2021-2022 Season Log

[Rick]

Date: 1/19 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: light to moderate SE

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: still big

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Hoped for south wind teal day was a bust. Just a loner and one bunch. Squealers stayed north and mottleds barely hopped.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: OK as far as it went.

Hunters: 2. Original party canceled for COVID, then replacement party did likewise, so I took two of our past guides, James and Charlie.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): didn't find any trace of a teal Charlie was sure he dropped on the flotant out front.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Hated bringing the guys on such a slow hunt.

Kudos: Had plenty of time for a nice visit.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 3 gw teal and 1 shoveller

[Rick]

Date: 1/20 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy

Wind Direction and Velocity: Ripping NE

Temperature: cold to colder

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Blinds to our east all filled on mostly teal while we listened and saw very little of anything.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Didn't have a single op we didn't either run off or give way the hey too much of a head start.

Hunters: 3, grandfather who apparently hadn't hunted in a very long time, son and grandson on their first hunts.

Guns:

Malfunctions: Lots of time spent trying to figure out how the guns operated.

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just did not have remotely the amount of opportunity my guys would have needed to kill something, even without such strong wind.

Kudos: Super nice folks who are going to get to hunt my much better old east blind tomorrow.

Birds By Species: 1 gw teal, 1 pintail and 1 shoveller

[Rick]

Date: 1/21 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE strong

Temperature: cold to colder little skim ice in flotant at one point

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: One flight of black-bellies within hailing and lot of early high flights of new(?) big ducks heading west beyond hailing height but offering hope for later lower flights we never saw. Never thought about a teal. East blinds again did much better.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Much better than ours, as we did our level best to stay caught, despite repeated warnings.

Hunters: 2, father and grown son annual regulars, Jim and David

Guns:

Malfunctions: Incredibly bent barrels undoubted occasioned by only hunting twice a year.

Dog(s): Made a miracle retrieve on a long chipped sprig I couldn't see go all the way down.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Made a tough morning even tougher on ourselves.

Kudos: Nice folks.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies (out of a big bunch), 1 gadwall (out of a big bunch), 1 mottled, 2 pintails (out of two big bunches) and 1 shoveller

Photo Ops: Marsh's miracle sprig:

010a.jpg

Lagniappe: Sure am tired of repeating the need to hide and how to do it and still watch over and over and over again to not avail.

[Deltaman]

Charity hunt.............for the ducks I know it's their hunt, but ouch! Hope the new birds you saw up high, dropped some altitude nearby. Thanks for your reports Rick!!!

[Rick]

Date: 1/22 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE strong

Temperature: probably coldest to date

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Might have had a little weekend spoon bump, but that's about it.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully good when Cherry Ridge wasn't banging squealers.

Hunters: 2 father James and son, Kyle

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Couldn't find a green-wing Kyle felt went down and a pintail took off on us.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Took us a while to work the hiding and hitting out.

Kudos: Part of the problem was getting over how much closer the birds were than they're accustomed to, and they decided to stay another day and hunting with me again tomorrow and should do much better.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies, 1 gw teal, 2 mallards, 1 pintail and 5 shovellers

[Rick]

Date: 1/23 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to very light NE

Temperature: thick frost on the decoys and ice in the shallows

Moon phase: 3/4? waning

Special Notes:

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

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Even what few pintail flights passed seemed to know us, though a few of they and even our lone little mallard bunch tried not to get run off.

Hunters: 2, James and Kyle again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): So slow that I caught Marsh whining a bit as the squealers came searching for Kavorkian - then broke for what I dropped out of them.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Not remotely enough chances for my guys to win.

Kudos: They took it well.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies and 1 shoveller

[Ericdc]

I imagine you wishing it was over today.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Duck Engr]

I imagine you wishing it was over today.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Was thinking the same as I was reading.

[Rick]

I imagine you wishing it was over today.

Naw, not quite. Still figure I'll be missing it next Monday...though that could change by the end. Just hate how it is for guests not capable of cashing in on what ops we should still be enjoying. And especially after listening to Cherry Ridge execute squealers and our more open stuff bang and clang at little ducks.

