Preseason 2020-2021

[Rick]

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.

Heard something similar last evening about ducks loading a pond outside Creole - apparently for fresh water.

[Darren]

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.

Heard something similar last evening about ducks loading a pond outside Creole - apparently for fresh water.

After Katrina there was no food to be had, but we piled grays up hunting ponds of just mud on the bottom. Was told they were rooting for snails and such. Johnny went down and grabbed the flat boat from the camp this morning, saving me yet another trip down there to do the same, big help. Hope she's east-loaded and much of that passes wide of us, all we can do.


We are dead center of this now-tightening cone

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Hurricane models this morning showing it actually passing just west of the camp but right through New Orleans between Lakes Pontch. and Borgne.

[DComeaux]

Our entire coastal marshes will now have been flushed this year with many displaced. Hate to see this one for you.

[Darren]

This is what we're looking at for tomorrow evening over on that end

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[Darren]

Don't have a damage assessment yet but hear the road to Hopedale and Shell Beach is impassable due to debris and likely power lines & poles. Thankfully surge was not a problem, but did note some really impressive observations from the local wind and water gages, just astounding how much water an extreme wind can move within a basin, sloshing it from wind alone.

Here's how it unfolded, with winds eventually building to a recorded peak of near 90 mph, though news station reported a peak of 101 mph down there too.

this wind gage right by the camp, SOUTH shoreline of lake borgne

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Same wind gage but newer web interface that shows water level and wind, note the dip in water level reading right as the wind spiked/peaked from the SOUTH, thus sloshing the water to the north. Can clearly see how water level then begins to return to normal at same trend as wind strength tapering off.

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Sure enough, gage on north side of Lake borgne spiked at same time as the south shore noted the dip

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One final piece of this was the delacroix gage, south of town thus open to inundation from a south wind, Sure enough, spiked huge at same time as winds peaked from south

Delacroix Gage Hurricane Zeta.JPG

No word yet on wind damage to camp but seeing some limited pics and videos coming out of camper trailers flipped over that were parked on side the road inside the flood walls, and some metal roofs on boat house torn so likely plenty of that in the area. Will update when I have more info

[Duck Engr]

That’s what blew my mind when I moved to the coast. How wind can manipulate the water in the bays. I’d never considered it. Pretty fascinating stuff.

[Darren]

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Also just saw a video taken along main road going to Shell Beach and Hopedale; all power poles along it are in the bayou that parallels.

[Darren]

Luckily found out late yesterday that the shell beach camp made it through the storm with very little damage, lost just some vinyl paneling from under the camp, and boat made it just fine too. Unfortunately theres a lot of damage down there; not Katrina or anything, but a whole lot of metal boat shed roofs peeled off, various camp and home roof damage, etc. We were very blessed for this one, hope to not sweat another one for a long while. Surely we're all now due for a quiet stretch???


On a positive note, harry and I spent the morning at the bunkie farm in downright blustery conditions for October. Low 50's with rippin' north winds, just glorious for piddling around the camp with chores and organizing, etc.

Saw a nice wad of teal over 49 on way up but no ducks thereafter. Did not see or hear the first speck but enjoyed a fair occasional flight of blues and snows, probably 300-400 or more in total. Farmer said there's some ducks around on neighboring pieces

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Blues in the background

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Transitioned goose dekes to all clear bags for ease of sorting and obviously helps to see critters that might be hiding inside. Cut new (longer) pvc poles and did some painting on them.

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Pumping in progress. Farmer says field prep starting next week or so.

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Confirmed that our pit leak is still alive and well, with water to the shelf inside; will just be a pump as-needed kind of season rather than put any more money into this one. Great morning to be out and about.

[Duck Engr]

Great to hear of your relative good fortune down at the camp.

Unfortunately some models are putting another system in the gulf second week of November. We shall see.

[Duck Engr]

Oh and your mancave is way tidier than mine.

[Darren]

Oh and your mancave is way tidier than mine.

Wish that was my mancave; it's 80% of the entire camp up there, belongs to a friend and his family, I just try to help take care of it since I live closer than others. Primitive, yes, but the location is magical.

[Darren]

While we enjoy yesterday's reinforcing front, it'll moderate later this week and into the weekend. Thankfully, a good one's in the forecast for next Tuesday or so, and another for CZ opener weekend a few days later.


#1 Tues 11/10/2020

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#2 Sat/Sun 11/14 & 15/2020 (hopefully!)

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[Darren]

Made it down to the Delacroix lease today to check on blinds and assess habitat and fowl activity. Good news was that I caught sight of a few wads of grays on the way down to lease and then found a fair many on us as well. Of our five total blinds, my lease partner lost his, and I lost the walk-in pond's blind built new last year. Worst of all, on arrival to that pond, it was little feathered heads as far as I could see there, mostly grays. On closer inspection, sure enough it still had wigeon grass and of course its always one of our shallowest ponds.

Thankfully the south pond rode it out just fine and even had a fair many birds scattered in the shallow puddles surrounding it so it shows promise for next weekend. Mostly grays but also some mottleds, few teal, and the usual mergansers. Marsh wasn't as beat up as feared but plenty of debris out and about. Power is almost back on down there, they had all the poles up and were pulling new wire when I was leaving.

