2018-2019 Season Log

[Ericdc]

I imagine you can’t wait for Monday morning.


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[Rick]

Pretty dang sick of disappointing folks.

[Ericdc]

Exactly, I can’t imagine the frustration of going out and knowing how bad it’s going to be day after day.

I’m optimistic that starting tomorrow through the end of season that we will have more good weather days than we’ve had all season up here if forecast holds.


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[Duck Engr]

Exactly, I can’t imagine the frustration of going out and knowing how bad it’s going to be day after day.

I’m optimistic that starting tomorrow through the end of season that we will have more good weather days than we’ve had all season up here if forecast holds.


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Shhhhhh. You’re gonna jinx us.

[Rick]

Date: 1/19 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: front blowing through w/rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW strong to nada

Temperature: cool

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Drove after drove after drove after drove of divers zipped over while it rained, but relatively few teal and spoons and virtually no big ducks, whatsoever, accompanied them. If I saw a mallard, it was too far or wide to identify.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Don't know if I had to, but killed spinners after the teal's first pass and treated them like locals. Grays worked too sweet from way up to resist w/spinners off.

Hunters: my guys were no-shows (and I was glad)

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Everything having the good grace to fall dead made an easy morning for the bug, too.

Special Equipment: Ran the spinners in the rain, but killed them once teal broke down.

Curses: Yesterday made a full week without shooting a mallard over the mudhole, and I set out with the intent of rectifying that - then saw none.

Kudos: Flight died with the wind and rain, and the grays were good enough to come along and die when I decided I'd rather enjoy a short morning - and dry clothes - than wait out mallards that might not show at all. Mighty nice to be able to pack up and go on my own schedule.

Birds By Species: 2 gadwall and 4 gw teal (all drakes, thank you)

[Duck Engr]

Sounds like a fine but soggy morning Rick. Did you pass on divers or just not have any in range?

[Rick]

Was flat glorious.

Passed on divers I'd like to think I could have clipped and spoons that would have put their species ahead of mallards (which they're tied with) for the split. Didn't try to turn any divers but kacked a few spoons to the hole to see if I could. Wind was dead when I left but whistling now, so I may have missed a big duck flight to put processing my little ones behind me. Which I'm fine with.

[Darren]

Nice solo morning, Rick.

[DComeaux]

Date: 1/19 Sat

Mighty nice to be able to pack up and go on my own schedule.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the hunt. I can sort of relate.

[Rick]

If I had it to do over, I'd have shot two more greenwings, instead of the grays. Usually just get to put up early bluewings for our table and apparently forgot how tiny plucked greenwings are: Sweet Chereaux and I might wish there were six in the pot, instead of just four. That, and they're more fun to shoot.

[Rick]

Date: 1/20 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: N strong to moderate

Temperature: low 30s

Moon phase: full

Special Notes: Last day of ducks.

Waterfowl Activity: The hoped for, but not anticipated, day-after-front show of new ducks was a no-show. high or low. Saw one bunch of greenwings, a trio of bluewings, one plainly lost scaup and a single 20-30 bird flight of pintails - plus a surprising number of birds something put up out of "the veterans' home" out front.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Managed to trip a few local acting mallards before good light, but had no success doing so later, when the bunch got run up after good light. Had the pintails broken down and coming to die when they ran into serious crowd control issues with my new hunter, who was so taken by the spectacle that he stood bolt upright, raised his gun and watch them reach for the heavens. Greenwings bumped off the spinners and couldn't be squawked into returning, but the bluewings crossed the pond with spinners off and momma kacking. Lone jack hen (Jill?) crossed the pond and a dog dos gris lit of their own volition.

Hunters: 2, Fred, who'd had a big time with me seven years ago and his brother, Steve, on his first duck hunt.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh couldn't find one of the two bluewings dropped from a trio, but had an otherwise easy morning.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: The brothers are old clumbsy and crippled up and weren't in the game with anything but the dos gris.

Kudos: Super nice guys who still seemed to genuinely enjoy the morning.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 2 mallards, 1 ringneck and 1 scaup

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe: Fred and Steve, who was divorced and I gather alone, have been rekindling their ties after Fred lost his wife this past summer, and their next stop is in Baton Rouge for a last visit with Fred's special needs granddaughter who's outlived her prognosis by years but is about to be taken off the machine keeping her alive. And getting to see our morning through their perspective was a lesson I sorely needed.

[Rick]

Spent most of yesterday buttoning up the mudhole, beginning with what's become my favorite "mallard morning": a cold, clear one with a fairly strong post front NE wind. And I even saw a pair get up 10-15 yards behind the back blind. Other than that, I bumped a mottled pair from between Issac's run and Clyde's blind and roughly a dozen jacks just past his blind. Later saw a distant flight of blues and three jacks flew their horseshoe of more open water around the mudhole, but that was it for birds - with no sign of a eagle for explanation.

Still a gloriously "ducky" day to be in the marsh. And everything but the boat is now at the house waiting to be cleaned and put up.

[Deltaman]

WOW..........hard to believe the season is over Rick!
As always, Thank You for taking us along on the ride this year.
Your log entries and additional notes are always meaningful, and much appreciated!

[SpinnerMan]

WOW..........hard to believe the season is over Rick!
As always, Thank You for taking us along on the ride this year.
Your log entries and additional notes are always meaningful, and much appreciated!

x2

[Rick]

You're most welcome, but I can't say we had nearly as much opportunity to learn and share new things as I would have liked.

[Bud]

I certainly enjoyed this season from the PC. Thanks for sharing! Hate hearing it is over. Nuff said.

[Rick]

Date: 2/1/19 Fri

Time: morning

Location: south of Gueydan

Cloud Cover: heavy

Wind Direction and Velocity: easterly moderate

Temperature: pleasantly cool

Moon phase: small

Special Notes: Been curious about whether weather up north has pushed us ducks and hadn't made a speck hunt in some time, so I went to what's generally a good duck farm give the later a shot.

Waterfowl Activity: Saw exactly one duck cross the farm and a hundred or so in flooded stubbles on a neighboring farm, but specks were roosting with or near those and some crossed my piece.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: First couple little bunches that showed interest in my call pushed off my location on the edge of a cut we've a blind on, despite my being what I thought well away from that blind. Third op worked "close enough" to mimicry of the most vocal bird in it.

Hunters: just the bug and I

Guns: model 12 16ga shooting 2s

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): enjoyed the running around portion of our outing

Special Equipment: Charlie and Agnes spread of circa '04 or '05 Hardcores that are virtually weightless compared to my other FBs

Curses: Thought the first shot folded its bird, so switched to a second that also dropped but arcing down and away and un-hit or phased by a follow-up. Then realized the first had managed to get his wings back under him and was also flying off to an uncertain fate. Neither went down within eyesight.

Kudos: Had enough sense to quit on that note.

Birds By Species:

Photo Ops: Any temptation to say I could have killed these two geniuses with the truck on my way home is tempered by the knowledge that I'd of probably botched that, too:

001a.jpg

Lagniappe: Don't know if I'd pushed my old gun or old self too far, just that I'm as disappointed with myself as with the season.

[Deltaman]

Rick, you can't kill'em if they don't come, so no need to get down on yourself brother. You always seem to go the extra mile, and make it "their" hunt, when you have customers. Glad to see that you were able to get a solo duck hunt in before it closed, and get out to chase a Speck or two with that gun that is older than you!!!!!

[MARSH BEAR]

Rick - in the Wednesday edition of the Baton Rouge newspaper outdoor writer Joe Macaluso wrote about the lack of ducks in the southwest part of Louisiana, but mentioned there is a club between Pecan Island and Grand Chenier that reported killing over 4,000 ducks this duck season. The article did not mention species of ducks killed only there hunting was very good.

[Johnc]

Birds can take a lot of shot this time of year.

[Rick]

Rick, you can't kill'em if they don't come, so no need to get down on yourself brother. You always seem to go the extra mile, and make it "their" hunt, when you have customers. Glad to see that you were able to get a solo duck hunt in before it closed, and get out to chase a Speck or two with that gun that is older than you!!!!!

Completely by chance, a serial number check showed the Model 12 and I to be of the same 1950 vintage. But the bottom line to our misadventure is plainly that I should have waited for a surer shot. Should say "latest misadventure," as I recall kicking myself on one of our first hunts for trying to stretch the 16ga's barrel on a bird landing with Chuck and Aggie too far upwind of me. Perhaps others, as well. Should no doubt think of it more as one of my 20s than 12s - or return to the early HK import SBE I've much greater faith in.

[Rick]

Birds can take a lot of shot this time of year.

When we chip a bird that doesn't go down within sight, I'm sometimes reminded of autopsy x-rays taken of Canadas killed off by avian botulism, or some such mass disease, on one of the refuges. Many were found to be carrying a lot of lead shot, yet live to die of something else. (Photos I saw were used to demonstrate that injecting lead shot with guns didn't produce the same poisoning effect as lead shot ingested and ground into solution by a gizzard.) So there's some comfort in knowing they're not all flying off to a slow death, as well as the knowledge that something out there needs those that do die worse than we do. But it still sucks.

[Deltaman]

"or return to the early HK import SBE I've much greater faith in"
Those early model HK/Benelli's are what they made their name on.

[Rick]

"or return to the early HK import SBE I've much greater faith in"
Those early model HK/Benelli's are what they made their name on.

As much as I fancy the romance of shooting the Model 12, this may always be the image "speck hunting" brings to mind:

2012-2013hunting090_zps9180a221.jpg

[Deltaman]

And so it should.........Great picture for the wall!!!!!

[Johnc]

Was that at Aj’s old blind? Nice picture by the way. Or was that a levee hunt

[Rick]

That was a blind I rehabbed in Wright - which Doug, of course, sublet out the following year.

But not before we made some important memories there, like getting grandson Gauge his first specks:

2012-2013hunting091.jpg

[Johnc]

Nice

[MARSH BEAR]

Don't loose that pic - best make a hard copy of that one

[Rick]

Have put off my season summary about as long as I dare without chucking it altogether, and don't expect to do much of a job of it, as it.

Date: Perhaps the most concise way to sum up this season's progression is to look at birds per man, which ran: 5.6 during our excellent September teal season, 3.6 for a first split that felt better than that by way of comparison to others in our marsh and area, and a 2.3 bird per gun second split that sucked wind by most any measure.

Time: Aside from September teal and a single afternoon play hunt for specks in weather I couldn't resist, I stuck to mornings-only again this season.

Location: Spring and early summer drought left the mudhole it's too frequently pain in the arse self to open:

025a.jpg

With the significant changes being that I killed most of the canes on the blind's island, for better visibility behind it, and took out the stand of canes south of the run that has been blocking view of my east spinner from the section of marsh the little ducks plainly favor below Clyde's blind. And I'd like to think our best-in-marsh September season and perhaps strongest-in-marsh first split evidence of that marsh-scaping's value. Know I intend to continue the practice until proven otherwise.

Cloud Cover: I suspect that removing the island canes increased the sun's value as a concealment aid, but have no solid proof.

Wind Direction and Velocity: Winds that "usually do this or that" seemed especially untrustworthy, and I don't recall a west wind that was worth a flip, much less drew ringnecks to our end, as it sometimes has in the past.

Temperature: Had a couple mornings that showed frost on the lawn, but lack of meaningful winter, here or in the north, seems the most likely culprit for our sorriest second split in a very long time.

Moon phase: Didn't track them, but am sure full moons were all the more meaningful for our lack of weather.

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: With the exception of blue-wings that hung around all season, and for which we were most thankful, "waterfowl activity" was pitiful.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: I'd intended to experiment more with pintail purring but had very little opportunity to do so. Did find shoveller type kacking showed promise on those that afforded more opportunity than power-diving by. But that's about as close to something new and exciting as I managed to come this time around.

Hunters: A long-time favorite, Tommy aged out of this year's hunt, but we were thankful he at least made the trip to camp. As we were to see now 80yr old, John, who's had some recent health scares wasn't just still able to make it but seemed stronger than on his last couple trips. Wasn't at all thankful, though, for how many folks the birds and I let down, not the least of which being a grandson, Preston, making his first duck hunts and almost always seeming to come on slow days, even during an otherwise jam-up September season:

001a.jpg

The good news there being he enjoyed small successes I was too jaded to see in the proper light:

025a.jpg

(to be continued...)