Pre Season

[Duck Engr]

Great news DC!

[Ricky Spanish]

I've had leases and let them go.
Doubling price? Yeah we saw that too.
A good field in Arkansas gets bid up high.
We got a deal. $4k to lease a field with water just off Crane Farm Road.
If you hunt waterfowl seriously and wander like me you'll eventually end up looking at an 8' x 16' billboard that says keep the hell out.
The Crane Farm hunt club is a very big deal.
That lease was epic but my gang burned it up in about 3 weeks.
Idiots.
The next season it was $8k for that field.

[DComeaux]

Back at work this weekend. We added a lot of big timber to the main frame, finished securing all main timbers, and installed some of the solid portions of this build. Next weekend will be the tedious fitting of the top side of the T1-11 panels. We hope to prime all of the T1-11 siding and measure all framed openings for the screen and clear vinyl panels. It's getting there.

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Frequent rain showers were a pain even though our work was under cover. I didn't get to go run the marsh, but Randall and the new landowner did in between showers. Was told our blind island was lush but I would want to see it for myself. We are able to use our crab traps on the property, which is awesome! I also have some trenause grinding to do near the boat launch to open it up a bit. Randall came back a bit muddy. Just looked at the Callander and I know what I'll be doing on Labour Day weekend.

[Duck Engr]

Looking great DC! I can tell y’all put in some hard work.

[Darren]

Real nice!

Hope you find your island as-advertised, glad to hear the crabs are still on the menu. Thinking I may do a lil DC-style crab stew of sorts for teal opener weekend myself.

[Rick]

Pretty snazzy, there, David.

[Ricky Spanish]

I may be mistaken but I think this isn't the first time I've seen that camp rebuilt. Insurance help at all?

[Deltaman]

Congrats Dave, and glad to know that your uncertainty regarding the upcoming season has been put to rest. Damn fine looking duck camp you've got coming up, and looking forward to seeing your reports of ducks and food!!!!!!

[DComeaux]

I may be mistaken but I think this isn't the first time I've seen that camp rebuilt. Insurance help at all?

We can not get insurance there unless it's a raised (14 + feet), "habitable" dwelling. So no, we've had no insurance help. The first work we did on this place was at the initial purchase. The previous owner had refused to make the FEMA mods and it was on the verge of being demolished. I had little doubt that the original structure would be washed away due to it's poor, main frame construction, and also due to the amount of "debris" south of us, like grandfathered on the ground camps, and campers that weren't removed during the mandatory evacuation. The latter we weren't aware of until we saw those upside down and destroyed in our back yard. That debris was like bowling balls.

This was at the time of purchase, and below that is the "MOD" conversion work. This was 2017.

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[DComeaux]

Thanks everyone.

Congrats Dave, and glad to know that your uncertainty regarding the upcoming season has been put to rest. Damn fine looking duck camp you've got coming up, and looking forward to seeing your reports of ducks and food!!!!!!

While looking for the pictures I posted above, I went through a lot of pictures showing good food and fun in that place. I just hope we have a few years to enjoy our labor before we have another hurricane in that area.
It's said that there is usually a 15+/- year lull in a hit area before the next one. We've had two in the same year so this should be 30 years for us.

[Ducaholic]

You either have skills or skilled help DC. Looks Great Bud!

[DComeaux]

You either have skills or skilled help DC. Looks Great Bud!

Thanks.
My cousin likes to play with wood and my background is steel. Same type of fitting process, more or less. However, I do find the process of "fitting" wood much more forgiving when assembling. My cousin was disturbed when we went through the framing and assembly of the steel portion. You can't cheat when it has to be welded. More precise work needed with steel.

[DComeaux]

We made pretty good progress this weekend, and I think we've taken care of the biggest work for this rebuild. It will slow for a while so we can hunt, and I think everyone needs a break. Next weekend we will add some screws to the back wall and do other small odd and ends in between bailing the blind and readying for teal season.

I have my eye on the tropics at the moment. Deploying decoys and bailing the blind is highly dependent on the activity in the gulf. I will bring the boat down there regardless and take a ride to the blind no matter the situation.

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[DComeaux]

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[Duck Engr]

Looks awesome Dave! Y’all deserve a break to enjoy the reason for all of that work!

[Rick]

Deer hunting would have been easier. Cut some windows in an old port-a-pot, and ya gotta stand...

[DComeaux]

Deer hunting would have been easier. Cut some windows in an old port-a-pot, and ya gotta stand...

I would be sticking my head out of the window watching the ducks go by.

[Darren]

Looks good!

Any teal reports? Seems things are awfully quiet all around.

[Rick]

Any teal reports? Seems things are awfully quiet all around.

Fellow hunting Clyde's blind opening weekend was out there Saturday and told me this morning that he saw a high flight of about 40 coming out of the marsh and a low flight of about a dozen between Clyde's blind and Isaac's. "So there's that..."

[DComeaux]

Looks good!

Any teal reports? Seems things are awfully quiet all around.

I haven't see a teal as of yet. Haven't heard any reports in our area, either.

[DComeaux]

Right after my last post I contacted someone out and about everyday around our lease area and this is the video he sent to me while riding around. He said the numbers were impressive last Monday but the water level came up a bit too much and most left. He also said that the numbers increased again yesterday.

There is a mix of birds but are mainly teal. Sorry for the quality.

[Darren]

Well looky there.

[MARSH BEAR]

Dave - weatherman at noon said the 4 areas of disturbance in the tropics - none should impact Louisiana - I have heard that crap before and they were wrong

[DComeaux]

Dave - weatherman at noon said the 4 areas of disturbance in the tropics - none should impact Louisiana - I have heard that crap before and they were wrong

I pray that they go away. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Deltaman]

Fingers crossed for you Dave, and happy to see your rebuild coming along so well

[DComeaux]

Started seeing post of models showing a system on the Louisiana coast this weekend differing from what the local weather reports were showing. I pulled up the GFS model and It does not show anything in the gulf.

Here's a couple of links, if you're interested. Just hit the play button on the top of the screen once in the link.

https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&rh=2022082912&fh=loop&dpdt=&mc=

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs

[DComeaux]

I would love to see the collard mallard info from those captured here in La. Not one dot in Louisiana on this map.

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[Rick]

Given the late timing of most captures, TN bandings not continuing on this far, sans extended deep freeze, shouldn't be too surprising. Suspect the great bulk of our mallards have been photo-migrators. Know that having lived in a part of the North that didn't see mallards in numbers until deep snow pushed them to us, I couldn't have been more surprised to find myself shooting them in November after moving down here in '83.

[Ducaholic]

Rick...I tend to think the early mallards you harvested were central flyway birds and not part of the group depicted. There was a time that the area closest to the Miss. River in La. hosted thousands of those more hardy mallards depicted in that model. I believe that is the bulk of the mallard breeding stock that drives our seasons. Today unless driven here by unseasonably cold weather events they simply don't know La. exist.

[DComeaux]

The mallard has gone the way of the Canada goose for Louisiana. Feed lots work.