Looking ahead...

[Ducaholic]

Saw, and glassed to confirm, a flight of wood storks this morning, which was surely an earliest ever stork sighting for me.

What does that mean good, bad, or indifferent?

[Rick]

Haven't a clue. Just not used to seeing them until much later in the summer: a seasonal landmark that's supposed to follow first crop rice harvest, rather than precede it.

[MARSH BEAR]

We did not have many Spoonies in our marsh this past season, but if things are slow and they are around I am not going to pass on them.

Our club totals for the 2019 - 2020 duck season:

Teal 249
Gadwall 463
Pintail 29
Mallards 4
Spoonbill 41
Wigeon 17
Other 3

[Rick]

That might be a lifetime supply of grays around here.

[MARSH BEAR]

During the first split Greys are our main duck every year.

[BGkirk]

Very nice!


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[Rick]

Picked our marsh this morning and detoured to fertilize what's left of the cane around my blind. Still a few sprouts, but fear it a lost cause, 'least in the short run:

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[Duck Engr]

You’re about as heavy handed with the chemicals as I am.

[Ericdc]

Those look like Corey's blinds midseason

I kid I kid


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[BGkirk]

Will be curious to watch you brush it as it does look similar to ours now, which is no complement unfortunately.

We headed to marsh Saturday with lumber shovels and fertilizer


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[Ericdc]

Will be curious to watch you brush it as it does look similar to ours now, which is no complement unfortunately.

We headed to marsh Saturday with lumber shovels and fertilizer


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No hay bales?


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[Darren]

Will be curious to watch you brush it as it does look similar to ours now, which is no complement unfortunately.

We headed to marsh Saturday with lumber shovels and fertilizer

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Prayers sent.


But seriously, be very careful, crazy heat indices predicted for this weekend.


@ Rick......you sure did knock those roseaus back, wow! Far cry from the tall stand we've come to know on blind's far end. Can still see those squealers seemingly all up in it from this past season's hunt.

[Duck Engr]

Yep, gonna be a scorcher. We’ve dialed back our ambitions for the weekend because of the heat.

[Ericdc]

Yep, gonna be a scorcher. We’ve dialed back our ambitions for the weekend because of the heat.

Weak


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[Rick]

Will be curious to watch you brush...

I wanted it scabbier, and that's what it'll be. Maybe just a little much so, but we'll see...

[BGkirk]

Will be curious to watch you brush...

I wanted it scabbier, and that's what it'll be. Maybe just a little much so, but we'll see...

While we were way to scabby , some others decided black roofing tar paper was a good start as a back ground. Thankfully it shredded and came off over the winter and I used your “scabbier blind strategy” as an alternative and that’s what we’re going with this year.


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[Ericdc]

Just knock that roof off blind 3.


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[Duck Engr]

Yep, gonna be a scorcher. We’ve dialed back our ambitions for the weekend because of the heat.

Weak


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Lol guilty as charged. Working in an office has made me SOFT. My Dad (68 years old) looks at me nowadays like he’s ready to disown me when work in 95+ degrees. I’m pouring sweat and guzzling water and he just keeps on keeping on.

[Rick]

Working in an office has made me SOFT. My Dad (68 years old) looks at me nowadays like he’s ready to disown me when work in 95+ degrees. I’m pouring sweat and guzzling water and he just keeps on keeping on.

I tend to think of yours as the 4-wheeler and riding mower generation. Freaking spooky how many young guys can barely make it down a levee.

[Duck Engr]

While I’ve ridden my share of both, from age 12 to 28 I could work all day in any heat without a problem. It’s only been recently that I’ve regressed to toddler heat tolerance levels.

[Rick]

Just between us chickens, I've been OK with getting cut back to fewer and mostly half-days in the sun by what the current mess has done to the hatchling market. Been trying to keep active by running the bug around and through friends' crawfish ponds, but with shallow, gator-safe water temps getting soupy, dang dog's starting to drag. I fuss him for being old before his time...

In other news: just two more months to teal season, combines are blooming in the first crop, and rice country smells absolutely wonderful.

[Darren]

Just between us chickens, I've been OK with getting cut back to fewer and mostly half-days in the sun by what the current mess has done to the hatchling market. Been trying to keep active by running the bug around and through friends' crawfish ponds, but with shallow, gator-safe water temps getting soupy, dang dog's starting to drag. I fuss him for being old before his time...

In other news: just two more months to teal season, combines are blooming in the first crop, and rice country smells absolutely wonderful.

Saw a video this morning of a local outfitter running the combine in first crop, just another milestone. Timing about right?

[Rick]

Pretty much.

[Darren]

Hearing many rumblings of this in your area? Apple snails in the rice. Knew there were some in the fresh marsh, story below from Kaplan.

https://www.wafb.com/2020/07/22/invasiv ... aSWO9CaZDw

[Rick]

Yep, just the latest in the growing list of PIA invasives. Some crawfish farmers drawing water from the Mermentau had to shut down early because there were so many of them in the traps. Hasn't, to my knowledge, been as much of an issue with the rice crops that are dried out for harvest. Yet. Thornwell farmers drawing from Lacassine Bayou don't seem as bothered. Yet.

We've had a few in our marsh the past couple or three years, but they haven't gotten remotely as out of hand as the horror story I heard about a marsh near the Wax losing all of its vegetation before the snails abandoned it. Yet.

[Rick]

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Just messin' wit' ya.

[5 stand]

Necks don't look very long on those birds. Looks like crows to me.LOL!

[Rick]

Isolated summer rain cell was doing the "cow on a flat rock" bit on our usual exercise farm this morning, so the bug and I waited it out by taking a tour of some past early teal spots and got into a "Holy crap!" load of woodies in one of them. Broke the binoculars out to see if I could spot some teal in the mix of squealers, mottleds and woodies, and the later was still boiling out of the rice as I uncased them and got out of the truck for better view. We talkin' a bunch and a half of 'em. And great fun to then watch most of the lot tornado down into a nearby unplanted bottom cut of red rice and "trash".

Don't know if it was the duck show or just being cooped up in the truck cab longer than expected before we made our planned exercise round, but the bug was fired up and had a ball chasing shorebirds around the shallows, while I drug around my old arse around a three-mile circuit wishing I'd done so in the downpour, instead of the steamy after-rain sauna. Then again, I'm now up and typing, and he's out cold.

Won't be too many more weeks before there are teal to spur us on...

[Rick]

One more month until teal...

[MARSH BEAR]

I would love to see teal like that during our teal season. We have not had very good luck the past few years during the teal season.
If anyone in the southwest Louisiana area needs work on a surface drive or long tail there is a guy in Carlyss, LA (just below Sulfur) that works on them - his company name is Muddy Waters, LLC and the guys name is Joey - 225-718-2112.