2019-2020 Season Log

[Rick]

Do the other blinds in yas marsh put the same effort into calling as you do?

Don't know, but reckon most would be embarrassed to.

[Ericdc]

Do you practice or anything in offseason to keep your air where it needs to be?


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[Rick]

Now that I'm too old and lame to run any distance, I don't do anything for my wind and can only envy a serious contest caller's wind. (Well, I guess I could follow Nathan Wright's old advice to work on a spirometer, like respiratory therapists use, but I haven't.)

When I was auditioning cut-down duck calls, I found I had to change to an initially gated air presentation to run one as long and loud as I find most useful for really distant stuff - and didn't find the raspy cut-down's tones offered as much leverage as crisp, clear ones, anyway. Couldn't do as much with a cut-down as I could with a MVP that wouldn't get as loud but was a whole lot simpler, more versatile and fun to run.

Enter the Stanley Deceiver, which is crisp and clear and will get appreciably louder than the MVP without requiring any change in air presentation from what I'd use to get the most volume out of a MVP. I don't find the Deceiver as slick handling or quite as versatile as a MVP, but it does most of what I'm apt to want to do quite readily without a lick of thought to the transition from one to the other.

As for practice, it would be rare for me to practice with any of the duck calls I use afield. Having had an old half-scroll Daisy Cutter I used for the same purpose, I'm much more apt to practice with a newer one I altered the toneboard of to match that old one's tone and cantankerous operation. While I didn't find the old Daisy Cutter's harsh tone so many cherish to be the bomb I'd hoped afield. I do find practicing to run that more problematic call well makes running the calls I've found both the birds and self to favor just that much slicker and more fun.

(By the same token, my most practiced-with speck call is more sluggish than those I hunt with.)

[Ericdc]

Gotcha. Singing in choir at church has helped me. I’m also not a fan of the cut down stuff. couple guys in my blind guy all mondo crazy when they first went out, I couldn’t stand the way they sounded and hurt my ears in the pit, while realizing they sounded better to a duck 100 yards or more away. Didn’t see how they broke ducks any better than my daisy cutter or short barrel. Thankfully my guys have moved on to Lare’s hybrids and more traditional calls.


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[Rick]

Best part of last evening's Jr. High football game was hearing a reliable report of specks showing west of town, so the bug and I went that direction for our morning constitutional and ran into these characters on our new farm there:

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Maybe three times that again on the ground, and I got to call a small flight back around to a man in jeans and a light gray t-shirt kneeling on a grass road beside a big dog. Still mighty tame, as the birds on the ground let us walk past them twice at maybe 100yds. Perhaps in part because there appeared a good number of young birds in the mix:

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Also moved a wad of blue-wings from some flooded second crop and missed a photo op at perhaps 30 pintails passing low overhead. Hadn't fooled with the camera since taking this shot I'd long forgotten was even on it of little drake that lit while I was picking up September teal decoys:

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and it shows in today's photos. Need to get back in the habit of carrying and using it.

[Darren]

Duck Capital is back!! Print the headlines

Gueydan's Loaded with Specks! Social media rejoice, "I heard Gueydan's loaded", "yea me too"


great news, thanks for sharing the pics. Look forward to your continued tinkering with cameras at places most of us don't get to see. Really like the teal photo, bet he was glad you were shooting a camera.


Will have eyes and ears wide open Sunday morning in Avoyelles Parish.

[Rick]

Copied my post to "preseason," where it probably belongs.

[Duck Engr]

Enough to declare “specklebelly day” in Klondike?

[Rick]

Wasn't Klondike (didn't see or hear pecans there yesterday), was between Lake Arthur and Thornwell. That, and I generally think of "specklebelly day" as being one where they seem all over the place.

But it's a start...

[Rick]

Date: 11/9

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: light to moderate northeasterly

Temperature: chilly when the sun and breeze came up

Moon phase:

Special Notes: first split opener

Waterfowl Activity: Apparently a whole lot more going on to our east with lots of LST shooting there while we thanked a mottled pair for not scratching. Did enjoy a few teal flights and some big ducks including four grays and a BIG bunch of pintails. Only known to be mallard seen was a hen flying with mottleds I was afraid to let them shoot into, as we were done with our mottleds. Also worked the only pair of specks seen, but forgot to kill spinners, which put them off. Several high flights of blues passed on their way to the Gulf, so at least they're migrating.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: As it should be on an opener.

Hunters: 2, Moe and Darrel

Guns:

Malfunctions: Just my mind when I tried to work specks without thinking about killing the spinners until they pushed off.

Dog(s): Marsh had a good morning.

Special Equipment: two big spinners and modified mallard machine ("SOS" hereafter)

Curses: Just not enough game for one of my guys to work his kinks out.

Kudos: Nice guys and a nice morning - and it's finally duck season.

Birds By Species: 4 bw teal, 3 gadwall, 4 gw teal, 3 mottleds and 2 pintails.

Photo Ops: Multi-tasking with three of the four mixed teal we clipped from the first bunch in:

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[Rick]

11/9 correction: am certain Moe shot my pond's baby spoonbill and that we just had 16 total, so I'm guessing I counted it as a bluewing.

[Rick]

Date: 11/10 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: N/A

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: few mostly teal moving before sunup, then nothing, nada, zip, fini and that's all folks...

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Birds responded better than we did.

Hunters: 2, TJ (new to the game) and Joel

Guns:

Malfunctions: three bent barrels

Dog(s): Our only pintail got up and flew off when marsh got to him.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Dead morning.

