Preseason 2021-2022...

[Rick]

Read on another board this morning that the last time a fellow who once seemed avid about it hunted teal was at my mudhole blind with his brother, DComeaux and Dave's buddy, Blake. Checked my log and found that to be 2014:

IMG_4101a.jpg

Anyway, that put me in enough of a teal mood to stick a teal call in my pocket for this morning's exercise round of what's left of a buddy's crawfish ponds, and danged if the bug and I didn't have two teal buzz low and fast right toward us - until I could see they were just particularly puny woodies.

Have, however, at least been getting to mess with black-belly heads via a herding dog whistle, and they've been exercising the bug via playing crippled to draw him away from their young. Win, win, win.

[Darren]

RIP mudhole roseau forest, same for this year I presume? Will be curious to see what's come of the patch at my south blind, the smart money is on it having grown from the 2020 edition.

Haven't tried calling on them but usually a fair few squealers around my house at tree top height on occasion. Surely you'll have a few bluewings in the next week or so.

[Rick]

RIP mudhole roseau forest, same for this year I presume?

High water about had our marsh cleared of canes when we picked it in early July, including my island's. Hoping the sparse survivors there prospered:

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Guess I'll get up the gumption to get after my blind problem around month's end and see how they look then.

[DComeaux]

That was a good time.....Time is flying.

[Rick]

Have been back at what remains of the crawfish ponds and are starting to see some of the small shorebirds that precede our blue-wings - and likely account for a fair number of "teal" sightings. Shouldn't be too, too much longer for the real deal.

Too hot to really work the bug, but there are plenty of black-bellies with half-grown young around to practice breaking him off of "crippled" (acting parent) duck chases in preparation for that potential need come September teal season. Was all smug and happy with the bug's stop-to-whistle when he took off after these wee, smallest we've seen lately, ones' mom or pop:

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But got over that PDQ when he then spotted the fluff balls and couldn't resist scattering them - and being reminded that his old man isn't afraid of getting wet to rap on the bridge of a bad dog's nose. Probably a good thing in the long run to have had that opportunity where I could offer that reinforcement. (Tried filming a similar op later on, when six adults lit along our course, but he'd not give them a second look. Either too hot and/or smart to think them worth a try or still nursing a sore snout.)

[Rick]

One more month:


(No that wasn't yesterday but 2012...)

[Duck Engr]

That’s a fun sight!

[Rick]

Been too hot for the bug to make our crawfish pond circuit for a while, but we took advantage of a little cooler morning to do so today. Not much happening until what began with a, maybe, forty bird wad of woodies I tried to make teal out of passed over us and proved the vanguard of a ten or fifteen minute, mostly more scattered, flight out of the south. Couldn't spot a single teal among them, but it sure was a mess of wood ducks. Most I've seen anywhere, much less there, in quite some time.

So maybe they, at least, had an extra good hatch...

[Darren]

Local (to you) outfit reported these today, not sure if it will work for you though:

https://fb.watch/7p7KxoqLbz/

[Rick]

I'm jealous.

[Darren]

They're showing!

Capture.JPG

[Rick]

Mmmm...Welsh sewage pond birds.

[BGkirk]

I saw another good video of birds from Hennings guide service


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[Rick]

Everyone's probably got 'em but us. Which would be a good thing for our marsh.

[Rick]

The bug's been bugging me to go somewhere and do something since I got back from Ohio, so we took advantage of a cooling morning shower to make a lap around what had been his exercise crawfish ponds. "Had been" because they are being being drained.

But the bug had a ball mud-hogging after the bazillion or so shorebirds, from the "little brown" varieties to the big ol' wood storks that are apparently responsible for the near absence of apple snails and fishes seen trapped in the puddles. Also a good many flight-worthy black-bellies along with the parents with flightless young in the bottom cuts still holding shallow water.

And the bug even pushed a few teal out of those bottoms. Albeit just a couple pairs and few little bunches that topped out at thirteen. But, hey, we saw teal...

[MARSH BEAR]

We are going to the camp on 8/28/21. We will pump out our blinds and transplant some vegetation around some of the blinds that have none, 2 of the blinds are among our best. Don't know if the lack of vegetation is from the freeze or result of Hurricane Laura, but we did have some vegetation in those areas during last hunting season.
Hoping we will see some teal.

[Darren]

Yea I think if it opened tomorrow, you'd be in business in the marsh. First few vids were some smaller wads, but last few have shown some pretty legit numbers across a few cuts. (Thornwell, reportedly)

[Ricky Spanish]

Hey Rick.
The two down the bank drill.
You do it? Im.not sure what it's purpose is but I think its to train the dog not to cheat and go aground. You may want that . Tell me what you know about that drill plz.

[Rick]

While I certainly teach my guys to handle well and (more or less, depending on what they're faced with) maintain given lines, I see the concept of "cheating" on marks as counterproductive bullshit resulting from the field trial judging expediency of using straight lines as a primary criterion. Flat stupid for a hunting dog to waste time and energy unnecessarily swimming or fighting other factors to maintain a line to marks that can be made and returned from more efficiently otherwise. And if field trials were judged with stop watches, instead of straight edges, you can bet there would be no such thing as "cheating".

But US mainstream training was developed by trial pros needing straight lines win trials and, of course, most amateurs think the pros, being pros, must know best for them, too. Next thing you know, everyone's arguing that straight lines are required for Pup to get to marks, which is silly, and deviation from a straight line for a more expedient route is even being marked down as "lack of courage" on the AKC's so-called "hunt tests," instead of given credit for making the mark more efficiently.

