2021-2022 Season Log

[Rick]

Was the late arrival due to your party’s tardiness or boat troubles?

Just a big organizational cluster-flutch occasioned by one party's no-show and another's running 45 minutes late that I got stuck straightening out from the boat dock, plus a couple mile round trip to go back and lock the gate I'd left open for them, before we could get under way. Little doubt cost us a few squealers and ???

Pintails seem to be more prevalent than in recent years

Not so much that as just about the only big ducks we're seeing at a blind that doesn't see many little ducks. Was spooky, spooky out there with virtually no audible shooting anywhere other than what we did, so we were sure tickled to see what pins we did.

Might should have added in the curse section that a pair of woodies that spun to a speck call squeal and landed got out unscathed and wish same could be said for the poule d'eay decoy behind the drake.

[Rick]

Date: 12/4 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: ground fog to partly cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light easterly

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase: new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Good weekend bump had more flying than we've seen all week. Began with squealers (of which the more eastern blinds killed the most of) and fair numbers of both pintails and green-wings followed.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Would have been a heck of a lot better if we didn't know too much to bother hiding from them.

Hunters: 2, relatively young experts who'd "hunted all our lives".

Guns: 2nd O/U of the season upheld their long tradition of not hitting pecans.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The bug did fine work on everything I saw go down near and far, except a teal that flew off and another said to be on the flotant out front.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: I politely suggested we try hiding so often that I wondered if they were mooning game to spite me.

Kudos: Still managed a pretty fair strap and managed to save the dog's hearing from more damage.

Birds By Species: 3 black-bellied Whistlers, 1 bw Teal, 6 gw teal, 2 mallards, 1 pintail and 2 ringnecks

[Rick]

Date: 12/5 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: ground fog on and off all morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: nadda to nil southerly?

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase: new

Special Notes: last day of first split

Waterfowl Activity: Had a two bird hunt going until 8 or so. Then a sporadic show of mostly little ducks.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Big ducks had no trouble catching us, but nearly enough little ones bought in.

Hunters: 2, one of yesterday's experts plus a really nice older fellow who talked with his hands but at least tried to hide.

Guns: Yet another O/U, third this week, which upheld their tradition of bent barrels.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh lost a chipped green-wing in an open hole well south of us.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Mostly just the attitude I'd copped and had a hard time shaking over our repeatedly ruined chances of finishing big ducks.

Kudos: Didn't see pecans during our last 15 or so minutes before curfew and had just assured the guys the Chamber of Commerce ducks would be along to say "Y'all come back." when we were in the boat, when a pair of grays showed. My calls (and guns were already in the boat, but a fellow I'd been chapped at the past two mornings managed to get two shells in his gun as I voice "Epp, epp, epp, epp, epp..."ed the pair front and center, where low and behold he hit them both. Hope my cheer helped patch things between us.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 2 gadwall, 8 gw teal, 1 mottled, 3 ringnecks and 1 wood duck

Photo Ops: Rare photo of a Chamber of Commerce duck's retrieval:

001a.jpg

[Rick]

Date: 12/5 Sun

Time: Around 11? until noon

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: southerly light to moderate

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Last morning of the split friends and family curfew breaker

Waterfowl Activity: Were high flights of big ducks moving when we were on our way out at 9:30 and still a few as we rode to the blind around 11, but only one such of mixed pintails and grays after getting there, plus a few pond hoppers.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Broke the high flight down and around pretty, pretty in short order, but only some of the pond hopping mallards and none of the mottleds.

Hunters: 1, Bobby ran later than we'd both wish, but think both of us were tickled he could at all on last minute notice.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy peasy.

Special Equipment: Left the spinners off and didn't touch the splasher

Curses: Only that the flight fizzled.

Kudos: My old buddy respected the birds' vision and my request that he give the hens a pass - and shot well for his first successful hunt of the season. Was also just the little hunt I needed to get my ass off my shoulders.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 2 mallards and 1 pintail

Photo Ops: Bobby's opening mixed double:

010a.jpg

Last bird of the first split:

032a.jpg

[Ericdc]

Itching to have been back in the blind before 11 I'm sure.


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[Rick]

Itching to have been back in the blind before 11 I'm sure.

Hell, I wanted to be heading the other way when we were going in from the morning hunt at 9:30, but I'd been in a poor mood the day before, didn't expect it to be worthwhile and hadn't asked Bobby earlier.

[Duck Engr]

Sweet after hours hunt Rick!

[Deltaman]

Hard not to have your arse on your shoulders when you work so hard for opps, only to have customer's give it all away, especially the "experts" Nice split ending on a high note, and Thank You for sharing with us!!!!

[Darren]

Hope it was just what you needed. We promise to at least half-A** hide on Dec 29.

Sweet big bird to be your last one of the first split, hope more of them show for 2nd.

[Rick]

Date: 12/18 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: dense ground fog most of the morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to light southerly

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase: full???

Special Notes: second split opener

Waterfowl Activity: All five of our other marsh blinds either filled or "woulda, coulda, shoulda-ed" while we nursed a scratch for a spooky long time before finally breaking it with a spoon. Made a joke about having my previous worst split opener, a lone green-wing back in the 3/30 days, beat on weight, but don't think guys who'd been listening to everyone else shoot found it funny.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had a brief flurry of high pintail flights tease us with hope when the fog started to clear, and even broke some of them - only to have those banged out.

Hunters: 2, father and son once a year hunters, Troy and Hunter

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: wrong place

Kudos: Can't think of any off-hand.

Birds By Species: 2 gw teal, 1 ringneck and 3 shovellers

[Rick]

Date: 12/19 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy to partly and back

Wind Direction and Velocity: Stiff north wind

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: full?

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Were the most squealers I've ever seen on the guide shack porch, but not from us. We had mostly teal on us off and on all morning but very few big ducks seen, not even pintails.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Couldn't get nearly enough to land. (Even our few mallards got out without shots fired.)

Hunters: 2, Troy and Hunter again

Guns:

Malfunctions: West spinner's steel conduit pole is bent almost to breaking from last night's strong wind, so pulled that spinner and hope to put a "splint" on the pole until replacement

Dog(s): Long tracking job on a long chipped mottled resulted in a flush - pretty much par for our morning.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Embarrassed myself by begging "Someone please shoot." so often.

Kudos: Nice folks still had a nice time. Missing ops still beat living snot out of watching fog while others shot.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellied whistling, 6 bw teal, 3 gw teal, 1 mottled, 1 ringneck, 2 shovellers and 1 wood duck

[Darren]

Given the details of how it likely unfolded, still heck of a string and likely made their year.

[Ericdc]

Why did you have to beg them to shoot?


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[Rick]

Why did you have to beg them to shoot?

Relatively young father and grown son (40s and 20s), but father didn't hunt until the FIL who used to bring his son aged out, and it's a once a year annual hunt with extended family that's been hunting our second split opening weekend for years. Fit folks, so I can only offer lack of experience as to why they take so long getting underway. Well, aside from vaping and cell phones.

Made me long for the 80-something-year-olds of last split, and I didn't argue when Troy told his BIL they should have been out by 7:30. But very nice folks, and I wish I'd done a better job of biting my tongue.

(If tomorrow's guys run true to past form, I'll be bitching about them jumping too soon.)

[5 stand]

I'll be bitching about them jumping too soon.
LOL. :
You do keep yourself grounded and I applaud that!

[Rick]

Only kinda, sorta.

[Darren]

Waterfowl Activity: Were the most squealers I've ever seen on the guide shack porch, but not from us.

Finally getting around to reading the full December aerial survey report and your note above struck me:

and although not included in the estimate, a single flock of more than 2,000 Black-bellied whistling ducks was observed on transect in marsh habitat south of Lake Arthur.

[Rick]

Waterfowl Activity: Were the most squealers I've ever seen on the guide shack porch, but not from us.

Finally getting around to reading the full December aerial survey report and your note above struck me:

and although not included in the estimate, a single flock of more than 2,000 Black-bellied whistling ducks was observed on transect in marsh habitat south of Lake Arthur.

The guys from Cherry Ridge got a kick out of my telling them the biologist only counted 2,000 on them, but I took a close look at transect 10's course and see it's 1/4mile swath misses where the main mass of them stay.

[Rick]

Date: 12/20 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy clouds

Wind Direction and Velocity: northerly moderate

Temperature: 40ish

Moon phase: still full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Not what we'd hoped, but still should have been plenty, mostly teal.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Many more came than stayed

Hunters: 2, father and grown son, Harry and Shawn

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Did a particularly nice job on a tipped crip mallard well down the west boat run.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Needed more big, slow birds, but that's my only complaint.

Kudos: We had a lot of fun with our misses, with Shawn pointing out what a charm his fourth shots were.

Birds By Species: 6 bw teal, 3 gw teal, 2 mallards, 3 pintails and 1 shoveller

[DComeaux]

NICE! Oh how I wish I could have been in the blind this morning.

[Duck Engr]

Sweet morning despite the misses and woulda couldas of a floating 4th.

[Deltaman]

Reads like good time Rick, and glad you had some birds cooperating for you!!!!

[Rick]

Date: 12/21 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear to heavy clouds and back again

Wind Direction and Velocity: Northerly moderate

Temperature: 40ish

Moon phase: still big

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: What "should" have been a big duck day, turned out to be a no duck day with nothing but locals seen.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Tripped a few of those up.

Hunters: 2, David and John

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning, except for the waiting...

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: no birds

Kudos: Nice guys who hit what came.

Birds By Species: 2 mallards, 2 mottleds and 4 shovellers.

Photo Ops: "Localized" (pond-hopping) mallard:

005a.jpg

Local mottled:

014a.jpg

[Darren]

"nothing but locals" rang true for me too, and Bunkie field was dead as a hammer this morning too

[SpinnerMan]

There's your problem those two decoys are too close together. You need to move them and the ducks will pour in

[Rick]

There's your problem those two decoys are too close together. You need to move them and the ducks will pour in

First they have to fly. Didn't show last evening where there were too many for our banding crew to handle the evening before, either.

[Rick]

Date: 12/22 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: big

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: About as little as we've seen all season.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully good, except when banged out. Naturally, no one would shoot within hearing for ten or fifteen minutes at a time - until we broke something down and around.

Hunters: 2 1/4, grandpa Bill, dad Daniel and 5yr-old Emanuel

Guns: (Adults each brought both 12 and 20s, in apparent hope of being covered in birds.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Emanuel cried and sobbed for the first hour and a half before finally crying himself to sleep.

Kudos: He eventually awoke a new child who happily jabbered away until hunt's end.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 1 gw teal, 1 pintail and 2 woodies

[Duck Engr]

Poor little fella. Never know what you’re going to get with one that young. Just depends on what side of the bed they wake up on.

[Darren]

Know that age well around my house, tough gig. Glad it turned out positive in the end

[DComeaux]

He needed a nap. Either cranky or full speed ahead.