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.

[Rick]

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

Which is a big part of the fun in its own right. And helps pass the preseason in a positive manner.

[Ducaholic]

Just when I was enjoying a relatively short preseason to-do list.

Is the A-51 blind situated with the back of the blind to true north? If so, I can see why the other location would be more appealing and offer more options to working ducks.

[Darren]

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

Which is a big part of the fun in its own right. And helps pass the preseason in a positive manner.

Yep, have to enjoy this as much as the in-season aspect; if you don't, well you're just missing out.

[Darren]

Just when I was enjoying a relatively short preseason to-do list.

Is the A-51 blind situated with the back of the blind to true north? If so, I can see why the other location would be more appealing and offer more options to working ducks.

Correct, which was for a few reasons: you could walk to that spot from another of our ponds and it's got the sturdiest bank of the whole pond. While we killed plenty from that spot just sitting in the grass prior to having the current blind, we've long seen the disadvantage of being all the way on the north side, especially when considering a lot of the flight comes from the due south. The birds do favor the south half of the pond, we've seen when arriving to brush blinds and flushing them. Perhaps the cruelest instance of that being when I arrived in late October 2020 post-hurricane Zeta to find grays stacked in front of the "blind" that was no longer to be found.

The most strategically strong location for a blind would actually be that big central point on the left side, offering sturdy ground and ability to shoot whole pond, but it would look straight into the sun. Even so, we've sat in the grass there a couple of times and had big hunts.

[Darren]

re: speck numbers in the survey

In terms of specklebellies, California should see an improved flight of Pacific population white-fronted geese as they have increased 13% to 469,000, remaining 6% below the 10-year average. Following last year’s disappointing survey data, the midcontinent white-fronted goose population has improved considerably, up 115% at 2.75 million and 4% below the 10-year average.

[Duck Engr]

Man you’re fishing for 60 days of hard west northwest winds!

[Darren]

Man you’re fishing for 60 days of hard west northwest winds!

Sure enough, we've dealt with that in the past, but far more common is due north to NE to SE for us.

[Duck Engr]

Those will hunt!

[Darren]

First Delta migration update, perhaps the most insightful and encouraging being that of the first report discussing most of the Canadian provinces:

[Darren]

Giddy up, should be blue ducks winging southward as this front combines with the next full moon tomorrow night.

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[Rick]

Call and I stepped out into bright moon light, dry air and a pleasant breeze at 3 this morning, even felt a bit of a chill by the time he finished just standing around taking it in. Mighty sweet.

[Darren]

Call and I stepped out into bright moon light, dry air and a pleasant breeze at 3 this morning, even felt a bit of a chill by the time he finished just standing around taking it in. Mighty sweet.

We're on the front porch with the dogs and the newspaper this morning taking it in, also kicking that I should have held off on yesterday's blind fabbing until today in better conditions.

Hard/eager heads prevailed and I got after it with mostly just the dogs' supervision. If plans hold, will bring it all down to camp next weekend and attempt the install Sunday morning, week from today, likely with weather not near as nice as today's.

[Darren]

Project A51-3.0

Step 1 - PreFab and PrePaint

Anything not painted is going in the ground.

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Patent-pending SurgeLok technology is the reason we’re not willing to take on removing the corner posts at the current location since they feature these wedges thus built to stay put.

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Matching consultants/supervisors

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Got good report of a few hundred teal on our host’s place for opener, and a follow up corroborating report of birds not too far away from there from someone out chasing gators.

[DComeaux]

I can smell the lumber and paint. Looking good!

[Duck Engr]

Tis the season! Great to see projects happening and bird reports coming in.

[Darren]

Zack, my guy. Love the positive attitude, but did you have to say it all like that?

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[DComeaux]

Seems this year we've slipped back into a more "normal" weather pattern. It's been a few years since we've had a cool front in September like the one we're currently experiencing. I hope the north has an early cold winter, but I'm still troubled about the low waterfowl numbers, which is something that will be on my mind during the season. The change and lowering of numbers in the matrix I don't understand when it comes to conservation.

Copied from another forum.

Here's the 2022 (only 3 years ago) matrix with 2025 data plotted. These same numbers 3 years ago we'd be having a 30/3 season...
(BTW - this is plotting total ponds on a Canada-pond only matrix so it actually would have even been worse than shown)

MayPondsBPOP2022w2025.jpg

[Darren]

One question I'd ask: why are mallards the bellwether? Why take total days and reduce total limits for all species when you could simply limit on a per-species basis.

Mallards down 17% from LTA, but other puddlers like grays, wigeon and GWT well up from LTA, and redheads & cans, all well above LTAs. Pins down, mallards down, scaup down, regulate them accordingly, which is already done for some, but no point in regulating with a broad swath when it could be more surgical. Use a scalpel, not a hatchet. Pins are widely reported to be making their own (very poor) choices, and there's nothing you're going to do about that with regulations, short of outlawing tractors/grass cutting/etc., so may as well hunt.

That even presumes that hunter harvest is discernibly impactful, which many dispute. Perhaps the "science" has evolved, maybe, or has been tampered with, maybe both.

[Darren]

Also of interest:

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Source: USFWS Report

[DComeaux]

One question I'd ask: why are mallards the bellwether? Why take total days and reduce total limits for all species when you could simply limit on a per-species basis.

I've had that same question for years. It seems like a lazy management technique. I'm sure there's some sort of logic involved.

I really find it hard to believe that Louisiana still leads in harvest numbers.

10 year average
Louisiana has
73,800 duck hunters
11,900 goose hunters
Louisiana ranks 1st in duck harvest, 17th in goose harvest
The average hunter harvests
25 ducks in 8 days afield
6 geese in 5 days afield
Top harvested ducks
Gadwall
Blue-WingedTeal
Green-Winged Teal

Cameron parish ranks #1 in the state of 64 parishes, and 2nd out of 3,115 in the U.S.

[Darren]

Good fun for discussion. In meantime I'm packing my blindbag with some lil 20 gauge #6's I hope to burn through next Saturday, and maybe a couple on Sunday when its back to reality and we're not hunting teal-friendly ground.

Run calls, charge headlamp, earplugs, all the stuff.

[Duck Engr]

I emailed DU about just that discrepancy, Dave. They produced the following podcast:

https://youtu.be/X22XQPZbHRI?si=OrIWVpKIL7O_vOc6

Start about the 55 minute mark.

Evidently info gets fed into the computer model each year and it gets reformulated based on habitat, predicted harvest, and surveyed harvest. Now whether or not you think the data is accurate, that’s a fair critique. Best they have currently though.