a drake, suggesting the main migration is still yet to come, 'least to my location.)

[Rick]

I assume it is CNCed but could not say with any certainty.

Am certain you'd best be prepared to have the experts look askew at you if you run a Deceiver to its potential.

[Rick]

Date: 9/27 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: drizzle most of the morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil

Temperature: cool in the wet

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw nothing, big or little, for a spooky long time before mostly teal started moving, mostly high. Was one perhaps 15 minute period in mid hunt when there was what sure appeared a migratory flight with good-sized bunches passing at twinkler altitude.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Much of what we drew from the flights on the bigger water between us and the IC seemed to know us or the spinners and bounce before quite getting to us, but enough either new birds or tripped up ones made it to the guns.

Hunters: 2, buddy hunt with JJ and Mark

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had another good day but nearly snapped the butt off one apparently troublesome crip.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: none at all

Kudos: Neat morning with good friends, plus the hope of new birds. (Though the sex ratio in the bag didn't suggest we benefited from it yet.)

Birds By Species: 18 bw teal (15 drakes and 3 hens)

[Rick]

What we saw this morning looked good for you and Dave in the deep marsh, MB.

[Rick]

Date: 9/28 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly to mostly cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: An actual breeze from the NE

Temperature: gloriously perfect

Moon phase: waning 88%

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Yesterday's high migratory appearing flight was telling, and we enjoyed new birds.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Most everything came sweetly as one could ask.

Hunters: 2, Matt and Brian, part of Naval Academy reunion group that had never bird hunted and decided to try it on a lark.

Guns: They used my 20 and 870, and I shot my Model 12 16ga for the first time on ducks.

Malfunctions: Had some loading kinks for them to work out and I stove-piped shells on our first two volleys - likely operator error, as it cycled fine after that.

Dog(s): Marsh made new friends and made a bang-up mark on a known to be too far bird I tipped.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Only that we finished so quickly.

Kudos: The guys shot much better than I ever would have guessed, and we had a big time. "Going to do it again next year."

Birds By Species: 18 bw teal (11 drakes and 7 hens, better than twice the hen norm to date)

Photo Ops: Matt, the bug, Brian and the guys' first ever birds:

006a.jpg

[Darren]

Very cool! Glad to see the push of birds even if I can't get out to catch them on my end. Hope other wheels are in motion well to our north as well

Would appear to be set for a strong finish with weekend gunners out and about