Maybe this morning...

[Rick]

Date: 1/24 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: Southerly barely a breath at best

Temperature: lower 40s

Moon phase: 62% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Even fewer ops than yesterday, but we ran less off.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: So little moving that even a distant speck had time to work in tight without being banged out.

Hunters: 2, father and grown son, Frank and Lee

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh cut one of our teal, maybe fell through flotant and puckered? Jump school black hat (DI) once described what happens when you step out the door as "the pucker factor": "when you can't drive a ten penny nail up your butt with a ten pound sledge."

Special Equipment: sos, but just teasing with spinners, rather than leaving them on.

Curses: no birds

Kudos: Nice folks, and we killed our birds in just five ops with nothing whiffed on.

Birds By Species: 3 black-bellies, 2 gw teal, 1 ringneck, 1 shoveller and 1 speck

[Darren]

Always nice to get a speck, especially in the marsh!

[Rick]

Always nice to get a speck, especially in the marsh!

Was a first for them and just the third of our season. Probably wouldn't have gotten it if someone was hunting the back blind, as it was over by it when I gave my loudest speck call a "Doesn't cost extra." shot at it.

[Duck Engr]

“Swings are free”

[Darren]

Let it rip and see what happens!

Even sweeter being their first

[Rick]

vDate: 1/25 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: drizzly

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE moderate

Temperature: chilly in the wet air

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Weather had Cherry Ridge's squealers screwed up, and there were even some green-wing bunches around.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Fresh squealers were easy with chattering call and teal even did as bid.

Hunters: 1, Kyle

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Kyle's a field trialer, so I wad glad the bug was behaving.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Only that our quick hunt proceeded dealing with two others' boat troubles in weather trying to turn my head cold into a chest cold.

Kudos: Nice to have a quick, under an hour, hunt for a change and were the only ones out before quitting time.

Birds By Species: 7 black-bellies, 1 fulvous whistling, 3 gw teal and 1 shoveller (Kyle's originally from Gueydan and claimed at the spoon "tradition".)

[Duck Engr]

Nice day! Glad you had a change of pace. Hope the head cold stays just that.

[Deltaman]

A well-deserved hunt Rick, Congrats!!!!!!!!!

[Darren]

Was the fulvous alone or with a group? On trip last year at Gabe's blind, killed lone fulvous cruising by solo that came to the call.

Speaking of, walked outside this morning to a nice wad of BBWD passing over the backyard and distinctly caught that chatter you're throwing at them from the blind (with good result!).

[Rick]

Date: 1/26 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: Strong NE

Temperature: bitter

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Had a little blue-wing bunch land with the poule d'eau decoys early on and a pair of green-wings do a fly-by later. Squealers crossed our marsh well to our east but I never touched the whistle, and that was that other than a few mottleds shifting about. More easterly blinds fared better.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Mottleds all know me.

Hunters: 1 Johnathon

Guns:

Malfunctions: "Benelli click" on the green-wings - showed him why.

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Curses: Shut down early for their group to make a meeting and suffered my sixth scratch in 15 seasons at the mudhole

Kudos: Johnathon took it well

Birds By Species: Can't say he didn't get to try a couple ops, but the result was the same: zip, nada, zilch.

[Rick]

Was the fulvous alone or with a group? On trip last year at Gabe's blind, killed lone fulvous cruising by solo that came to the call.

Speaking of, walked outside this morning to a nice wad of BBWD passing over the backyard and distinctly caught that chatter you're throwing at them from the blind (with good result!).

Don't know, or recall, whether the fulvous was alone or with black-bellies.

Do know I'm a little surprised to hear flying birds were chattering, as the only place I've heard it was on a recording of them being fed at a South American park. Perhaps yours were fussing each other over where to go eat.

[DComeaux]

Damn! I hate to see that. If we have water we will hunt Saturday morning and probably end it then. We've had enough.

I sent an email this week to Tommy Tuma (ttuma@wlf.la.gov) and Jason Olszak (jolszak@wlf.la.gov) to voice my opposition of this later season closing. I did get an immediate reply. Hopefully more will join with me.

We all know the "THE BIRDS SHOW UP AFTER THE SEASON CLOSES" crowd sure did. I have no doubt that after a week or two from this coming Sunday they will "show up", again. It's really not that hard to figure out.

[Rick]

Date: 1/27 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light

Temperature: frosty

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Mighty slow again.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Made a little hay with what we had to work with.

Hunters: 1, Mark (same group as Kyle and Johnathon

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Lost what I presume the healthier of a pair of cripped mottleds despite much searching.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: No game on our marsh, as ours was the "big" hunt.

Kudos: Went from quick hunt "hero" to literal "zero" and back to...well, at least not "zero" over the past three mornings.

Birds By Species: 3 black-bellies, 3 bw teal, 1 gw teal, 1 mottled and 1 shoveller

[Rick]

Date: 1/28 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW fairly strong

Temperature: 40ish?

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Only black-bellies came while we were still figuring out new guns and ammo, one bunch of blue-wings also came early one, and a single fulvous and very few spoons came by later.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Blue-wings were all that landed for us.

Hunters: 2, Father who'd not hunted since the '70s and daughter with a business partner belonging to Lacasine Club hoping to learn the ropes before venturing there with him.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Of the only two birds hit on the blue-wings' flush, one got up when Marsh got to where it went in and the second which appeared to go down harder wasn't where it should have been and couldn't be tracked???

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Horrible morning to be learning the game.

Kudos: super nice folks (making the lack of opportunity all the worse)

Birds By Species: second scratch this week, seventh of my 15 mudhole seasons

[Deltaman]

Bummer on the customer's fumbling of the opps available and I hope your nerves are gonna make it through the weekend
Hopefully, the weekend uptick of hunters will help move more birds for you over the next two days! Good Luck

[DComeaux]

OOF!

[Rick]

Bummer on the customer's fumbling of the opps available and I hope your nerves are gonna make it through the weekend..:

Can't fault new, or for practical purpose so, hunters for not getting in the swing (Get it?) of things with so few chances. Even hunting by myself, I'd have been hard pressed to shoot my six on either of the scratch mornings. Absolutely hate how it went for them.

[Rick]

Date: 1/29 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm to light easterly

Temperature: still frosty

Moon phase: small crescent waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Hoped for weekend bump amounted to two extra little balls of green-wings passing through early.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: One of the teal bunches couldn't be drawn off the broken marsh, but the other came, bumped from spinners and finally swung back to raucous calling with them off. Big bunch of pins was working pretty until someone shot and raised them, albeit still close enough that three should have fallen. Mottled pair also came what should have been plenty close enough to aggressive feed - and only one fell...

Hunters: 2, Jeff (hadn't duck hunted since the '90s and Mark, not a duck hunter.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Wore the bug out trying to find a single pintail hen that should have died over the blind but finally bleed out closer to Clyde's.

Special Equipment: SOS (albeit off or just teasing for most everything these days)

Curses: No birds.

Kudos: Nice guys.

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

[Rick]

Date: 1/30 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm to very light west late in the hunt

Temperature: 40 and rising

Moon phase: sliver

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: just as slow as it's been - or not been.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Single quacked everything: early teal, later mottleds, mallard pair, little pintail bunch and three bunches of spoons

Hunters: 2, Mark again (in his black jacket with white racing stripes again) and his dad, Mike

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Still debating whether I should have sent Marsh on his longest mark ever for a bled-out sprig. Didn't.

Special Equipment: spinners killed for everything to include early teal

Curses: Guys weren't duck hunters and so incredibly slow getting underway that I eventually let a "granny" comment slip.

Kudos: Such good folks that we laughed a heck of a lot more than conditions would suggest.

Birds By Species: 1 mottled and 5 shovellers (one banded but still not in the system, so little doubt one of the hundreds we've recently banded)

Photo Ops: We joked a lot about making some proud spoon slayers while banding them, and now a are one...

005a.jpg

[Darren]

And you thought I was apt to shoot spoons before? Now that so many are banded........


Whole lot of em on the fields between Bunkie & Whiteville on my ride out today

[Duck Engr]

And the coup de grace of a loooong season, a banded bologna snatcher!!!