Buddys' old blind, she gone

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never so glad to see this blind in place, complete with its new roseau forest still standing. Really excited to chip away at it per our preferences but plan to leave fair bit standing.

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Of course watching out for what may come of Hurricane Eta next week, looks like it could be a nail biter well into the week.

[MARSH BEAR]

Darren - your grass is in a lot better shape than ours, good luck getting preparations for Nov 14

[Deltaman]

Glad you are seeing some birds, and had light losses from the storm! Also, happy to hear you have some food left in your ponds for the season.

[Darren]

We shall see, the thought is milder Novembers allow for colder winters in Dec-Feb. Last year maybe was a good example, with a cold November giving way to a very mild December if I recall correctly.

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Looks mild for this weekend's coastal zone opener, with the two forecast fronts for this week largely projected to fizzle on arrival. There were some good hunts in my area for youth weekend so there's some hope. Water is currently very high in marsh, need the north winds on Wed. to get them headed out.

[Ducaholic]

Old drought monitor is looking better.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

[Darren]

Old drought monitor is looking better.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Nice, I hadn't checked in a while but sure enough it's been dry since all that rain in Sept???, remember, we'd prefer Habitat (Mud)Flats......but they just put in a bunch of new wells this summer haha.

Nonetheless, the less non-pressured water on the landscape the better.

[Duck Engr]

I’ll definitely take short sleeves on opener for a colder December and January!

[Darren]

Still watching the models for upcoming cold snaps but they are spotty for the foreseeable and anything but "arctic"-like. It's not that it looks particularly hot moving forward, just nothing extreme plunging down the midwest/MS flyway, just some sporadic cool downs. Some outlets, including The Weather Channel, forecast this winter to be mild, with above avg temp given we are in a La Nina pattern. I've seen a few other weather folks guess otherwise, that it could be a cold one in Dec-Feb.


One of the more recent La Nina winters? 2017-2018, complete with multiple Louisiana snow events

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[Darren]

Delta's migration update from late last week. Shocker, was warm in the midwest, but can't say I'm upset to hear about how dry it reportedly is.

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[Darren]

Saw these clips posted on FB, thought it was interesting. Knew all about the mallard hen being a 70 point duck and a then-prevalent pintail being only a 10 point bird, but had no idea the hooded MERG was also a 70 point bird.

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[Deltaman]

Late 70's we had birds to support this point system, and at the time, Widgeon and Pintails were as thick as Grays. . Mallard hens were 90 points at first, and Greenheads were 35, before they lowered to 70 and 25 points. Lot's of great memories shooting 20 big ducks in a morning. For us, the lower delta hunting ended at 12:00 noon, and we could only hunt Thurs, Friday, Sat and Sun, so at least the birds got a break. Biggest thing I miss these days is the respect for fellow hunters. Don't know if it's ignorance, or just an asshole mentality, but it is ruining the public hunting here.

[Rick]

Late 70's we had birds to support this point system, and at the time, Widgeon and Pintails were as thick as Grays.

Weeeell, I was writing at the time and interviewed both our state's top waterfowl biologist and Flyway Counsel representative, Larry Souleau, and the Fed's senior Mississippi Flyway biologist, Art Brazda, on the topic when the point system was cut back to a five bird max after its initial five years (and ten bird max).

What Larry told me was that the Flyway Counsels proposed 10 point birds as a negotiating start that they never expected the Feds to accept. But the USFWS was so anxious to establish a "five year stabilized management study," without any regulatory changes, that they agreed to it.

What Art told me was that the long term drought on the PPR that paralleled that period pushed some species beyond hunting's compensatory mortality to become additive mortality and made 10 point pintails the biggest management mistake he'd seen during his long tenure with the Service.

[Deltaman]

Looking back, I believe that Rick, but at the time, it was a gift from the duck gods for us late teeners. Too bad their initial thought process was flawed, but it sure was a memorable time to hunt ducks.

[Rick]

For which we paid with the three duck and thirty day years, when those three ducks were far too often pie in the sky.

[Deltaman]

For which we paid with the three duck and thirty day years, when those three ducks were far too often pie in the sky.

Yep, I lived it too, and they were some pretty dismal years.

[Darren]

Entered here too so I can track for my own:

Rode just our small part of the bunkie farm yesterday early afternoon in the SxS. Jumped only a pair of mallards on far end of the field we hunt, not another duck or goose seen or heard. Nothing down the road on the way out, BUT, BUT, BUT on a stretch of road just south of us, encountered fowl of staggering numbers. Mostly blues and specks but soon saw a lot of ducks mixed with them. Most I've ever seen in that location...and most of our flight comes from the south.

No one's going this weekend but I hope to mid-next week.


Photos of course never do it justice as its just a microfraction of what was out there, and just one side of the road of what spanned both sides of the road as far as you could see north and south. Had not yet seen a bird here this season before this

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[Deltaman]

Pretty damn exciting when they are piling into places, I could watch for days!

[Darren]

Pretty damn exciting when they are piling into places, I could watch for days!

I pulled over just to watch and LISTEN to them trading back and forth across the road. Ducks flipping over from way up to fall into the pack, just awesome.