2022 Preseason...

[Rick]

Marsh and I took a ride down to our ag land to video the teal show, only to find them mostly a no-show, at least until we took the grass road to the very back of the piece. Not remotely what had been there, but something to take bad video of, as well, of course, as scads of squealers:

[DComeaux]

That was awesome. The Monarch butterfly migration is in full swing right now,

[Darren]

Wow what a show indeed!

[Duck Engr]

Thanks for posting! Fun to watch!

[Rick]

Fun to watch!

I find my expert pocket P&S camera cinematography difficult to watch, but it's been a while since I've seen a teal concentration like that piece held after this last front and was anxious to catch and share something of what remained. And danged if most of the little darlings weren't just rolling over behind hairy levees, instead of swarming with the disturbed squealers and bec croix.

Really, really wanted to slip, rather than drive, in and sit with the birds awhile, but find myself hobbled by a boogered knee I'm trying to let heal some before we're back tripping over alligators tomorrow or the day after. Have a new potential black-belly whistle on its way from England that I hope to be anxious to audition on birds, and am blessed to have such a spot where I can stand by a white pick-up and do so, if need be...

[Anotherone]

Thoroughly enjoyed!

[Deltaman]

Cool bird show Rick, Thanks!!!!!!

[Rick]

Has warmed a bit, so we re-baited gator hooks on Squealer...er...Cherry Ridge this morning:


Alas and alack, when I later thought I was getting footage of their biggest concentration, it turned out I wasn't recording at all. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, me.

[Duck Engr]

Squealer ridge indeed!

[Rick]

Has warmed up enough that yesterday's Cherry Ridge gator sets filled us out for their marsh this morning, and this should be the last bad squealer video I foist on y'all:


Wish I could do a better job of sharing that spectacle, as it made it a mighty nice place to "work".

[Duck Engr]

We need to outfit you with a 360 degree camera. We have a few at work and they’re incredible, especially when wearing a virtual reality headset.

[PorkChop]

That’s more teal than I have ever seen in one spot! Ours are usually all spread out

[Rick]

We need to outfit you with a 360 degree camera. We have a few at work and they’re incredible, especially when wearing a virtual reality headset.

Would take that to begin to do the sight justice. When we'd have to backtrack out of spots like that last blind, we'd find the birds has already settled in behind us en mass and appear to be doing so again after that second pass through them. Something has them married to that marsh,

[Anotherone]

TEALMANIA! And to think not one damn bird came by me.

[Rick]

In an effort to make specks where they aren't, I took a weed-eater to the mudhole to clear openings on the flotant for speck decoys yesterday and found that the drought that's been a boon for Dave and, perhaps, Marsh Bear's situation is about to literally ground our little boat fleet. My pond is, of course, showing its ass through the surface, and much of the trail to our back blind had to be re-broken. Could be an "interesting" season.

Only a very few woodies and mottleds were seen, despite the show above videoed while fishing gators "next door".

[Darren]

And we'd skated into the boat slip back on Sept 25th........

In an effort to tell you what you already know based on my own experiences.......a (puddle) duck's favorite water is when it's barely water, and most difficult to get to for anyone without wings.....

[MARSH BEAR]

Rick we have not been in our marsh since teal season when the water was way too high, we needed a mini drought to bring the water back down.
A report (third hand) says there are greenwing teal in our area.

[DComeaux]

Rick we have not been in our marsh since teal season when the water was way too high, we needed a mini drought to bring the water back down.
A report (third hand) says there are greenwing teal in our area.

I may have seen a few GW this past weekend.

[Rick]

In an effort to tell you what you already know based on my own experiences.......a (puddle) duck's favorite water is when it's barely water, and most difficult to get to for anyone without wings.....

The mudhole's saving grace has always been that the birds don't know there's little or nothing there for them until they've been on it. Count of occasions when I've flushed birds from it (or near enough to suspect so) stands at seven since I first opened it in 2006, and never without decoys present. But just the sheen of water is apparently enough to offer possibility.

Not that i don't generally agree that the shallower, the better. Though I think more from a feeding than security standpoint.

[DComeaux]

You need a flock of these.

[Deltaman]

That thing was mesmerizing!!!! Was wondering how it would land, and was impressed that it wasn't a crash landing, very cool!!!!

[Rick]

Little doubt I'd crash it where I'd need one of the airboats for recovery.

[Rick]

Met LST and the Zone 10 rifle deer season with a .270 at our marsh's back blind this morning, albeit much more hopeful of a duck show than deer shot. Saw a small scattering of bluewings, woodies, squealers and mottleds, as well as one graceful little pod of six pintails flying by and a few of each but the squealers and pintails stopped in the pond or nearby. But it wasn't remotely the show I'd hoped. Didn't even break out the squealer whistle I'd brought to experiment with. Highlight, aside from the pintail pass, was watching a mottled pair rush and chatter at another, undeterred, pair landing in their homesteaded piece of the pond.

Drug up after a couple long hours without seeing "hide nor hair" of any mammal and had just pulled up and shut down on the edge of my pond to finish weed-eating a couple clearings I'd started for speck decoys the other day, when I heard the object of that exercise overhead. Three specks, two adults and a youngster not only passed low over me and my commotion but turned and returned, apparently to see what this fool was up to. My attempt to "Cadillac" them convinced them "no good" and off they went.

Much of the rest of the morning was spent breaking our little boat fleet free of the mud pack that had formed in and behind their slips - at least for the present.

We, like much of the flyway, need water soon...

[Rick]

Continuing my tradition of posting bad video, here's a bit of what we're dealing with in our marsh that stopped me cold in the east blind's trail:


Wished I'd the presence of mind to take "before and after" of the boat slips, but you've been spared that.

[BGkirk]

Would an inboard mud boat open up that trail better?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Duck Engr]

Woooowee what a mess Rick! Hope the skies provide for you before (and after) opener.

[Rick]

Would an inboard mud boat open up that trail better?

Depends on the depth, as a mudboat's greater power comes at a cost in weight. There's nothing I can get that little GD into that I can't get it out of relatively easily compared to the time and fuel it can take for a mudboat to wash its way out of a place it shouldn't have been muscled into. Pros and cons to every configuration, and the marsh can win, regardless.

I did use our mudboat to open much of the "deep" but sludge-filled area behind our boats at what used to be the boat house. (A real camp would have paid a long-sticked excavator to muck it out years ago, not to mention getting its boats back under cover, but we are what we are.)

[Ericdc]

I guess Doug doesn't do the internet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rick]

I guess Doug doesn't do the internet.

Nothing he hasn't heard in person, but we love him anyway.

[Rick]

A buddy tipped me off to another bad video op, specklebelly day at Sonny's place: