2023-2024 Season Log

[Rick]

Date: 11/21 Tue

Time: morning

Location: AW's

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW whipping

Temperature: cooler, but not as much as predicted

Moon phase: waxing 56%

Special Notes: Had to be out at 8:30 to meet flights.

Waterfowl Activity: Quite a few packs of teal, g &b and jacks moving around and most big ducks were grays.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Much better than ours.

Hunters: 2 20-something brothers, Jim and Mark

Guns:

Malfunctions: Mark was doing a lot of fiddling with his Beretta, which may have needed the oil that was always in my mudhole blind box and Go-Devil seat but not in CR blinds or boxes. May have just been OP error.

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: 1 spinner

Curses: Cleverly left my gun in the truck (2nd time in all these years) with Call and had time to but didn't think I needed to go back for it, given the brothers' ages and suggested experience. Thought wrong.

Kudos: Nice guys had lots of opportunity.

Birds By Species: 1 black-belly, 3 bw teal, 2 gadwall, 2 gw teal and 2 wood ducks

[Duck Engr]

Glad I’m not the only one who has been known to leave a gun in the truck. Nice to see you getting called on early and often for cherry ridge, Rick.

[5 stand]

[quote="Duck Engr"]Glad I’m not the only one who has been known to leave a gun in the truck. Nice to see you getting called on early and often for cherry ridge, Rick.[/quote

I've thought about the often part also...

[Rick]

I'm off today and tomorrow. Just 10 driving in from a corporate camp with dry marsh (Acadian Ambulance over by you, Cory) this morning "that may or may not) show up again tomorrow. I'm thinking they'll party too hard at their camp to get up and make that long drive this morning, let alone T-day.

Hoping to hear I can make a Thanksgiving buddy/family hunt but not counting on it.

[Rick]

Date: 11/23 Thur

Time: morning

Location: Clark's blind

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: too dang still

Temperature: chilly

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Very short Thanksgiving play hunt, as Clark had a long day ahead.

Waterfowl Activity: Tons of pintails and mottleds, along with what should have been plenty of teal for our purposes.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Clark has what just has to be the clankiest DR-85 I've ever heard, a cut-down-like characteristic I've never seen appear as effective as many find it - until this morning. And I don't believe it was just the spot, though it happens to be the best marsh blind I'm aware of. Had me playing with a cut-down for the first time afield this season, though I wouldn't bet it was more effective than the old MVP.

Hunters: Clark and I

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Clark's Lab, Radar

Special Equipment: spinner (which Clark is of the mind doesn't bother birds, blamed dead decoy spread for what bumped from the rig)

Curses: none from me other than that we both shot poorly

Kudos: pleasant morning

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 5 gw teal and 2 pintails

[Duck Engr]

Sweet! DR85 was my first call and caused the death of many. Probably spared more than it caused to die due to operator having a whole lot to learn.

[Rick]

Sweet! DR85 was my first call and caused the death of many. Probably spared more than it caused to die due to operator having a whole lot to learn.

The DR-85 is still the "industry standard" for Southwest Louisiana guides, but I've never heard one as rank as Clark's. Most sound like ducks. His is more like the love child of a duck and bull gator and always made me smile and think "Gotta be the spot." when hearing it from a distance and shots followed. But three or four squawkgrunts from that thing turned some tall birds that sure hadn't seemed so inclined.

That said, the much cleaner MVP and somewhere-in-between Singleton cutdown were also breaking a lot of mighty high or wide big ducks we weren't allowed to shoot this morning, so maybe it was just the still morning - or the duck gods taunting us.

[BGkirk]

Acadian ambulance may not be hunting but someone else sure is. Wednesday mornings first hour sounded like 5 man volleys over and over again. Green wings are plentiful, followed by 8-9am spoonbills and scattered blue wings.
Big duck ops are usual, but seems it only happens once or twice each morning and normally get banged out before getting them over the decoys.
I missed yesterday and today, be back tomorrow


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[Rick]

Date: 11/24 Fri

Time: morning

Location: AW's

Cloud Cover: drizzle all morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light

Temperature: chilly

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Plenty of squealers and teal, little else around - other than scads of protected mottleds, of course.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Lord knows they tried to work, but we didn't try to let them.

Hunters: 2, Stan and TL

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Curses: We didn't hide, shot early and shot behind all morning.

Kudos: Nice guys were happy to shoot a lot - other than steadily cursing steel.

Birds By Species: 6 black-bellies, 2 bw teal, 1 gadwall and 3 gw teal

[Rick]

Date: 11/25 Sat

Time: morning

Location: AW's

Cloud Cover: partly to clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE moderate

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Lots of new blues flying but not many ducks on our end. One more easterly blind filled two limits with squealers and the one north of me had 17 of them. Few teal around us.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Pair of specks came pretty to light call, but the few squealers on our end plainly knew us. Big ducks got banged out.

Hunters: 2 Joe and Woodie

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment: spinner off for specks

Curses: Missed many more birds than we could afford to. Crazy that folks will spend CR type money when they don't know one end of a gun from the other, but, so far, the shooters here have been appreciably worse than Doug's hunters, with few exceptions.

Kudos: Nice guys.

Birds By Species: 1 black-belly, 1 canvasback, 3 gw teal, 1 spoon and 1 speck

[Duck Engr]

The thought had crossed my mind to ask if you’d noticed a difference in clientele’s shooting abilities. For those of us not in the know, is cherry ridge an outfitter or club or some mixture?

[BGkirk]

Speaking of clients, have you been contacted by any of your regulars to try and hunt with you at CR?


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[Rick]

Cherry Ridge is commercial, but parties book the whole camp and pay $7,500, whether they come one man or ten. Guns over that ten are another $750 per. Which, Cory, has eliminated most, if not all, of my old regulars who've asked except those few who were already hunting out of both camps. Tough to find an open day, too, as folks with conflicts generally pay their days, anyway, rather than lose them. (I was the seventh guide in that often five guide camp but got bumped up to sixth today. Baby steps...)

[5 stand]

How much for the sweat line?

[Rick]

How much for the sweat line?

You'd have to ask "the Queen," Nanette, who, though her father bypassed her and left the camp to her daughter for tax purposes, still runs the business. Most of we commoners slip in with guide buddies (as I have a few times) on days that are paid but for some reason no-shows or their two regular season holidays. That, or teal season, which, to date, has been all buddy hunting.

[Rick]

Date: 11/26 Sun

Time: morning

Location: AW's

Cloud Cover: drizzle to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW stiff to light

Temperature: 50s

Moon phase: full

Special Notes: first day mottleds are legal

Waterfowl Activity: precious few mottleds even seen, but some of this and that

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully pretty good.

Hunters: 2, Todd and Ryan

Guns: Todd had the first 28ga SBE I've seen.

Malfunctions: Both guest guns benefited from oil I'd put in my box.

Dog(s): Ryan's (fyl)Lab, Chunck sweet dog that seemed lost in the marsh and didn't handle but had some fun with marks and hunted up two in the grass.

Special Equipment: spinner

Curses: Could have used more of a flight.

Kudos: Nice guys had a nice time.

Birds By Species: 2 bb whistling, 3 bw teal, 2 gw teal, 3 ringnecks, 3 shovellers and 3 wigeon

[Darren]

Interesting point on it being generally worse shooters than the last camp, anecdotally would tell us those with more means generally know less about the gun, and thus less capable with it in general. Such would match my own observations across the board, with only very few exceptions.

Congrats on the promotion !

[DComeaux]

Awesome, Rick! I'm just catching up on my reading.

