Preseason 2020-2021

by **Darren** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 2:30 pm

Got the new logs up and running just in time for first good flurry of teal sightings across south Louisiana in the last week. Boat issues shortened what was supposed to be a full morning of running all over checking blinds around the marshes near Shell beach and Delacroix Saturday. Made it to the usual teal area and saw plenty of the usual indicators, mottleds and shorebirds and sure enough a handful of bluewings. Unfortunately found that two makeshift blinds we had in the area were taken by tropical storm cristobal back in June....grrrrrr.

Have plans to get back down there soon as I can to go check on the lease and its collection of blinds, though betting they are fine given the heavier construction. In the mean time, just watching the tropics every day with bated breath.

Happy pre-season all!

by **Darren** » Wed Aug 26, 2020 7:37 am

With tropical storm marco largely fizzling before much of any impacts on my end, all eyes are on Laura at the other end of our fragile La coast, and as of this morning she's about as ugly as they come with projections to potentially reach Cat 4. My thoughts and prayers for all with interests of any kind in the way, which includes a fair bit of my wife's family in the Lake Charles area.

Buddy made a visit to the bunkie area farm yesterday to assess the blind/field situation. Does look like water in blind is falling, but only to the level of static head that is the water level in the ditch on north side of the levee/blind that's taking its time falling despite rest of the field being drained. Hope to get up there right after teal season to get the pump going in the blind and begin what's likely to be a long process to a potential band-aid on our leak issue. Otherwise, it'll just be a pump-when-you-show-up kind of thing each hunt.

Blind is in the jungle next to the truck

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First crop of rice is out, and sounded like some of the adjacent cuts were left fallow.

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by **MARSH BEAR** » Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:35 am

Darren - Flex Seal - either tape or paste, works great on TV

by **Darren** » Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:30 pm

MARSH BEAR wrote:Darren - Flex Seal - either tape or paste, works great on TV

Unfortunately buying the volume of it that we would need would make it cost prohibitive, it's $$$ in large quantities. But indeed, we are planning on a similar goop-like material to put a layer down on the floor once we get it drained and dried. The holes we have are small, for now.

by **Darren** » Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:51 am

Snapped these pics of the Great Salt Lake and it's surrounding marshes climbing north out of Salt Lake City's airport Tuesday afternoon. Would love to hunt it sometime

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Had never been to Utah before July of this year, now have been twice since, beautiful place.

by **DComeaux** » Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:55 am

Darren wrote:
MARSH BEAR wrote:Darren - Flex Seal - either tape or paste, works great on TV

Unfortunately buying the volume of it that we would need would make it cost prohibitive, it's $$$ in large quantities. But indeed, we are planning on a similar goop-like material to put a layer down on the floor once we get it drained and dried. The holes we have are small, for now.

See, I told ya...

by **Deltaman** » Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:50 pm

Pretty pics of the marsh Darren!

by **Darren** » Thu Sep 03, 2020 1:20 pm

GFS sticking to its story, showing front getting through late next week just in time for teal, for better or worse

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by **Duck Engr** » Thu Sep 03, 2020 1:32 pm

Wow. Teal will be packing their beach towels and sunscreen up for Central America.

But I’m sure they’ll be stopping in central alabama for a day for me.

by **Darren** » Sat Sep 05, 2020 10:11 am

Got to look around a bit yesterday mid-day and early this morning. Seeing fair many teal in places, seemingly more than last two pre-seasons, including a few birds around our lease for the first time we've ever really scouted it in early morning when their apt to be flying. Had long wondered if maybe it was worth a try and within 5 minutes of getting to the blind to clean it up (and happy it was still in place where we left it) a pair nearly flew through the blind. Ended up seeing maybe 40-50 total while we were in that general area so enough to make us interested. Glad to find the marsh in such good shape, the blinds still there, and decent feed in the ponds given the impacts from storms this year so far.

A quick run to our usual teal season area yesterday found a nice wad feeding in some shallows right off a canal.

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What was a handful of roseaus having taken hold this time last year has bloomed to a small forest at the south blind

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Vines have south blind engulfed but it sure would hide us well

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Sharks have moved in per usual late summer pattern, caught some trout and sheepshead, and a bonus shark yesterday

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by **BGkirk** » Sat Sep 05, 2020 5:49 pm

Good sign y’all are seeing some birds

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by **Darren** » Sun Sep 06, 2020 7:55 pm

BGkirk wrote:Good sign y’all are seeing some birds

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Got up early this morning to take a bunch of family fishing and was treated to a nice wad flying over the camp, south bound at first light. Cousin made a dove hunt somewhere today, I think, and said there wasn't much for doves but apparently saw fair flights of teal south bound. Frontal passage definitely came through last night about 8:00p when wind went strong from north in a hurry, today much cooler/drier, super pleasant for our fishing.

Latest model runs I'm watching are showing the heralded front for teal opener weekend........fizzling before it gets here.

by **Duck Engr** » Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:52 pm

Darren wrote:
BGkirk wrote:Good sign y’all are seeing some birds

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Latest model runs I'm watching are showing the heralded front for teal opener weekend........fizzling before it gets here.

Fine by me.

by **Darren** » Tue Sep 08, 2020 12:27 pm

Yea and DComeaux alluded to it as well, I think yall have it right.

Everyone likes to talk about having good cool weather to hunt teal in, but my own log shows that my hunting is usually not good when it's been comfy dry/cool conditions for teal. So in this case, think we're better off hunting the birds that are here/arrived over the weekend instead of something stout blowing them out.

No wind? Dead still? Will have the splashing and flashing gimmickry out in full force Saturday morning.

by **Darren** » Tue Sep 08, 2020 12:44 pm

https://www.stmarynow.com/news-local-st ... U.facebook

So, where do we stand heading into next week’s September teal season? LDWF Waterfowl Program Manager Larry Reynolds says all we have is the North Dakota breeding population survey this year.
Reynolds said, “The North Dakota survey has been ongoing since 1948, and this year, ponds were up 65% from 2019 and 70% over the long term average. Ducks were up 18% from 2019 and 64%t above the long-term average. Blue Winged Teal were up 58% from 2019. There was great water in North Dakota and as a result, a lot of ducks stopped there to breed. Typically, when there is good water on the southern end of the breeding grounds, ducks will stop there and have good reproductive success.”
Anecdotally, Reynolds mentioned that there has been limited banding in Canada this year due to the COVID pandemic. However, on a few sites in both southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, there have been a “pesky” number of immature Blue Winged Teal.
“Pesky, because the goal of this limited banding is to focus on mallards to generate the data necessary to run the adaptive management harvest process for setting overall duck seasons, and the number of blue wings made it difficult. The same was true for some banding sites in North and South Dakota. So, there is some suggesting that at least blue wings had good reproductive success,” Reynolds said.

by **Darren** » Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:08 pm

gooood night, never see it like that

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by **Duck Engr** » Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:33 pm

Geeeeeeezus

by **Darren** » Fri Sep 11, 2020 4:12 pm

Returned to the lease this morning with tides up a good 8-12 inches from last weekend, and as expected fewer birds seen. Hate it when the water gets high, never good for anything but scattering birds. Left a bundle of roseau in the blind in case we didn't find anything better to try for the morning. Took a ride to the public grounds, worse over there, saw maybe 3 teal in our travels of the usual spots.

We'll give it a try on the lease and just go see, hope we dont get too soaked in rains of the approaching tropical something or other, grrrrrreeeeeattttt.

by **Darren** » Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:06 am

With my teal season all but over in my marshes due to T.S. Beta and exceptionally high (flooding) tides in coastal SE La, I'm looking ahead and it looks promising:

Good front forecast early to mid next week, could be the one that puts the first reports of specks on the move

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Scheduled for a hunt at White Lake's marsh on closing Sunday next weekend so hope to close it out with a few, doesn't look like I'll be in my marshes between now and then with all the floods.

by **Darren** » Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:38 am

Guess if there's any silver lining surrounding our current weather situation, with Hurricane Delta gunning for SW La right now, is that there's a parade of legit fronts on the long term forecasts and models, two next week alone. Here's hoping our friends in SW La make out alright with this one.

by **Darren** » Sun Oct 11, 2020 6:13 am

With Hurricane Laura making landfall Friday night, had some debris to deal with yesterday morning but nothing too bad. Hope others made out OK.

Water levels at camp quick fell after rising to a foot or so over the dock. Really need them to stay more on the normal end to help the SAV grow between now and end of growing season next month.

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by **Duck Engr** » Sun Oct 11, 2020 10:31 am

Good to hear y’all had minimal impact, though I’m sure you meant Delta and not that hurricane Laura was reincarnated.

by **Darren** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:51 am

Duck Engr wrote:Good to hear y’all had minimal impact, though I’m sure you meant Delta and not that hurricane Laura was reincarnated.

Ha, yep, good catch. Losing track of them this year on LA landfalls alone.......what a circus its been. Train of fronts forecast below per GFS:

(tomorrow night)

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Friday

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Monday next week

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Have plans to do some work at the bunkie area farm Saturday, should be ideal weather for all things blind and camp prep for those looking to get out this weekend

by **Duck Engr** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 10:16 am

I sure do love cool temps in October for blind prep and farm work. Should be nice. Sure beats August!

by **Darren** » Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:45 am

Three of us got up to the bunkie area farm Sunday for first work day of the year. Camp needed some de-crittering and general straightening up and the blind of course is still has 3 ft of water inside. We missed our window of the fields being dry to work on the leaks so did what we could to try to address 3 holes, two are as large as a thumb.

JB Weld "Water Weld" helped a lot and added some tar material to a steel plate we screwed down on top of the leaks (they're in a cluster) but still only able to reduce it to a slight trickle. Figuring we'll be relegated to pumping it out every hunt at this point, will be PITA but no funds for new blind at this point.

Saw a good wad of teal on the farm but no specks seen or heard. We have rice stubble/second crop on all sides of us but couple of other cuts nearby are plowed ground, so will have slick water and while I'm glad to have it on this end of farm (and near us) I can't help but worry that birds will head that way over our stubble.......though you'd figure they have to eat at some point so we'll have that going for us. The plowed ground sure looked ideal for specks if they'd keep some of it non-flooded.

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Astounding amount of water on the landscape throughout the area right now from recent hurricane, every bayou is well beyond its banks, some fields are flooded over their levees even, whole system is just backed up. Will take a long time for it to go down but looks dry for the foreseeable.

by **Darren** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:07 am

Looks promising coming up

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by **Darren** » Mon Oct 26, 2020 7:57 am

On a positive note, saw a couple nice wads of dosgris out on Lake Borgne Saturday, nice to see signs of the migration. Also the white pelicans have arrived to the LSU lakes, an annual migration, for what it's worth.

But one of these items below I'm more excited about than the other, probably a few of you can guess.

Winter Storm Billy

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.....annnddddd Tropical Storm, Hurricane-to-Be Zeta

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by **MARSH BEAR** » Mon Oct 26, 2020 2:38 pm

Your turn - sorry it's anybody's turn
We still cannot get into our marsh, don't have any idea what might be left of blinds and boat ramps

by **SpinnerMan** » Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:11 pm

It's amazing how all the models say pretty much the same thing. They all have it passing over to a little east of New Orleans going to Mississippi and maybe as far east as Mobile. So it will probably do something completely different. Thankfully it looks to only be a Cat 1 and moving pretty quickly.

Be safe.

by **BGkirk** » Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:19 pm

MARSH BEAR wrote:Your turn - sorry it's anybody's turn
We still cannot get into our marsh, don't have any idea what might be left of blinds and boat ramps

Had some friends report back from Holly beach. No blinds, no boat houses. Nothing. But they did send a sweet video of greys coming into a pond. Must be something down there they like. Sure isn’t any food.

Will sabine being closed hurt your hunting on weekends ? I feel like no shooting out there may not move as much traffic

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