2019-2020 Season Log

[Darren]

I think we're seeing nothing but older birds. 3 years of low production is showing.

Not sure I'm buying it to be that black and white. My buddy's banded bird from September was on his inaugural flight down and didn't live to try it again. Wish I had a way to accurately discern age of the grays we've been seeing; my untrained observation has noted plenty that seemed small and/or young/immature based on feather patterns they had or didn't.

[Duck Engr]

Though my sample size is very small, the Greys we’ve killed this year have been young and they’ve decoyed more like mallards than typical Grey ducks.

[Rick]

Wish I had a way to accurately discern age of the grays we've been seeing; my untrained observation has noted plenty that seemed small and/or young/immature based on feather patterns they had or didn't.

Here you go, page 16: https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/surveys-and-data/Species_age_and_sex_identification_of_ducks_using_wing_plumage.pdf

[Darren]

Great resource, thanks!

[Rick]

Date: 12/2 Mon

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW strong

Temperature: chilling in the wind

Moon phase: still small waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw more ducks early than all hunt, yesterday and thought it was on. Thought wrong, as the "flight" soon died to nothing.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: First bunch of a half-dozen or so mallards lit just off the end of the dog stand, where they (if not the dog) were safe and blew out with the wind where they remained safe. Others worked pretty to the pond's lee and teal lit.

Hunters: 2, Pat and Terry

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The bug did a fine job of hunting down two jacks clipped high and hauling with the wind at their tails.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Physically caught my first gun barrel of the season not far from Marsh's noggin while screaming "Watch the dog, watch the dog!"

Kudos: Nice guys at least got to shoot more than yesterday's nice fellows. And it was fun thinking we were going to have birds.

Birds By Species: 3 gw teal, 3 mallards, 2 ringnecks and 1 shoveller

[Darren]

9 birds still beats heck out of so many 2-3 bird hunts.

[Rick]

9 birds still beats heck out of so many 2-3 bird hunts.

Whipped snot out of most of our mornings this season - for a little while.

[Rick]

Date: 12/3 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: none to light Easterly

Temperature: chilly

Moon phase: small

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Precious little of anything seen.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: What we did see mostly came to die.

Hunters: 2, Phillip and Hunter

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning for the bug aside from a couple chipped bird chases.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: still no birds

Kudos: Nice guys who shot well enough to make their own hunt.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 1 gw teal, 5 mallards and 1 pintail

[Darren]

No pics but I imagine probably a pretty strap if there were some boys in the mix

[Rick]

The teal and one mallard were hens, so there were some bright ones.

Phillip, who used to guide for and still knows some of the owners of the Lake Arthur Club, which has A LOT of sweet marsh bordering AMOCO/White Lake Complex at the south end of Mallard Bay, told me he's seen some pretty straps coming out of there. So it's not all doom and gloom in our part of the world. Maybe where our new friend "Mallard Bay" is doing his good, as it's always been about as good as its neighbor.

[Darren]

The teal and one mallard were hens, so there were some bright ones.

Phillip, who used to guide for and still knows some of the owners of the Lake Arthur Club, which has A LOT of sweet marsh bordering AMOCO/White Lake Complex at the south end of Mallard Bay, told me he's seen some pretty straps coming out of there. So it's not all doom and gloom in our part of the world. Maybe where our new friend "Mallard Bay" is doing his good, as it's always been about as good as its neighbor.

Lake Arthur club, among a number of other old ones of the area, is detailed in the book I'd mentioned previously. Haven't forgotten, plan to bring it to you after Christmas.

[Rick]

Get ready boys, know for a certainty there will be more banded specks and mallards in the air this morning. A gray duck and pair of wigeon, too. Sorry, no spoons this time.

[Rick]

Date: 12/4 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: light ground fog to heavy ground fog to clearing

Wind Direction and Velocity: zip to light northerly

Temperature: cool to chilly

Moon phase: 3/4? waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Our guys and Cherry Ridge were shooting some when we got to the boathouse and even as the ground fog thickened, but we saw exactly one teal before the ground fog broke up and just a very few twinklers before 9:00, when a few big ducks finally showed to save us from a scratch.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully excellent.

Hunters: 2, Joey and John(?)

Guns:

Malfunctions: Joey's bowels. Despite saying he already had it handled when I gave my guys a ten minutes until departure warning, Joey went missing for a very long time when we were supposed to be on our way, and we didn't even get to the boathouse until well after shooting time - and as the fog was starting to thicken.

Dog(s): Really proud of the bug's work on a couple of this morning's chipped birds.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Late start was absolutely killing me, given the fog and recent history. As was staring down what would be the mudhole's third scratch in 13 1/2 seasons until 9:00.

Kudos: Handful of big ducks saved the scratch and our morning.

Birds By Species: 4 mallards and 3 mottleds

Photo Ops: "About time a fellow got some work."

007a.jpg

"Mind if I get the other one, too?"

018a.jpg

"Got it."

032a.jpg

Last mottled was barely wing-tipped and needed hunted down way up the run:

061a.jpg

[Rick]

Received video this morning showing our tranmittered mallard hens and a transmittered speck that wasn't ready to fly with the others we released last night, as well as a mess of banded mallards taking off none the worse for wear. Nice to see.

