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MARSH BEAR wrote:Rick - because of our brackish water metal blinds don't do well in our part of the world.
Our blinds are made out of 3/4 inch marine plywood. All of our joints are fiberglassed to make them waterproof. All the top edges are reinforced with 2x4 or 2x6 boards. The floor has 2x4 joists with 2x12 on top for the floor.

need blue prints! That’s awesome, my dad helped me put together a wooden pirogue... somewhat, we never finished it. Never put the front half with the back.

Happen to have any pictures of the inside ? Do you fiberglass the entire thing along with the joints?


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Spent the morning restocking Cherry Ridge and our marshes and snapped a quick shot of the mudhole's island:


Still way too soon to know what I'll have for canes, but so far, so good...

IF you say so but I would be freaking out...lol

Looks like Where im at with our blinds, hopefully we will be a little lower. Speaking of, rick why isn’t your pit lower? The water should be average or higher than right now right?


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BGkirk wrote:...why isn’t your pit lower? The water should be average or higher than right now right?

Today's water was well within our "normal" fall and winter range, and I'd rather deal with hiding a tall pit than worry about popping or topping a low one during flood periods.

Rick wrote:

BGkirk wrote:...why isn’t your pit lower? The water should be average or higher than right now right?

Today's water was well within our "normal" fall and winter range, and I'd rather deal with hiding a tall pit than worry about popping or topping a low one during flood periods.

noted, good point


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good chance to gain a bit more water with all this rain I'd figure

Someone said 5" in the last 24hrs here over Tiger Mart coffee this morning, though we're still a very long way from time to open the pond for September teal. Would, however, sure be sweet to just have a more or less natural pond to clear...

That open water looks good.

Rick,

Rather than the SOP of re-opening the pond, is there any use in proactively keeping it open through spring and summer? Does summer low water usually preclude that idea in general?

There are a combination of obstacles to trying to keep it open, beginning with the troll at the gate limiting access without reigniting our ongoing pissing match. Is his opinion that we ought not go through his father's land (which Doug pays crazy money to do) earlier than the week prior to hunting and a couple days after.

Yea I forgot that factor and sure enough it sounds about right given what I've heard over the years traveling in and out


I felt a small itch over the weekend, an itch to put a hand on some gear that involves Sept teal hunting. Have a couple of new hides to construct and right now, with a few camps under construction in Shell Beach, the scrap wood piles are healthy.

Watched an absolutely insane amount of lease money change hands last evening, but at least got some new land to run the bug on out of the deal.

Rich mans game


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Lost a couple hours sleep over how it's almost certainly going to work out last night, as if it were my money. After all these years, I've still not learned to let the camp's business be just that.

After all these years, came a knowledge and understanding few have about the place.
What were you restocking?

Alligators. We're required to release a greater percentage of farm raised alligators in the 3-5 foot range than would have survived to that size in the wild as mitigation for the eggs we take from the wild to stock the farms. (Meaning we now have alligators in places they've not been since the early settlers started whacking them for being a dangerous nuisance.)

Rick wrote:Lost a couple hours sleep over how it's almost certainly going to work out last night, as if it were my money. After all these years, I've still not learned to let the camp's business be just that.

Does that mean Doug leased some new hunting grounds ?


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Couple farms in much the same used-to-be-great area between Lake Arthur and Thornwell, but at such a premium it's hard for me to imagine breaking out, much less making out. Hope I'm wrong.

Being starved for ducky things to do while procrastinating on developing the paint mixes to redo my mallard drake decoy heads, I took a fit to go through the logs I have available on this sight and run the numbers on the ducks per gun for each segment of those seasons.

September teal 1st split 2nd split

2014-2015: 3.9 5 4.1

2015-2016: 4.6 4.3 4.2

2016-2017: 5 4.4 4.9

2017-2018: 2.75 3.4 4.2

2018-2019: 5.6 3.6 2.3


The lesson therein being on perception.

I would have guessed the 2017 first split as far more than .2 of a bird per man worse than last season's first split before seeing the figures. Presumably because my parties were getting so much less shooting in that 2017 split than others nearby and more than most we could hear during the first split of 2018.

And some of the second split of 2017-2018 was so much fun compared to that first split that I never would have guessed it .7 of a bird per man slower than the second split of 2016-2017 without crunching their numbers. Sure felt like a blue ribbon winner for recent times.

So it would seem I've once again demonstrated that much of waterfowling "success" in our heads - or at least mine. Lordy, but I'm a slow learner.

I too find it interesting when crunching numbers, often telling us something our memories might not support.

There's been some groups that claim this or that with regard to our early september teal season, but clearly they weren't at the Mudhole for teal season 2018 averaging 5.6 birds/gun , goodness! That would be awfully strong for a SW La marsh blind solely hunted on the weekends of teal season when rice pressure is abundant, but across all 16 days.....lllawwdd!

Hope the 2019 edition treats us all well

Didn't hurt that we had a strong September afternoon spot, but I'd sure like to think the changes I made in the marsh to poach more little ducks from their preferred flight zones had more to do with our relative teal success out there than dumb luck. Whichever seemed to hold up, on that relative scale, right on into the regular season, when blue-wings were first in our bag for the first time ever. And I can't but hope it will continue to help going forward.

Darren wrote:Mudhole for teal season 2018 averaging 5.6 birds/gun , goodness! That would be awfully strong for a SW La marsh blind solely hunted on the weekends of teal season when rice pressure is abundant, but across all 16 days.....lllawwdd!

This pretty well sums up my reaction to that stat too! I knew it was strong, but didn’t realize it was that strong!

Our averages always perk me up after the season when it seems all I can think about is how bad it was compared to my first year keeping a log for the marsh (14’-15’) season. It was My last year in college and I hunted a lot. Limits were easy to come by and it hasn’t been the same since, except when you compare averages from each year and you wonder how that even makes sense because all you remember are the bad hunts. But numbers don’t lie


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Left unchecked, perception does seem to become our reality, so I hope to work on engendering more positive perception on future hunts. Or at least cut back on my pissing and moaning.

16-17 and 14-15 have been my best 2 years at the farm I’m at now with mallards being the top ducks.

17-18 was better by a few birds than 14-15 but it was heavily weighted towards green wings and not near as consistent as the 2 years noted above.


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Ericdc wrote:...with mallards being the top ducks.

That's not been our case at the mudhole since the drought years of '10 and '11.

Didn't keep records back then, but wouldn't want to bet anything very nice that it ever was at what I remember as my best mallard blind here - and would bet it never happened at what I recall as my best ever duck blind.

As far as my blind, there are definitely days when we are more choosy and try to take advantage of a good mallard flight, even if it means hunting past lunch. Those days are the exception though, and normally it’s first come first serve.....especially last year.


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2010-2011 was the first year I kept good daily and seasonal records. We smashed the teal that year. This was at my previous lease further south of state line where I am now.

It was really dry that year and we had some good fronts

168 green-winged teal
68 mallards
27 gadwall
14 pintail
7 shoveler
5 wigeon
3 wood ducks
2 ring-necked ducks

294 total ducks

16 specks
7 snow geese


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Saw this posted elsewhere and though who missed it there might be interested: