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Less than 50 birds were killed from our pit this season, with 20 of those taken opening day. Some members of the lease had decent luck on the river, and others, like myself, didn’t do so hot on the river either. As I sat in the pit in January, watching duckless skies and gobs of geese pour into the field to our East, I’d made up my mind to sell my field duck decoys and switch to an all goose spread and was trying to figure out ways to get my fellow lessees to follow my lead in the off-season.

That won’t matter now as the head of our lease, who is 63 and didn’t hunt the field but one morning all season, decided his bones are getting too old to fight the muck of a rice/bean field. That decision was followed up by another member bowing out due to a lost job, and another member leaving due to not enough time to hunt and an expected extremely large tax bill coming in April, and yet another (first year) member deciding he’d had enough as well (I think he was skunked 2 out of his last 3 days and got a bad taste in his mouth he couldn’t overcome). So in one day, we went from 6 members to 2. My buddy and I have decided to dissolve the lease and give up the field, as we don’t want to fool with finding 4 new members. It was a good run, but it was pretty disheartening to sit there and not even see high ducks, which we would always see in years past, hot, dry, wet, cold or otherwise (pits one mile to our east were business as usual).

As all of that was transpiring, another friend of ours was attempting to arrange a green timber/cypress slough lease directly adjacent to what used to be our “off the beaten path” public land spot that we’ve had good success on in years past. It seems he was successful in negotiating a deal, so we will have an 80 acre block of woods/slough that we don’t have to race anyone to, which will be nice. The only catch is that the land is for sale (for an astronomically high asking price), and if it sells, we may lose the lease. Regardless, glasses are half full again and spirits are high for the upcoming season.

Whew, a happy ending after all. Was getting pretty depressed.

Haha I felt Dave’s pain as I was writing it!

Good deal. I sure hope it doesn't sell before you get to hunt.

Glad the door opened on a new spot when the old lease holders bowed out DE, and hope it pays off!

Seeing that I don’t have enough duck calls.... I decided to try out a new cut down style call to give me another one other than my Mondo. Bought a Singleton cut down from a fella out of Indiana who had two. Arrived in the mail today and I must say I’m impressed. Takes much less air to blow than the mondo but still has plenty of bark. I’ve gone through several cut downs hoping to find one to measure up to the Mondo and I think this is it. It has definitely earned an immediate spot on the timber lanyard for next season. Friend of mine used one this year with good success.

Hope it turns out to be your magic flute.

(Thought I'd finally kicked the call buying habit a year or two back, but listened to one too many sound file this spring and find myself with another in pocket to play with until it auditions on game next fall.)

It’s one of the many curses of being a waterfowler. Always tinkering. Can’t leave well enough alone.

Duck Engr wrote:It’s one of the many curses of being a waterfowler. Always tinkering. Can’t leave well enough alone.

Most definitely

Been piddling around with the one acre woody hole a little bit. Tried rice last year by soaking it for 36 hours then broadcasting on a mud flat. Turned out to be a pretty big dud, driven mostly by the drought we had in June July and August (no well/pump for this poor farmer, so rice is a big gamble on summer rain).

Changed it up this year. Drained may 1, plowed, smoothed, and drilled rice when it was on the edge of too muddy. Spread ammonium nitrate on it yesterday. Fingers crossed for some moisture from cristobal.
A few skips here and there but it’s a start. Next step will be broadleaf control.

Also of note we cleaned the upper end of the pond up as seen in the picture. It had been grown up thick with willows and other undesirables such as sweet gums and elms. Reasoning was twofold. One was trying to get us back to conditions we had the first year we rehabbed it from just a mudhole, that was early or mid 2000s. We had 200+ ducks on it- that’s a lot for our part of the country -most of the season, even Canada geese. we didn’t hunt it much that year. Just mostly let them assimilate. That’s the best usage we’ve ever had. Duck use has slowly declined since as we let the edges grow up. I thought it’d make the ducks feel more secluded and safer. Maybe I was wrong. It’ll be interesting to see if it returns to past glory.