[Rick]

Date: 12/5 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE nil to moderate

Temperature: upper 40s?

Moon phase: 56% waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Not a lot of anything seen, but enough to keep us watchful until after 9, which was when all of our good was done yesterday.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Most everything did as bid, except the local jacks and a very few wise mottleds.

Hunters: 2, Gerard and Johnathon (local friends on JD bank hunt)

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Curses: Not gonna kick even a little

Kudos: Guys hit what came and had a nice visit.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 2 gw teal, 3 mallards, 1 mottled and 7 (count 'em: seven) shovellers

Photo Ops: Another mottled:

006a.jpg

[Duck Engr]

Boot lip beat down!!

[Duck Engr]

Your mottled numbers seem to be higher than I recall the last few seasons. May just be me though.

[Rick]

Seems that way to me, too. Only had one last year, but I checked the other seasons recorded here and see we've shot 15 a couple of times, including 2017-2018, and we're still one short of that.

So it may just seem like were getting a lot of them because there's been so little of anything else...

[MARSH BEAR]

Saved by the spoonies. I have been very happy to see spoons to save a hunt, and other hunts wish I had some spoons to shoot.

[Rick]

Our spoons were "substitute green-wings" nice enough to toll and fall out in bunches. Would take much better gunning than we've enjoyed to date to get one a pass after 7am or so. (Did so the first morning and fell short of a limit on an opener.)

[DComeaux]

I'll take that.

[Ericdc]

If anyone needs some “mottled” decoys or some good mallards. Big sale


https://banded.com/product/pro-grade-ma ... eder-pack/

https://banded.com/product/pro-grade-bl ... ster-pack/



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[Rick]

Date: 12/6 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: ground fog, then partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: light southerly to moderate west

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase: 66% waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: First good show of green-wings of our mudhole season plus good numbers of blue-wings, but next to no mallards seen.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Whistling in the fog for much of the morning paid off nicely.

Hunters: 2, Ken and Chris

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The bug had a good morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: none from me

Kudos: We shut down the teal shoot three short to focus on mallards, because Ken had never killed one and wanted a mounter, and finally did manage that.

Birds By Species: 5 bw teal, 9 gw teal, 1 mallard and 1 shoveller

[Ericdc]

Nice teal shoot for sure.

They are forecasting low clouds and drizzle up here in the morning. That usually means green wings and shovelers, and I hope they show up.

With Arkansas being closed it might limit our traffic from the north.


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[DComeaux]

YEAH! I like that the green wing have showed up. Hopefully I'll here peeping on Saturday morning while in the pirogue making my way to the blind. That was the norm the last couple of years but has been totally absent this year.

[Rick]

Date: 12/7 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy to clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: northerly light to moderate

Temperature: 50s

Moon phase: 75% waxing

Special Notes: The Cherry Ridge guys and I were the only hunters I saw in Tiger Mart this morning, so most in our area must have given up.

Waterfowl Activity: We sat on a single spoon for over an hour before starting to see a few birds. And then not many.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: One of those mornings when the timing of other blinds' shooting flat killed us, in large part because most everything we did see started out a mile high and took so long to break down.

Hunters: 2, Sid (BR sheriff) and James

Guns:

Malfunctions: We all suffered bent barrels on our maybe-too-close lone mallard chance of the morning.

Dog(s): Easy morning for the bug with nothing very far out.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just the scary slow start.

Kudos: Good guys where good about it, while their buddies shot a lot more to our east.

Birds By Species: 4 bw teal, 4 gw teal, 2 pintails and 2 shovellers.

Photo Ops: One of too few highlights:

002a.jpg

[Rick]

Date: 12/8 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: easterly light to moderate

Temperature: chilly to warm

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Last morning of the first split.

Waterfowl Activity: Pretty grim with precious little moving on our end.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had a mixed group of mallards and, I think, wigeon and another group of all mallards banged out on final approach and tolled a single greenhead, a wad of spoons and a good mess of pintails - and didn't even see much of anything else except local jacks passing way wide.

Hunters: 2, Sheriff Sid and James again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning for the bug.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Eyes still hurt from trying to make birds out of empty sky.

Kudos: It's over until 12/21.

Birds By Species: 1 mallard, 3 pintails and 2 shovellers

Photo Ops: Last mallard of the split:

006a.jpg

[MallardBay]

Curses: Eyes still hurt from trying to make birds out of empty sky.


I had to chuckle whe reading this. I had a guy in the blind several days ago that said, "this is like watching an unplugged TV."

[Rick]

I tell 'em it's like hunting in Ohio, but that's better.

[Bud]

THE BUG has really turned into quite the waterfowlers' best friend. Looking at the pictures of him grabbing two big ducks and such
really make me proud of him. His looks add to his prowess. He has become a part of your mudhole, as with all his predecessors. Would love to see a picture of each of your friends as they were with you in the past and present. Enjoy watching the two of you work together, Sir Rick. He doesn't seem to mind a season like this at all, as I would not mind. Why they call it Mother Nature.