Looking ahead...

[Rick]

The bug and I finally found something besides egrets and cormorants that likes a crawfish pond on his run this morning:

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[Darren]

Print the headlines, the Canada goose is back in Louisiana.


Theres a nice flight of them low over my office each morning, always peak out when I hear them coming.

[Rick]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

[SpinnerMan]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

They seem to go crazy everywhere else.

[Ducaholic]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

Check the golf courses and hi falooting subdivisions. They spreading just fine. I think we may have an early season soon. Not sure what that means for us country folks but some might get whacked in suburbia.

[Rick]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

That little shit couldn't eat a broken egg. But his grandparents haven't kept our summer ducks from doing much better.

[Rick]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

Check the golf courses and hi falooting subdivisions. They spreading just fine. I think we may have an early season soon. Not sure what that means for us country folks but some might get whacked in suburbia.

Resident Canadas were here when I got here in '83, and their spread hasn't begun to mirror what I saw of the introduction and spread of Mid Ohio Valley residents in the less than decade prior. Case in point being the birds above which are presumably from the Lake Arthur flock that was here when I got here and are the first I recall witnessing on ag land or water. (Hence the photo.)

[Rick]

Just brought up Google Earth and measured from where I photographed them to the late Bubba Ostalet's place on the lake where their ancestors are said to have been introduced, and they've made it almost a mile and a half.

[Ducaholic]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

Check the golf courses and hi falooting subdivisions. They spreading just fine. I think we may have an early season soon. Not sure what that means for us country folks but some might get whacked in suburbia.

Resident Canadas were here when I got here in '83, and their spread hasn't begun to mirror what I saw of the introduction and spread of Mid Ohio Valley residents in the less than decade prior. Case in point being the birds above which are presumably from the Lake Arthur flock that was here when I got here and are the first I recall witnessing on ag land or water. (Hence the photo.)

I think the short stopping of Canda's by the gov't in a concerted effort had a lot to do with their proliferation and what you observed and described. The timing is certainly in line. I think wild geese became domesticated in some sense in a lot of areas in the mid-west when their migration to the deep south became non-existent

My original point was in the 15 years I lived on the Northshore Mandeville/Covington I witnessed their numbers increase fairly significantly. Just an observation with no real way of knowing just how many were actually there but I do know the daily flights of groups from the feeding loafing areas to the roost increased year by year.

[Rick]

I think the short stopping of Canda's by the gov't in a concerted effort had a lot to do with their proliferation and what you observed and described. The timing is certainly in line. I think wild geese became domesticated in some sense in a lot of areas in the mid-west when their migration to the deep south became non-existent

They were gone from LA decades before I started seeing big Canadas in SE Ohio, and never mind how many of which sported local bands. Not even sure the LA Canadas I've seen in photos were the same 10-12 pound "giants" we had in SE Ohio, may have been Mid Continent birds that just looked huge in comparison to the ducks with them...

No notion of what's happening in Mandeville or elsewhere to foster talk of resident seasons, just know the Rockefeller Refuge flock, Jerry Jone's Cameron Parish birds and Bubba's in Lake Arthur have sure seemed stagnant, despite of decades of Canada hunting closure in their areas.

[DComeaux]

I think the short stopping of Canda's by the gov't in a concerted effort had a lot to do with their proliferation and what you observed and described. The timing is certainly in line. I think wild geese became domesticated in some sense in a lot of areas in the mid-west when their migration to the deep south became non-existent

They were gone from LA decades before I started seeing big Canadas in SE Ohio, and never mind how many of which sported local bands. Not even sure the LA Canadas I've seen in photos were the same 10-12 pound "giants" we had in SE Ohio, may have been Mid Continent birds that just looked huge in comparison to the ducks with them...

No notion of what's happening in Mandeville or elsewhere to foster talk of resident seasons, just know the Rockefeller Refuge flock, Jerry Jone's Cameron Parish birds and Bubba's in Lake Arthur have sure seemed stagnant, despite of decades of Canada hunting closure in their areas.

Those young boys on the Chenier ridge give em hell.

[Rick]

Those young boys on the Chenier ridge give em hell.

Saw it done at Pecan Island my first year here. Same geniuses were hard on white pelicans. But if someone's been shooting Lake Arthur's geese they've been mighty sly about it. The lone exception I'm aware of being a drunk with a .22 pistol in the park - next to the cop shop.

[SpinnerMan]

Do have to wonder why the resident population has been so slow to spread in LA.

That little shit couldn't eat a broken egg. But his grandparents haven't kept our summer ducks from doing much better.

What do you have that would eat the nests? Coyotes hitting the nests is supposedly what finally stabilized the population around here.

My little gator would be in a tussle with a fresh hatched gosling. But otters or something that hammers the nests seems more likely, but maybe it's the gators.

They are so prolific that they go from a few to everywhere in what seems like no time.

[DComeaux]

Those young boys on the Chenier ridge give em hell.

Saw it done at Pecan Island my first year here. Same geniuses were hard on white pelicans. But if someone's been shooting Lake Arthur's geese they've been mighty sly about it. The lone exception I'm aware of being a drunk with a .22 pistol in the park - next to the cop shop.

HA! I've seen and heard a few around here lately. My cousin/ backyard neighbor called me one afternoon this week to tell me I had a pair that landed near my pond and were feeding on ryegrass, so I walked out to take a look.

I also have a wood duck nesting in a tree in my yard. She fly's in and out at pretty much the same times every day for a trip to my pond and beyond. I saw her flying through my back yard over the weekend about 5' off the deck and she had something white in her beak. Would she be carrying eggshells from the nest? I'm curious as to what it was. This evening I watched a pair fight the wind to land in my pond. The drake was vocal.

[Rick]

Thought I was going to get to do more woodie watching when one flew into an oak hollow outside my office window. But all I got to watch was a squirrel run it off. (Though a neighbor maintained a box well up one of his oaks, .38 mile from the nearest permanent water, that produced broods every year that I'd sometimes get to see making that hike and marvel over on my runs.)

Anyway, I've no idea of whether they cart shells off, but can imagine that they'd not want to drop them under the nest and perhaps attract trouble.

[Darren]

Can confirm Mandeville/Covington has healthy resident population through business park ponds and neighborhoods, hospital has plenty in their lake, just like around BR.

Would have to revisit log, think it was 2013 season that there was a good flock of them roosting in our northshore marsh at night and would get up in the mornings......during hunts and fly around hunting area. We just kept waiting for them to fly our way but their favored lined took them the opposite way from us, presumably toward nearest neighborhood pond to feast on potato chips and bread.

[DComeaux]

presumably toward nearest neighborhood pond to feast on potato chips and bread.

I liken hunting these "resident flocks" to high fence hunting. It's not something that in the least bit interests me.

[Darren]

presumably toward nearest neighborhood pond to feast on potato chips and bread.

I liken hunting these "resident flocks" to high fence hunting. It's not something that in the least bit interests me.

Probably a fair comparison. YouTube has some golf course hunts, can't imagine that's all too difficult. Can confirm they are pretty destructive on golf courses and make a huge mess as they do anywhere

[Rick]

Well, they sharpen up under fire, but they're still Canadas. Or, at least, that was the case during my time with them.

[SpinnerMan]

presumably toward nearest neighborhood pond to feast on potato chips and bread.

I liken hunting these "resident flocks" to high fence hunting. It's not something that in the least bit interests me.

Probably a fair comparison. YouTube has some golf course hunts, can't imagine that's all too difficult. Can confirm they are pretty destructive on golf courses and make a huge mess as they do anywhere

I think the biggest difference is that you are the end of the line in most cases. With resident populations, you are at the beginning and end of the line. Early season, they can be dumber than dumb, but end of the season forget about it. I'm guessing hunting specks the first week in September in Canada is not near the challenge of hunting them in LA in January.

Resident birds are interesting. I hunt a lot at a club. The south side is closed to hunting and we hunt fixed blinds on the north side. The birds that live on the south side fly specific patterns to avoid going over the blinds. They literally make right turns to head down the channels between blinds. If suddenly they let us hunt on the south side, it would be a slaughter because right now they walk around without a care in the world for people.

Well, they sharpen up under fire, but they're still Canadas. Or, at least, that was the case during my time with them.

Were many people hunting them at that point. My experience is that the pressure has gone up dramatically. When I first started hunting in the 80's, we pretty much had the entire river to ourselves. We didn't have any clue what we were doing. The number of hunters grew a lot over time because there were geese all over the place. That has actually reversed because there really isn't anywhere the geese can get away from the hunters.

[Rick]

YouTube has some golf course hunts, can't imagine that's all too difficult.

Darren, there was a time when I did a piece titled "Trophy Geese" for The Shooting Sportsman that included the fact that hunters here often asked me about hunting the giant Canadas up home, as though they were something special, and went on to spoof donning golf attire and such. But it wasn't too long after that I learned of an Ohio acquaintance being contracted to hunt a golf course, which was the first such hunting I'd heard of at that point. Never heard how it worked out. (My vote for the true trophies went to blues.)

My guess, however, is that if he did it enough to do any real good, he wasn't killing many. Example being the expansive Corp of Engineers lawns adjacent to the Ohio Rive boat/barge locks where the resident birds panhandled picnic tourist's picnic lunches and grazed with immunity from the guns that were legal on the river and nearby fields. Took them little time to figure out their boundaries after the opener.

Well, they sharpen up under fire, but they're still Canadas. Or, at least, that was the case during my time with them.

Were many people hunting them at that point. My experience is that the pressure has gone up dramatically. When I first started hunting in the 80's, we pretty much had the entire river to ourselves. We didn't have any clue what we were doing. The number of hunters grew a lot over time because there were geese all over the place. That has actually reversed because there really isn't anywhere the geese can get away from the hunters.

If you're referencing pressure on Ohio residents in my time there, you could often tell when Canadas were coming up or down the Ohio River by listening to the chain of duck hunters sky-busting them along the way. But aside from hearing of one area doctor's spot said to be under lease, there wasn't enough pressure to support that practice at the time. Would be surprised to learn that hasn't changed.

But if you're referencing my reference to Canadas as a gullible species, it didn't matter whether I was hunting our SE Ohio residents, NW Ohio Mid Continent population or Eastern Shore Atlantic population migrants, they were all much more inclined to finish whatever we could start with whatever relatively crude decoys, calling and hides than what I encountered with specks and blues down here.

A "for instance" being the six or seven dozen homemade masonite silhouettes and three dozen one-piece Carrylite shells that accompanied my lone dozen standard G&H shells when party size called for a "big" Ohio spread to help hide the guys laying under camo cloth and stubble in it. I repainted the lot as specks, but couldn't finish them until I'd culled down to the G&H shells. And that was still during SWLA's duck-focused era, when a relative handful of hunters targeted geese. So I've always had great respect for how hard specks, as a species, tend to study decoys.

Canadas, as a species and aside from the little Richardson's that remain relative dolts here, may all be geniuses now - but the apparent A-frame blind boom raises doubt in my mind...

Re: our resident Canada's lack of movement into hunted areas, Louisiana started affording special seasons to take advantage of a then increasing show of little Richardson's that generally ran somewhere between 3-4lbs, and the state was often waiting at our camp and others to weigh and measure them. I shot a Mid Continent bird weighing in at 7lb, 9oz that our late state waterfowl biologist, Robert Helm, told me was still the unofficial state record Canada some years later. Know there just has to have been even-more-"unofficial records" set by the few residents that almost surely died of gunfire during that period, but think it telling that none were recorded, even during the opening volleys of our modern day seasons on them.

[SpinnerMan]

I meant people targeting them, specifically. New Canadas are easy. When they first arrive everyone is a genius. It's after they have been educated that the fun begins.

The giants are generally much easier than the lessers and I have no experience with cacklers. I really want to get one. I think I might have shot one cackler the other year, but I was so friggin sick that I shouldn't have been hunting. It was the littlest goose by far but I wasn't thinking and didn't take any pictures. In hindsight, the head and other features I think we're different or maybe I was just delusional from the flu.

My only experience with specks is them sailing into the snow goose spreads. They are all pretty stupid when nobody is trying to kill them.

