Preseason '25-'26

[Rick]

Whatever helps cool the Gulf this time of year OK by me. Tracking this stuff remains a whole lot more fun than the alternative weather tracking........

Amen to that.

[Darren]

Johnny and I took my son along for sporting clays yesterday morning and enjoyed a nice dry breeze and both of us shot well. Sure enough a wad of squealers worked into the pond on site while we were shooting......had to believe certain crowds might not have let them go

Was first outing for clays with the new M2 20g I picked up late last season, further in love with it each time out. Shot it well, super light, and of course less recoil.

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Front later this week still looking good, and perhaps just as good, looking like weather pattern stabilizes thereafter with a more typical September pattern as far as temps and wind direction, etc. just about in time for the upcoming full moon. No need for stout north and NW winds as we get closer to the 20th.

[Duck Engr]

What have you been feeding that young fella to grow feet that big? My goodness. If he ever grows into those boats he’ll be 6’ 10”!

[Darren]

What have you been feeding that young fella to grow feet that big? My goodness. If he ever grows into those boats he’ll be 6’ 10”!

They're a lil big on him right now for sure, but then again I just found out he's outgrown last year's then-too-big boots on his waders. So off to Amazon again we'll go I'm sure.

[Duck Engr]

What have you been feeding that young fella to grow feet that big? My goodness. If he ever grows into those boats he’ll be 6’ 10”!

They're a lil big on him right now for sure, but then again I just found out he's outgrown last year's then-too-big boots on his waders. So off to Amazon again we'll go I'm sure.

Haha we’re in the same boat. Looked for his boots for 30 minutes yesterday to go fishing, tearing the house apart only to find them and realize they were 2 sizes too small. Luckily we had some that were gifted to us from a friend that were 2 sizes too big. So we stuffed news paper in them and off we went.

Re waders, I’m afraid my July gamble on those will have to be passed down to his siblings. He grew 2 inches and 2 shoes sizes in August.

[Darren]

Well there it is

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Not noted in that version but in the others: US PPR ponds down 34% year over year. Hopefully late rains put a dent in that loss.

[Ducaholic]

BWT/GWT going the wrong way

[Darren]

Just when I was enjoying a relatively short preseason to-do list, I got to tinkering with yardages and past log entries, etc. etc. and now looking like I'm going to re-locate the blind in our historically-best pond. Snippet below kinda tells the tale, and the birds resoundingly favor the south half of the pond when in there without disturbance. North blind location is where we've been for a few years, and its associated shooting zone in RED, the 2019 blind location's shooting zone in YELLOW. Plainly, you can cover a lot more of the pond from that southern location without giving up much on the north end.

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We only departed that location when in October 2020 Hurricane Zeta's 100+ mph winds and surge ripped it out to points unknown. That loss drove our current design of storm-resistant blinds built a bit more stout, largely due to deeper foundations. I do think a fair bit of the current blind can be salvaged for repurposing at new blind.

And just like that, now I've got work to do.