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Date: 9/19 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear to cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: Easterly light

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: BIG

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Spooky slow for a weekend.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully fine.

Hunters: 2, Buckley and Cooper who were already hunting with Doug when I started with him in '85

Guns: Buck was shooting an O/U .410 - well.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Did a nice job for

Special Equipment: SOS w/MMM still acting up.

Curses: None whatsoever.

Kudos: Hadn't seen Cooper in years, and we did a lot of reminiscing about Louisiana's glory days.

Birds By Species: 18 blue-winged teal. (7 drakes and 11 hens)

Photo Ops: Buckley and Cooper:

Solid weekend Rick

Date: 9/20 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil

Temperature: too dang warm

Moon phase: still BIG

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Not much of anything, even squealers, moving. Saw just one teal bunch from north fairly high and one come down the boat trail from east. All the others were buzzing the broken marsh to the southeast, so I spent the morning looking into the sun.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had to kill the spinners a couple of times to get birds bumping off them to come back.

Hunters: Had a no show and took the hicky, myself, so just the bug and I.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): I made the bug's morning with a lively crip he eventually caught on the flotant.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Only dropped two birds with single shots - one DOA, one entertaining the bug in the high weeds. Suffered chip after chip requiring follow-ups, and am losing faith in the 2s the shell shortage finds me shooting. May end up setting them aside for the regular season. May just be I suck. We'll see...

Kudos: Didn't need 24 to fill.

Birds By Species: 6 blue-winged teal (5 drakes and 1 hen)

Will add that the musky stench of gator was strong when we got to the blind and again later when picking up a bird on the pond's west end. But did not see him.

Rick wrote:Will add that the musky stench of gator was strong when we got to the blind and again later when picking up a bird on the pond's west end. But did not see him.

I'd bet he saw the bug.

Trust he saw me, too.

Makes me think about the time in college when I smelled the muskiness of a cottonmouth and others in the class thought I was crazy.


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Date: 9/21 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: zip, nada, none

Temperature: hot

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: rubber stamp of yesterday

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Couldn't have been better.

Hunters: 2, Jamal, aka: Boudin, and Chad

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Not too many on the flotant and still like to have cooked him.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: slow and HOT

Kudos: Guys made their own hunt by killing in bunches.

Birds By Species: 16 blue-winged teal and 1 green-winged teal

Photo Ops: Broke out my secret weapon for PhD ducks:


Boudin and Chad:

Bet that was fun, big smiles!

Looks like a good time was had by both. Any special story to the nickname boudin other than he likes to eat boudin?

Good old rubber ducky lucky!!!!! Glad y'all had enough action, and kill a mess of birds. The stillness on the water in your pic, telling the tale of no wind, and with the high humidity, glad Johnny Fog didn't show up

"Boudin" is a fairly common nickname here that I've never thought to ask about, despite having coffee with one more mornings than not. Do know it's not a compliment when "buddies" say you look like a boudin in your waders...

Deltaman, when I pitched the PhD duck into the pond, I lacked the presence of mind to lower the weight an adjuster held against it, and the little guy never blew out of the rig. Realized but didn't bother rectifying my error until ferrying the bug to a flotant bird took us past it. Was as dead calm as dead calm gets, and we did pass through fog on our way to a clear marsh.

Hard to believe that they'd not hunted ducks more than they had, and Chad shot his first yesterday, as they both shot "lights out" and made a sweet strap out of mostly thin air.

Good shoot. First time shooters probably don’t think near as much or hesitate. Need to get back that way myself


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No doubt that more time I have to think, the more time I have to miss.

Date: 9/22 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: Strong enough from the north.

Temperature: Cool enough in the breeze that I donned my rain slicker as a windbreak and kept it on all hunt.

Moon phase: still big

Special Notes: Stole a day off to insure I'd get in at least one hunt with my favorite old marsh man before one of us aged out.

Waterfowl Activity: Had swarms of birds between LST and when they could be seen well enough for our purposes, then it slowed considerably - which was fine by us.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Aside from a very few singles and pairs plainly saying "Oops!" and swinging wide of known danger, our birds couldn't have come any sweeter.

Hunters: 1, My Sweet Chereaux's ex's 84yr-old uncle Franklin, who let him go and kept her in the divorce. Neatest marsh man I've known.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh was flat showing off for Franklin, who'd only known him as a house dog.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Couldn't imagine having one.