Second reason is the thick brush was blocking our view of the bird dogs when we quail hunt. We’d lose them in that area just about every time we ran them last year.

Went into last season knowing our farm was for sale, and it sold in February. Glad we had a backup plan. Hope yours works out.

What area are u in?


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This is my little wood duck hole 45 minutes from the house in Bullock county, southeast part of Alabama to hold me and the dog over between trips to our lease out west in the Delta.

So the lease in the delta didn't produce?


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Last year the lease did not, it was a dud. The year prior it was ok, still not great and the year before that was good opener and after the big freeze. We lost 4 out of 6 members after the stinker this year, but several of us rolled over to a timber/cypress slough lease that we saw a whole lot of ducks using last year, so hope has been renewed. It’ll be weird leasing something that’s not a field, but I won’t miss trudging through the mud.

Rice experiment is coming along nicely but boy do we need a rain. Showers have been dancing around us for a week straight but close only counts in horseshoes and bombs. 50-70% chance several days this week. Fingers crossed. Spot sprayed some broadleaf streaks today where my aim was off with the AIM (chemical).

Rice in the middle of pine trees.

We need some rain too. Got a good one at the farm but not enough on my garden. Good chances all next week though.


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Ericdc wrote:Rice in the middle of pine trees.

We need some rain too. Got a good one at the farm but not enough on my garden. Good chances all next week though.


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Haha yep gotta be one of the only landscapes that looks like that.

Mother Nature came through for us this week with 3 different half inch or more rains. Headed back up tomorrow to work on a few things. Hope to have time to take a look.

Rice has really come on nicely in the wood duck hole. Now knee high and thick enough to shade out any other competition. Another 2” of rain is forecast this week. That certainly won’t hurt the cause.

We also planted 3 acres of rice at a little 7 acre impoundment we have, though we didn’t get it in the ground until 2 weeks after the wood duck hole. Finally got a little chemical and some nitrogen on it this week. Went out and hand sprayed my chemical misses (quite a few of them) yesterday.

Looking good!

DComeaux wrote:Looking good!

Dave, can't you see that the man's farming ducks to take yours?

Rick wrote:

DComeaux wrote:Looking good!

Dave, can't you see that the man's farming ducks to take yours?

I'd be doing the same If I had the place and opportunity.

DComeaux wrote:

Rick wrote:

DComeaux wrote:Looking good!

Dave, can't you see that the man's farming ducks to take yours?

I'd be doing the same If I had the place and opportunity.

Me three.

Haha thanks fellas. I’m far enough east that I’m pulling from the measly Atlantic flyway, so Dave’s ducks are safe.

Looks like I mixed my chemical just a liiiiittle too hot on my touch up spraying, but it knocked the bejeezus out of the weeds too. Whoopsies. Oh well, plenty of other rice for the few ducks that I hope will show up.

Well hell....

If it's any consolation, last trip to our marsh showed selective spraying still killed too much of the cane around the blind last year, so I can't blame the chemical - and will be making a detour from our egg picking to do some fertilizing while we're out there this morning.

Glad to see I have some company in the “doesn’t work well with chemicals” club.

Went back up to the farm again today to put some ammonium nitrate on the dove field. Proso was a bit of a bust (due to having just enough moisture to crack the seed but running out of moisture shortly after) but we’ve had so much browntop volunteer around it that we didn’t bother replanting. Spread fertilizer today and had a little leftover so i took the remainder over to my spray-burned rice spots on the 7 acre impoundment to apologize to what rice survived my mistake. I was happy to see only one patch is still rough looking. The others have bounced right back.

As a side note I won’t call it pleasant, but the heat was tolerable with a nice 10-15 mph north breeze. Ended up getting a lot more equipment maintenance items crossed off the list than we’d planned.