Duck Season 2022-2023

[Deltaman]

Looks like two days of fun action and good folks to me

[Darren]

Looks like two days of fun action and good folks to me

Sure was, fingers crossed it works out just the same next year.

[Darren]

Sat. Jan 31, 2022
Bunkie area farm
Johnny, my BB Gun-toting-son and I with Harry
Moderate fog, upper 60s to start, no wind most of hunt

Log says light to moderate fog has been largely good to us up here over the years. While down in Klondike had gotten word that the geese had really taken to the area as well. Sure enough we enjoyed fairly steady action with birds having to stick to the height of the fog or lower and were working us nice. Opted to leave spinners out today since they hadn’t seemed to be doing much good lately and teal have been recently MIA. Today we finally saw some and the spoons worked well too. First hunt with a new dozen GHG speck silos and only goose op had them coming hot straight to them talking up a storm. Limited data set but liked what we saw. Harry was huge on a long speck recovery clear across the north cut against far levee on a very lively bird.

(12) 3 GW teal, 1 BW teal, 1 gray, 7 spoons + 2 specks

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Son had huge time with pretty steady flights nearby even when they weren’t working us. Great morning out there, left em flying.

[Deltaman]

Your boy is growing fast!!!!
Congrats on a good hunt, especially with your son in the blind

[Duck Engr]

Awesome Darren!!! Glad you got the little guy on a good one!

[DComeaux]

Very nice.

[Rick]

Definitely looks hooked.

[Darren]

Mon. 1/2/2022
Bunkie area farm
FIL Mike, Johnny and I with Harry
Light fog, heavy cloud deck, south/SE winds 5-10 then 10-15, 70 deg or so

Heavy fog on drive up to farm was mostly cleared out on arrival. Few birds moving at LST but ended up seeing much fewer birds overall compared to Saturday. The few working us plainly seemed to know our game, would drop and circle but nothing wanted to give us a decent chance, much less finish. Fired on two iffy ops on spoons and teal to no avail. The few specks that moved didn’t want us either. Just a tough one on what I’d figured to be good conditions. Feels like the south wind has become stale on us, need a shake up.

Scratch!

Harry mostly bored

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[Ricky Spanish]

Mon. 1/2/2022
Bunkie area farm
FIL Mike, Johnny and I with Harry
Light fog, heavy cloud deck, south/SE winds 5-10 then 10-15, 70 deg or so

Heavy fog on drive up to farm was mostly cleared out on arrival. Few birds moving at LST but ended up seeing much fewer birds overall compared to Saturday. The few working us plainly seemed to know our game, would drop and circle but nothing wanted to give us a decent chance, much less finish. Fired on two iffy ops on spoons and teal to no avail. The few specks that moved didn’t want us either. Just a tough one on what I’d figured to be good conditions. Feels like the south wind has become stale on us, need a shake up.

Scratch!

Harry mostly bored

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In neark was similar but worse fog.
Ducks would lock up turn and put their feet down then say "nah" over and over you had to call them all the way to the water if you wanted to shoot.
Was competing with bigger groups and 1 call can't beat 6 or 10. They tore em up Sunday.

[Ericdc]

Darren, the GFS is pretty depressing.


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[Darren]

Darren, the GFS is pretty depressing.
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Hadn't been following it in recent weeks but just ran and saw what you're likely referring to.....mild a while to come. Was coming here to post latest LRC outlook for January, below. December's proved pretty accurate so will be interesting to see how this month shakes out.

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[Ericdc]

Yea I saw that too, and it does seem pretty accurate. I'm going to hunt Thursday because we are supposed to have sun and wind, but going to reserve any more vacation days for a possible late season arctic front.


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[DComeaux]

I prefer mild, comfortable (Long sleeve and light jacket) weather to hunt in. It seems big cold fronts no longer do anything for us as far as waterfowl goes. These super cold events for us down here just makes for a miserable time, hunting or otherwise. We're not set up for extreme cold down here.

[Ericdc]

I don't want it as cold as it was but a stretch of 28-40 degree weather for several days and some snow would be fun.


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[MARSH BEAR]

I'm with you Dave, I am more comfortable with the mild temps, and our ducks vanish with the cold fronts. Abby is not a fan of cold weather either at her age, if you look at my last 2 hunting days they were very mild, I did not wear a coat and I shot a lot better.

[Ericdc]

I get it for the coast, south winds all day every day, but up here we need weather to make them move up and down the section of the flyway I'm in.


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[Duck Engr]

Yeah Eric you might as well be hunting a different state from the coastal guys.

[Rick]

I get it for the coast, south winds all day every day...

I've always heard, and sometimes felt, SE winds were the ticket here (20-some miles inland from the Gulf) but that's not proven much of a rule. Sure, I hope for green-wings when the wind swings southerly, but also for big ducks when it's northerly, but both are far from dependable.

That stale patterns of more than three days of any given wind are apt to slow us down seems the most reliable case - and it's only sometimes so...

[Darren]

Sun. 1/8/2023
Bunkie area farm
Phil, Thomas, Timmy, Johnny and I with Harry
Rain storms passing, light rain half of hunt, light south winds to dead calm to 5-10 north late morning, 60’s

J and I drove up and waited storms out at the barn then met up with rest of crew at camp, thankfully heavy stuff was done well before LST. Birds were on the move sporadically in again impressive overall numbers, even jumped a few in decoys on arrival with flashlight. Unfortunately it’s still much the same game, we are struggling to get birds to finish or anything remotely resembling it. They come pretty then bail out last second. We have no spinners, even tried pulling the splasher butts, double checked decoys, etc without result. Scratched out a few and with better shooting probably double it. Nice morning with the guys hangin in the pit regardless, and a few pretty birds. No low & looking specks today until post-hunt, though yesterday afternoon they were in the field per video I was sent.

(6) 2 GW teal, 2 BW teal, 1 ring neck, 1 drake woodie

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Lost two long off, very lively crip teal that dove on Harry. With so much more water on us than previously, cripples have the upper hand on him now.

[5 stand]

They are pretty birds...

[Rick]

They are pretty birds...

That was my thought when I saw the green-wing drake's first pic. But what (I had to be shown by a taxidermist) is the tell that he's a fully mature bird can only be seen in the second one of him. Anyone, or everyone, know it?

[Ricky Spanish]

They are pretty birds...

There's a wood duck calling video on YouTube where I commented on how it helped me to kill wood ducks and....I got attacked by the internet over it.
They are so pretty that Karen thinks we shouldn't be allowed to eat them..

[5 stand]

Rick
The splashes of grayish on the bill...
That's just a guess, I don't know...

[Darren]

I'd forgotten what Rick had pointed out to me in the blind on the GW's but also note how much a shame it is that the blue wing wasn't fresher for the photo. He was sharp on arrival to the pit.

[Deltaman]

Beautiful specimens Darren, and bummer the birds were so fickle.

Rick,
I'm guessing the prominence of the white bar at the base of the wing?

[Rick]

I'd forgotten what Rick had pointed out to me in the blind on the GW's...

Think I showed you how the distal tersal feather can be used to determine an eclipse bird's sex.

[Rick]

Rick,
I'm guessing the prominence of the white bar at the base of the wing?

Close, it's the black bar/patch just above the wing which young birds lack. Is mostly hidden on Darren's, so here's a better look:

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[Darren]

Seems we're at an impasse with the current birds around the farm. Guerilla tactics on a nearby levee may produce a few as such a move has in the past. We've been scattering our decoys out to shake up the look from what everyone else has out there. Will keep trying different things, about all we can do.

[Deltaman]

Rick,
I'm guessing the prominence of the white bar at the base of the wing?

Close, it's the black bar/patch just above the wing which young birds lack. Is mostly hidden on Darren's, so here's a better look:

P1010108a.jpg

Great info Rick, Thanks!!!

[Darren]

Thurs. 1/12/2023
Bunkie farm
Jeff M and I with Harry
Front passage, SW to NW winds light to moderate, heavy clouds, few rain showers then starting to clear up a little, 60’s

Thought the weather might stir them but probably saw the weakest “flight” of the season here for ducks, they just didn’t move. Not even the ones that come lock, look, and keep going. Eventually had strong goose flight but couldn’t do anything with them, had a few cuts north of us in mind. Killed a teal in the decoys at LST and that was really it. Did have a 5 pack of mallards that wanted our tree line edge of front cut but convinced them to give us a few swings but wouldn’t get remotely right. Found whole bunch of ducks and specks and then blues and specks on major east-west corridor to our south, piled up. Mallards, pins, spoons, teal, grays mostly, many walking up and down/contently resting on levees.


1 BW teal drake

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Check the blind in the background. They’re partying in front of some fella’s blind who must be at work. I’m talking swimming all around in his cut out hole in the rice stubble

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Headed to the salt marsh tomorrow for the weekend.