2018-2019 Preseason...

[SpinnerMan]

The number 1 factor they suggested for the change is rice production.

Might well account for some of it, but I'd even question "most". From a gunning standpoint, I've preferred once plowed fallow ground to rice for decades.

Right but gunning ground is not the same as holding ground right?

Not sure why it wouldn't be from the bird's standpoint, other than one having guns that keep them from holding there. Most everybody wants to lease rice, but it's not been the best hunting in my experience - just easier for humans to get around in than rough plowed fallow stuff.

Plowed ground puts a lot of the food underground, but your decoys might stand out a lot better to the birds making the hunting better. They aren't going to stick around in an area if there is no food. In the winter up here, I'd happily hunt a parking lot if it is snow covered. It doesn't matter what is below the snow. They can't tell from the air. Gunning will be better than picked corn with no snow on it. Snow covered is better than not. The decoys are just a whole lot more visible from a long ways off. Not sure if that plays into it or not. It definitely does up here. I put all my shells on motion stakes when there is no snow to improve visibility. I don't do that in the snow. I've added snow goose socks for no snow hunting to see if that increased visibility helps. Didn't hunt when there were geese and no snow so that experiment is still in progress.

[Rick]

A single pass of the disk does put some food under, but it also knocks some down into reach and gives tender shoots a chance to sprout. Ducks or geese, give this old hillbilly puddled up once plowed fallow ground, thank you very much. And if there was a lot of indigo on it, thank you very, very much and keep the change.

[Ericdc]

The problem is the farmers up here don’t do once plowed..

They disk it until under until it’s smooth.

That doesn’t hold birds..yes you might can kill them over it, but there’s very little food value.

Once plowed would be fine, that’s what our farmer does when it’s dry, but the rest of them disk it to death...rice beans and corn.


So, with the wet fall we are having, I’m excited about all the standing stubble in the area. It reminds me a lot more of what the Grand Prairie around Stuttgart and northeast Arkansas looks like.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SpinnerMan]

A single pass of the disk

That's a word choice thing. I wouldn't call that plowed. Disked once I am sure would do as you say. It's just going to chop things up as you said and not turn things under. For me that's the difference between disked and plowed.

And yeah, I think if they disked the corn fields it would be beneficial. Still have all the stubble and corn, but it wouldn't be as tall. I think the birds would like landing and feeding in that. Place the area around the pits wouldn't look all stomped down as the season goes on.

Of course, nobody does that up here, but they do do this sometimes.

Once plowed would be fine

That screwed up one of our best field up here when the farmer plowed it before season. Worse than that he didn't disk it, so it was a rough ankle busting mess. What saved it a bit was it rained a ton early in the season so it smoothed out some before it froze or it would have been nearly unhuntable. When we readied the pit I thought we were totally screwed. I hunted that field one day and it wasn't too terrible, but still not ideal.

[Rick]

A single pass of the disk

That's a word choice thing. I wouldn't call that plowed. Disked once I am sure would do as you say. It's just going to chop things up as you said and not turn things under. For me that's the difference between disked and plowed..

No one chisel plows here, but a lot of folks rough plow, ie: disk once, to keep the weeds down. Or hunt.

Naturally, if a piece is to be planted the following year, it behooves its farmer to put as much of the dirt work behind him as possible when weather permits. That's not what I was talking about - but I've helped take an awful lot of birds from fields that were plowed to dust and puddled up. Or flooded deeper than I'd want for hunting, for that matter. Birds don't know there's nothing for then down there until they've been plenty close enough to be shot by a fellow with a good hide and call.

[Ericdc]

A single pass of the disk

That's a word choice thing. I wouldn't call that plowed. Disked once I am sure would do as you say. It's just going to chop things up as you said and not turn things under. For me that's the difference between disked and plowed..

No one chisel plows here, but a lot of folks rough plow, ie: disk once, to keep the weeds down. Or hunt.

Naturally, if a piece is to be planted the following year, it behooves its farmer to put as much of the dirt work behind him as possible when weather permits. That's not what I was talking about - but I've helped take an awful lot of birds from fields that were plowed to dust and puddled up. Or flooded deeper than I'd want for hunting, for that matter. Birds don't know there's nothing for then down there until they've been plenty close enough to be shot by a fellow with a good hide and call.

That’s right, on flight days it doesn’t matter, but I know the years we had rice stubble our hunting was far more consistent and we were holding ducks and specks in our field all season.

Last year once the beans were gone we only killed more than a couple on good fronts when we had new ones.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Darren]

yea after that one year in beans..... they can have all that. Was plowed under so just a mud field with water on top once rain filled it

[SpinnerMan]

No one chisel plows here, but a lot of folks rough plow, ie: disk once, to keep the weeds down.

Chisel plow is chisel plowing and not plowing
I'm pretty sure this is a regional thing.

Plow. Completely turns the soil over


Chisel plow. Rips up the surface, but doesn't completely turn over.


Disk. Chops up, but doesn't dig much. This one reminds me a lot of my grandfathers discs.



With no till farming and a lot more use of herbicides. Additionally, things vary a lot from place to place as does the language. My grandfather plowed then disced to smooth it out before planting, but rarely chisel plowed. There is a lot more chisel plowing and discing and a lot less plowing. But I think technically discing, chisel plowing, and plowing are all forms of plowing. I just have the jargon we used when I was a kid in central PA. We say a lot of weird things with our PA dutch bastardized language.

[Ericdc]

I just don’t want my lease looking like my garden when I plant it in the spring.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Duck Engr]

Spinner that first picture you shared is what we’ve always called a bottom plow. It brings the bottom to the top.

[Rick]

I stand corrected, Spinner. But trust you're clever enough to have understood what I meant.

Turns out I've youth hunts this weekend, so I guess we'll see if we can toll some more ducks to a place they aren't using.

[Johnc]

I stand corrected, Spinner. But trust you're clever enough to have understood what I meant.

Turns out I've youth hunts this weekend, so I guess we'll see if we can toll some more ducks to a place they aren't using.

Good luck with that,for some reason I got deactivated.

From what I saw in Arkansas,specks are getting damn near like blues as far as being able to call to where they are not using

Better come up with some damn good tricks is all I got to say

[Duck Engr]

I stand corrected, Spinner. But trust you're clever enough to have understood what I meant.

Turns out I've youth hunts this weekend, so I guess we'll see if we can toll some more ducks to a place they aren't using.

Good luck with that,for some reason I got deactivated.

From what I saw in Arkansas,specks are getting damn near like blues as far as being able to call to where they are not using

Better come up with some damn good tricks is all I got to say

Uh oh. Not good to hear from someone as accomplished as you are John.

[Rick]

Heard second-hand yesterday, from a Jeanerette gal who helps band specks, that their crew had to go "darn near to Arkansas" to find a suitable spot this year. But did.

Also heard most of the other evening's Thornwell speck show was just a tease that disappeared. But did get to watch six or seven land for first time this fall in Klondike very shortly after talking to that landowner about their scarcity.

Will be in the marsh this morning setting decoys and seeing if anything else is trying to beat the front.

[SpinnerMan]

I stand corrected, Spinner. But trust you're clever enough to have understood what I meant.

I wasn't intending to be correcting you. Sorry if it came across that way. Just pointing out that there is a lot of regional difference.

For example, I never think of water in the field, but that's the norm where you all are at. Field hunting is dry field hunting.

[Rick]

I was tired and cranky when I threw that "clever" bit in there. Honestly didn't know a chisel plow was little more than a fancy harrow and was repeating a likely misunderstanding of my own invention, as guys down here have referenced them in a manner making me think them what we all just called "plows" up north. So I actually learned something on the internet!

(Here we all "bush-hog," while a friend 30 or so miles north "shreds". He's probably correct.)

[Johnc]

Called a group of 5 over a house in lacassine this am. Shootable. Not traditional calling. That’s out

[Rick]

Called a group of 5 over a house in lacassine this am. Shootable. Not traditional calling. That’s out

'Spose it depends on the goose. I sucked one well within range of a man in an orange vest dragging a dead deer down a grass road the other morning by largely mimicking him close as could, which is pretty dang traditional. Was sure he'd be a clean breasted one but he wasn't. Perhaps just curious. Or addled.

Thornwell landowner we rent from told me specks started on their farm yesterday, and I could hear a bunch on the Klondike place we saw a few hit yesterday from our marsh gate this morning. But those are the only ones I encountered today.

Did see three, count 'em 3, small flights of jacks while in the marsh this morning.

And a lone lawn dart.

[Johnc]

Hehehe here we go. Very anxious to see what NE Louisiana does with those big bunches of mostly adults

Time for me to go into my laboratory because I know what’s fixing to happen

Sure they wanted water earlier in Arkansas or set up
In the field they were using,or between bodies real close.

Traffic not using a field,u better have some good stuff...

Especially after big rain and they NO Longer want water

Whole different ball game now

[Johnc]

We have no holding power here anyway—- where are they going to go? Very little second crops cut including ours

Transmitter bird did not even spend whole day down here before going back to Arkansas

[Ericdc]

For what it’s worth, we kill a lot more specks after Christmas on our flooded field than we do before.

The guys in northeast LA that really pound them the first couple weeks of November are usually hunting where the birds want to be at the time, and sometimes hiding in ditches shooting swing birds or low passers.....not even hunting pits. To each his own, but that’s not interesting to me. I like calling them in.

We do a lot better with traffic the 2nd half of the season.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Johnc]

Layout blinds or A frame blind in the field they are using makes for great pictures on Facebook —- I too like pulling them to the same pit day in and out

It’s going to be tough. I am telling you. You want to kill specks Erik,set the call high,too high to be pleasing at ground zero,that’s what breaks them. And right now it is cluck. It will switch to yodels but now it’s cluck unless a chicken or pair or very small group,then mimic the hot bird

They may work great for u but I predict good initial response then hang between 70 and 100 yards

Try it all call wise. But lu lu la la was tried by Elliot sale with me and Bryan Harris and Bill Daniels in the same blind just because it is so different—- no response,none. Zero

Murmur zero effectiveness

Low yodels—-didn’t scare them but no real response

Highpitched continuous clucking to break migrators. Was a miracle we killed 7,in traffic if you stop they are gone—-talking about a non using the field or fields nearby situation

This was with all large bunches of mostly adult geese. No single juvi’s or stragglers.

[Ericdc]

Larry said very poor speck and snow recruitment this year based on banding done earlier this summer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Johnc]

1 juvenile out of 7 killed

We called many 747 height groups down to scrapable range but didn’t shoot and seemed like all birds barred up

Last year total opposite

[Duck Engr]

I heard word of a late, I’ll-timed, hard freeze happening up north that killed a lot of juvenile geese when they were small enough to be vulnerable

[Johnc]

The problem is that a lot of times juvi’s will break and end up pulling the rest of the bunch or break off and you end up getting at least a shot at the single or pair that broke off

I am afraid there will be less of that seen

Reports from operations up in Canada were good seasons but way skewed adult to juvi ratio in favor of adults—it’s gonna be tough as hell down here

Dee sonnier and AJ did well with birds on ground close by but they said it was tough,big bunches acting damn near like snows

[Ericdc]

They do stay in big bunches for sure until duck season starts then they seemed to get broke up more. They were tough last year and I figure they will be again this year but our pit will be much better hidden this year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Johnc]

Will be interesting to see how they work that blind on a road and on the edge of a field.

[Ericdc]

Will be interesting to see how they work that blind on a road and on the edge of a field.

Can’t be any worse than the island we had last year in the beans with no vertical cover.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Darren]

Have seen some shared video clips of just massive/dense flocks of lulu's in Ark; would have to figure that's a good staging point at this time on the calendar for Louisiana hunters.

Then there are those that apparently came and rebounded north.....seeking more rice? Will be traveling the Highway 71 and Highway 29 ag corridor Sunday around Whiteville and Bunkie so will get an idea of what's staging between Eric and Gueydan.