Kudos: Nice folks.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 4 gw teal and 1 mottled

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe: After I'd missed as much as they had, RJ confided that Joel had told him not to worry about hitting anything, because I'd clip two or three after they missed. Just one more corollary to prove the truth of Duffy's Law: "The dog you brag on is about to mess up."

[Ericdc]

Yikes. Hope this front Tuesday helps. Like my friends in Arkansas, i would rather them south of me than north of me.


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[Rick]

Date: 11/11/19 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE nil to moderate

Temperature: coolish

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw next to no little ducks, but had our first little show of assorted high big ones in mid hunt - that too soon proved a tease, instead of the start of something.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: I struggled to get a handle on the high ducks until I ramped it way up, and then struggled to get them low over the plate out front. Passed on some iffy stuff on the edges and a suicidal hen mallard I tried to use as bait for pintails and grays that were also working, but wouldn't finish with her.

Hunters: 2, Randy and Scott

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just little game and poor calling on my part.

Kudos: Nice guys and good shots.

Birds By Species: 1 mallard, 1 pintail, 1 ringneck, 1 shoveller and 1 wood duck

[Darren]

Well at least there was variety. How'd the east end make out, any little ducks that way?

[Rick]

Think we did about par, better than some. Pretty sure Gabe, who'd been doing better than most, if not all of us, thanks to jacks had but one bird. Most of CR sounded like a dead zone.

But at least we saw a few more big ducks, even if it didn't turn out to be the beginning of something meaningful.

[Rick]

Date: 11/12 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: drizzling rain to cloudy to clearing

Wind Direction and Velocity: Northerly screaming

Temperature: 30s? but colder with the wind

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw a lot of jacks moving here and there in the wind along with a few teal early on, but not many big ducks at any time, not even the high twinkler flights one hopes such winds carry. Though at least one of the east blind guides saw what appeared high front flights.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Jacks passed wide going to bigger water, teal did as bid and high big ducks would break for the loud Deceiver but apparently decide we weren't worth fighting the wind over and go on. Low mottleds are already on to us and too north wind direction had our few mallards trying to come dead over the blind, instead of around it. Was disappointed with my lack of ability to drag a few more over the guns.

Hunters: 2, Randy and Scott again.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had a good morning, but was plainly uncomfortable during the long waits for action when the early teal quit.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Too much wind and not enough ducks.

Kudos: Had a fine time with fine fellows, anyway. (Helped that they had plenty to talk about, and I didn't have to entertain to fill the long lulls.)

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 4 gw teal, 5 mallards, 1 ringneck and 1 shoveller

[Ericdc]

Solid shoot


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[DComeaux]

Nice....It's cold out.

[Rick]

While we managed a nice-for-now morning, the lack of a front flight has me spooked. Will know more tomorrow...

[Rick]

Date: 11/13 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light to moderate

Temperature: upper 20s

Moon phase: full

Special Notes: Was hopeful that this day after the front would be like so many others before, but it wasn't...

Waterfowl Activity: Next no ducks seen. Just a few high blues coming from or going to the Gulf

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Local mottleds flipped me off, single mallards and gray sucked right in and even a trio of jacks turned for burring.

Hunters: 2, Chuck and Kurt

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy money for Marsh at our blind but took a while to track and catch two chipped mallards for Clyde's crew.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: No ducks.

Kudos: Killed five of the six we shot at.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 2 mallards and 2 ringnecks

[Ericdc]

Rick, do you think they are still in Arkansas since they don’t open till the 23rd along with us in EZ?


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[Ducaholic]

Friday is the day...

[Duck Engr]

.

Kudos: Killed five of the six we shot at.

Yikes! Sounds like an Alabama hunt.

[Rick]

Rick, do you think they are still in Arkansas since they don’t open till the 23rd along with us in EZ?

"Haven't the foggiest" where they might be, just know where they're not.

[MARSH BEAR]

Rick - I hope I can find where the ducks are this weekend for you.

[Rick]

Hope you can, too. Not so bad for social hunters like this morning's on a once a year corporate hunt, but I hate it for those who come here with high hopes for the hunting.

[Rick]

Date: 11/14 thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy with occasional light rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE moderate

Temperature: better than it's been

Moon phase: still big

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Simply nothing out there.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Tolled the only "bunch" we saw, which turned out to be pintails, arm wrestled a pair of shy grays into screwing up by switching to squacky call and imitating their kind's hens and drakes and the only little handful of green-wings seen came to light with little encouragement needed.

Hunters: 2, long time annual regulars, Joel and James

Guns: James had a Remington model 58(?) that had been his father's, and James is "no spring chicken," himself.

Malfunctions: James mis-fed a shell into the mag and ended up with it under and blocking the bolt with a round in the chamber. I dropped the trigger mechanism and removed that and the chambered round, but then the bolt wouldn't open again for loading. Was an entirely new-to-me design from its apparently fixed combo magazine plug and cap to its under the forearm recoil spring, and I gave up before screwing it up worse. James chose my loarner 12ga 870 over my 20 semi-auto and had no further operational troubles.

Dog(s): Marsh had a very easy morning, and was probably happy with a stand that wasn't iced from his drippings.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just the lack of game. Well, that and that we cut just one bird from such a nice bunch of pintails.

Kudos: Nice guys, and we still had a pleasant morning.

Birds By Species: 2 gadwall, 2 gw teal and 1 pintail

[Darren]

Cherry Ridge quiet too?

[Rick]

Much the same from what I hear at Tiger Mart and don't hear in the marsh.