[Rick]

Date: 11/27 Mon

Time: morning

Location: AW's

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE strong

Temperature: crisp

Moon phase: full

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Decided to pass squealers, so thought we'd finally see a bunch. Didnt happen. Nor did we see more than a single string of presumed flight birds - that turned out to be pintail perhaps up there on a lark. But did see enough of this and that to have a pretty hunt.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Hadn't shown my local mottleds the single quack series until this morning and found it works at AW's like it did at the mudhole and Reese farm before it. Also had some good luck breaking high birds with the Singleton's trial run. Just couldn't get they or the great majority of what I broke to our guns before someone else's ran them off.

Hunters: Just Ryan and Chunk and I this morning.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Chunk had a better morning but couldn't find our last bird, a greenhead, of course, in the grass.

Special Equipment:

Curses: Only that the boat blew out of the boat hide, which was something I went to sleep thinking of ways to prevent without the tethering points my GoDevil has.

Kudos: Nice day in good company.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 4 gw teal, 2 mottleds, 1 ringneck, 1shoveller and 1 wigeon

[Rick]

Very small parties in camp this week, with only one of the regular five guides not hunting one on one. So I took advantage of an off day to make the blind I've been hunting most look a lot less like what it is. Still by no means the marsh match I had at the mudhole, but it's a whoooole lot better now than when orphaned. Hope to be allowed to put my own spinner setup, modified Mallard Maching and decent speck decoys out there, but Clark has some weird rule about using our own stuff. So we'll see...

Meanwhile, what I saw of the marsh looked a lot more like its normal self this morning than it had previously, with a big show of green-wings, as well as more big ducks. Naturally, while I'm laid-off, but still sweet to see.

[5 stand]

know I'm late to the party, but for some reason I laugh out loud when I read "Chunk"...

[Rick]

know I'm late to the party, but for some reason I laugh out loud when I read "Chunk"...

I asked about that, and she's registered as "Chunky Peanut" something I immediately forgot. Odder, still, since she's a tiny gal.

[5 stand]

When I read it the first time, my mind automatically went to the yellow submarine...

[Rick]

Might put a couple, or three, of her in L&L's old gal.

[Bud]

Think I'd be much happier hunting with a Chunky than a Chucky.

Much happier reading about your hunts than not.

Wonder how many ducks Marsh retrieved? Have you been able to walk him at the dry Mudhole? Has he seen it dry? It is never easy to see an old friend getting old. Two of my GSDs had hip problems take them earlier. Have pictures of them very close to where I'm sitting. Can't be easy. Have a few pictures of some of your dogs, too.

Other than that, hope everything turns out well for you, my friend. Coffee time.

[Rick]

Think I'd be much happier hunting with a Chunky than a Chucky.

Much happier reading about your hunts than not.

Wonder how many ducks Marsh retrieved? Have you been able to walk him at the dry Mudhole? Has he seen it dry? It is never easy to see an old friend getting old. Two of my GSDs had hip problems take them earlier. Have pictures of them very close to where I'm sitting. Can't be easy. Have a few pictures of some of your dogs, too.

Other than that, hope everything turns out well for you, my friend. Coffee time.

Marsh was able to retrieve a few for us from the thick stuff the first two days at the zero blind, but no way he would have made it the mile and a half to the mudhole afoot, no matter how dry the marsh was. I'm too lazy to look up his numbers in the logs, but am sure he had a good run and a lot of fun. Marsh and I are still carving out just me and he time away from puppy, Call, but it tends more to rides than than walks. Don't go anywhere in the truck, other than duck camp, without him riding shotgun.

Hope all is well for you and Elizabeth.

[Rick]

7 1/2" rain here in town last night. Hoping all the LA and SE TX marshes in need got as much or more.

[DComeaux]

I have a big smile on my face.

[5 stand]

I just saw that it was raining pretty good, had no idea it was that much...


I can just hear it now, that dang rain has spread out the birds, the few that we had, are gone...

[Duck Engr]

7 1/2" rain here in town last night. Hoping all the LA and SE TX marshes in need got as much or more.

WHOA!