So while I may do something similar while working on maintaining given lines, I don't wast my time and the dog's energy conditioning "down the shore" marks without "cheating". As any time I've no reason to give a line, I want the dog feeling free to get out and back with our birds as quickly and easily as it can.

[SpinnerMan]

Years ago I was hunting from a blind I hunted quite a bit that was pretty far up a bank. There was a boat hide with steps and a path back to the blind about 40 yards east. The bank was pretty rough going to the water.

We were froze out and I was hunting on top of the ice. I dropped a black duck. My dog goes down the bank, picks up the duck on top of the ice.

Instead of coming back. She heads east.

What the hell is she doing? I let her go because I trusted her.

When I see her coming back the trail with the duck, it made perfect sense.

She decided to say screw that, she wasn't fighting up that bank. She went to the boat hide, used the steps and came back the trail.

I wouldn't have come up that bank if I was retrieving the duck, why should she

Next day shot a goose. She took the stairs again

[Ricky Spanish]

I struggle with these drills and lessons and how it works and why. Ive let my dog pick his poison.
If i try and steer my dog around a hazard generally he goes straight for it. Bushes for example. He'll go right thru it.
I've learned to just trust their instincts but be ready to rescue or help. Milo got stuck once. Hung up in a Y of a tree.

[Rick]

With every new pup, I "start with the end in mind" and make a list to what I'll want from it and work backwards from there in management by objective fashion: in order to get those things, I'll need these things, and to get them I'll need this, that and/or the other and so on, right on back to our foundational cornerstones of "come," "sit" and "good" and "bad" in their various iterations. The result being a building block plan or roadmap to get us where we want to go.

The actual document is a mess with lots of space for additions and changes, as they pop up, but we're never at a loss for direction.

[Rick]

Went to the marsh this morning and cleared away all the impediments (vegetation, boat hide, cattle panels and blind lids) to getting my bling righted and re-anchored. Isaac was out there and found his blind was popped, as was Gabe's as well, but they lucked out: popped on one end and didn't roll like mine. Didn't look at Clyde's, but ran the trail to the back blind, which is now a platform, and between last year's spraying and high water, the marsh back there is far more broken and flat gorgeous.

Mud hole still looks like the little pothole it is. And while high water's kept most floating black dirt down, duck lettuce is thick enough to make opening it a pain. Always something, as if the rolled blind weren't enough.

Saw two blue-wings with a few woodies at the east pond and woodies and maybe teal(?) at the back blind. Nothing but gallinules in between.

[Rick]

Took a good chunk of what I've come to think of as the Gueydan teal tour yesterday and saw nothing but shore birds - and not much water. Found combines still afield in some usually choice spots and dry stubbles where they'd be flooded for second crop, if not for the current trend toward skipping second crop in favor of leaving it for crawfish. Kinda spooky to see that.

[Rick]

Been back in the marsh, despite the usual annual access circle-j---. The bug and I drove to the gate to find our lock was not where the landowner's son said he left it, which was no surprise at all, and decided to feed the deer flies along the mile-and-short-change walk to the boat house and go grind on the pond a while. Saw some woodies on our way to the mudhole and made good progress on the pond before the bug got hot enough we had to head back. Know he wished he had hands, as he was dredging his face through puddles and grass clumps to only temporarily dislodge the deer flies I was at least able to crush for revenge.

Went back with a new lock in mid afternoon and made the walk in (while the bug snoozed in the A/C at home) to grind until time to beat the mosquitoes, if not the deer flies, out. Think I've got the pond about knocked out.

Found the landowner's son had actually been good to his word and been by to include our new lock in the gate loop, so I'll be back out there this morning and drive to the boat house (Suck that, deer flies!) with what I hope will be enough stuff to get the blind righted and back in place without having to call in the troops (grandsons) for assistance. We'll see...

Here's the mess I started with before clearing away vegetative and structural impediments last weekend:

001a.jpg

[BGkirk]

Rick do you normally deal with American lotus in the pond?


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[Rick]

Rick do you normally deal with American lotus in the pond?

Yep, unless it's too dry for it. Like to think it shades worse stuff out, but have a ton of the new invasive lettuce/cabbage, too.

Managed to right and reset the blind by my lonesome this morning, so that's behind me.

[Duck Engr]

Managed to right and reset the blind by my lonesome this morning, so that's behind me.

Impressive feat there. Did not look like it was going to be easy.

[Rick]

Managed to right and reset the blind by my lonesome this morning, so that's behind me.

Impressive feat there. Did not look like it was going to be easy.

More tedious and frustrating than physically difficult. Used a come-along with a snatch block to raise the opening above water, then pumped it out with a good bilge pump (the big cheese having replaced our jaeger pump with a monster trash pump not suited to boats or dog stands). Once completely empty a big push righted it, thanks to old staubs from the prior camp's 2x4 anchors that I could stand on for leverage. (Otherwise would only have driven myself over my waders and into the bottom.)

Alas, the old anchor staubs also create a tight footprint the blind has to be lowered into, which ain't so easy when the water you're sinking it with is unbaffled and making the pit wallow drunkenly trying to flip again unless steadied, the doing of which makes it tough to move around the blind feeling for proper position re: the staub boundaries and trying to adjust here without screwing up there. Pretty much a patience test with occasional wet, wader-topping reminders that the mudhole is likely the deepest part of our marsh.

Anyway it's in place, and two of the four straightened turnbuckles have been replaced with heavier duty ones. Other two chains are becoming questionable due to rusting at normal waterlines, so I'm going to replace those sections. Hope to finish the anchoring tomorrow, but will leave the water in it until after the coming storm.

Benches and floor sections that were in it gained some serious water weight I sure hope they lose here at the house before I have to take them back out there...

[BGkirk]

Rick what do you think makes the mud hole so deep?


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