[Johnc]

Speck wise—-
I think the easy success in Canada is susceptibility of juveniles early on and hunting areas where they are at or coming to feed

A lot of the Arkansas success is that there are just so many birds. Sooner or later you’ll get yours

Although the Arkansas play pen is wising up

Down here in swla you better have your “a” game and then some or it ain’t happening. And surely not from the same pits day in and out —- I am talking about success every time not a kill 10 specks in a season out of 30
Hunts. That’s not what I mean.

[Rick]

The bug and I just got back from an "interesting" tour of Dave and Jarren's old farm to see the "improvements" the "big time" outfitter Doug subbed it to made. If it were an academic study, our abstract would read, "Don't do drugs."

Don't believe they hunted Dave's old west blind at all, but they buried a new old one in the field between it and the east blind Dave's buddies and then Jarren and Johnathan's crew hunted, and were kind enough to leave it set up, so we could learn from an expert:

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Though he'd told Doug they weren't hunting our east blind, it and the new old blind they installed on the far east end of the farm shared identical decoy rigs:

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And, of the three blinds, our east blind showed the most use of the three, despite the new engineering marvel now running along the south side of its levee:

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That, ladies and germs, is why potentially judgement altering medications warn against operating heavy equipment. Never mind that any but a blind man could see that the farm's original flood canal was built to flood what he wished to and only needed some cleaning. The plan was plainly, "Let's get cranked up and run some machinery." And they went to an awful lot of trouble to make a mess.

On the plus side, though, they did improve the entrance to the farm road - right up to where they busted a big-assed unmarked hole in the flood canal jug that I much too nearly drove my little-assed truck into.

[Rick]

Guess I can add that we saw no spring teal in our travels, but did see a few mottled pairs, including one at Dave's blind.

And we flushed a lone hen hiding along the four-wheeler road separating our farm from the next, which led to a mystery. Figured she had a nest there, but instead found these at the edge of the track:

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Found them just as they are in the photo, with very few fire ants in attendance yet and guts squished from at least two of the three, but none of the ducklings completely squashed. And all seeming plenty big enough to scatter, rather than trying to hide in such sparse cover. It's a mystery to me, as is why Mom might have been hiding with survivors on the dry side of the track, rather than leading them into the flooded young rice on the other.

Tough to be a mottled duck.

[Johnc]

That blind spread looked horrible

[Rick]

That blind spread looked horrible

They had some more socks on the other side of the levee, too, but also hugging the levee, which was what that photo was trying to show. A whacker rig.

What baffled me were the specks at the other two blinds. Too lazy to pick up three decoys? Or trying to "salt" the field and not smart enough to move what the birds would soon learn were crap well away from from the blind

[Rick]

Oh! And, Dave, Dave, our beloved Dave, I'd forgotten to note that the genius also burned up the pump, itself, and left the engine's exhaust uncovered and let the rain rust the rings tight. We miss you, Dave!

[Johnc]

Sad thing is that’s probably a very good area with lots of traffic goose wise

[DComeaux]

Oh! And, Dave, Dave, our beloved Dave, I'd forgotten to note that the genius also burned up the pump, itself, and left the engine's exhaust uncovered and let the rain rust the rings tight. We miss you, Dave!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Dammit! I loved that old engine. How in the hell did they burn the damn pump?

If you remember, the one big issue we had was when Blake and I were in the blind and the pump was slow running to add just a bit more water while we were hunting, A few hours into the hunt I heard the engine lug and the belt squeal. I never got out of the blind so fast, and I think I walked on water to get to the bike. It had ingested a piece of old timber. Luckily the crude belt tightening system (conass engineering) allowed the motor to slide loosening the belt and it jumped the pully. I miss the challenges of that place. I wish I had the money to keep and maintain it.

I really, really hate seeing those dead baby mottled ducks. What heck would kill those and not eat them, a rat? Did a deer step on them?

I'm still trying to understand the double levy at the east blind. In the photo with the white goose decoys, is that the same levy that the 12' blind was on in the thick roseaus? We had the one good year out of it when we had the whole farm. Tucked under and in the middle of the cane we had thinned just a bit, they never new we were there. The specs loved that cut. My son still talks about those hunts today, It was wonderful.