Kudos: Just an absolutely blessed morning with great conversation, perfect weather and very dang near perfect shooting from a fellow who'd not touched a gun in three years and apologized pre-hunt for being a poor shot.

Birds By Species: 12 blue-winged teal (8 drakes and 4 hens)

Photo Ops: Can't help but love how deeply the octogenarians through my blind have taken it all in:


To the point this morning that I had to remind this one to take a moment to look at the camera - after grabbing a shot I like better than the posed one:


Lagniappe: Don't mind admitting that I sometimes find the athletes' "All glory to God." cliche, but I sure bought in this morning. With maybe just the tiniest smidgen of glory left over for what's seemed a lucky charm:

Great stuff!

Seeing him I can't help but think of of my dad, grandfathers and great uncles. They all had that rugged look. What I call a real men. It's brings me back to my childhood. Is the cajun strong in him?

Great morning both you and he will remember

Congrats on some Quality time in the blind with a friend (inlaw, outlaw????) , and glad it cooled off for you!!!!

DComeaux wrote:Is the cajun strong in him?

Don't think so, he's a Price, and I'm pretty sure his wife has spoken of teaching him French. (Born with a clef palate that precludes noticeable accent.) But he's definitely of the marsh: was trapping Miami Corp. as early as the '50s and has never done anything but that, shrimp and fish for a living to the best of my knowledge. Well, that and build some pirogues.

That report brought a smile to my face. Thanks Rick!

Would love to hear of some tales from Miami back 70 years ago


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BGkirk wrote:Would love to hear of some tales from Miami back 70 years ago

Know I've repeated this somewhere, maybe here, but the most surprising to me was that there was a year in the '50s when so few ducks showed up that, "If you saw a mallard, you started looking for someone to tell about it."

Franklin's grandfather was a market hunter up until the time that was shut down, and the family turned to trapping in the winter. And, in his turn, Franklin did, too. Trapping precluded duck hunting until later in the day, after traps were run and the catch worked up, when he'd walk the marsh to jump shoot ducks: primarily mallards offering "the most good meat for your shell". Said that wasn't the death march it would be today, because Miami's vegetation (or at least their part of it, along the south end of Grand Lake, was mostly bull tongue on mostly hard bottom and laced with nutria trails, rather than today's primary cover of dense canouche/paille-fine (maiden cane). Which may explain at least some of the stories we hear of folks once walking the marsh for miles and may have taken for similar to those of folks walking barefoot through the snow for miles, uphill both ways to school.

Date: 9/23 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: North but very light

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: finally waning - a bit

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Disappointing after yesterday's early show, aside from seeing a few new big ducks.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Everything came tame.

Hunters: 2, Dee and John

Guns:

Malfunctions: Dee's Stoger needed oil and operating instruction for rotating bolt head.

Dog(s): Easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS MMM still acting up periodically

Curses: none

Kudos: Dee gave me a scare with a camo and hunter orange cap I asked him to leave in the truck, but both he and John shot well enough to make a good hunt where many wouldn't have. (Isaac and I were only ones coming close to, much less, filling.

Birds By Species: 18 blue-wing teal

Photo Ops: John and Dee:

Yikes! Nothing screams new to duck hunting like blaze orange.

I was hoping for a better duck report - I am headed to the camp this afternoon with Larry, who has hunted teal 4 days so far this season and has killed -0-.

Hopefully, there will be more coming than going...

What kind of big ducks we talkin? Pins?

Darren wrote:What kind of big ducks we talkin? Pins?

Pins and "not sure"s.

Date: 9/24 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: Too light to matter, NE?

Temperature: cool to warm

Moon phase: 88% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Scary dead with precious little of anything moving. Front we hoped would boost our finish may have killed it.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Most thankfully excellent.

Hunters: 2, Buckley and grown son, Scott, who was a wee fellow we carried across ditches when they first hunted with me and will soon be 40.

Guns: Both shot O/U .410s with Hevi-X shells.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Super on chipped birds.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: The guys can both shoot lights-out, but the little guns chipped nearly everything, and a couple flew farther than I'm willing to let Marsh go this time of year.

Kudos: God company, and when we saw teal, they came and fell.

Birds By Species: 11 blue-wingd teal and 1 green-wing (7 drake and 4 hen BWT)

Photo Ops: Scott and Buck: