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Sat 9/20/2025 - teal season opener
Delacroix fresh marsh
Outfitter Mike S., lease partners and buddies Will and Johnny, no dogs due to lots of alligators
no wind, 70s, pt cloudy/clear

We were hyped to hit an area of primo habitat that's usually full of teal, but ended up being a total bust. Squealers and mottleds were all around us but saw very few teal in the area. Two other partner blinds had mixed success, one had 16 birds, one 4-5. Some other historically strong areas nearby struggled as well. We/I fired on an iffy op on a non-decoying single late in hunt and couldn't bring it down, tough one. Mike's getting us scheduled on a make-up hunt in January with him so we'll look forward to that instead.

Scratch!


Scouted lease post-hunt/assessed some blinds for any remaining pre-season needs, no teal seen at that mid-day hour so opted to head another direction for Sunday.

Sun. 9/21/2025
Shell Beach, la marsh
Johnny and I w/ Harry*
70's, dead calm again to light westerly, pt cloudy

Set up in blind I worked on Friday and had seen a few birds in vicinity, sure enough ended up seeing fair many in the area. Not hundreds, but some groups from pairs to 15+ actually using the 1000-yard radius we could see, dropping into small waters, etc. Unfortunately our birds did not decoy as perfectly as they often do and we let 2-3 get out that shouldn't have, and had a few others bail out without a shot. Lost one way long off crip but today's hunt brought us back to why we do this, enjoyable for sure. Harry was huge for us recovering a lively crip that swam to grass and had tunneled/buried way up in there where we'd never have had a prayer of recovering, so enjoyed having my ol fella get some work in here as we start his 10th season.

4 BW teal (3 d, 1h)










Will hunted nearby, about 800 yards to our NNW, enjoying beautifully decoying birds early and often, easy solo limit, said they were eating up his egret decoys. Sure enough there are a ton of various wading birds/egrets in the area's shallows the teal like....will try mine on next trip and pull one of the two spinners.
*Toyed with idea of bringing young Indy along for hunt as well but I could not get past the fact that she's not yet been around gunfire and I'm terrified of even the slightest chance that it would have gone wrong so she stayed at camp.

Fri 9/26/2025
Shell Beach La marsh
Johnny and I with Harry
N/NW winds 5-10 behind a front, clearing skies, pleasant low 70s

Back to same blind from Sunday and ended up seeing quite a few teal, but we were off their line today. Took the only bird that worked in pretty but watched a few hundred over course of the morning a few hundred yards west of us. Knowing we had another blind in that area, checked it on way out and found small hole had grown over so have a makeshift setup started in nearby hole, could have shot a few birds from the boat while fooling with that about 9:30a. Lease partner Will got solo limit in same location as his Sunday hunt of doing the same.

1 BW teal, drake



Excited for our prospects tomorrow for what should be final hunt of the short teal season.

Sic 'em.

Sat 9/27/2025
Shell Beach La marsh
FIL Mike, son Graham, Johnny, and I with Harry
Winds N 5, very pleasant low 70s, clear skies

Noticed that after a fairly calm afternoon and evening, the north winds really ramped up overnight and it had me worried. Sure enough, as feared, it was apparent those winds blew out our birds. Saw a handful, none close enough to work, packed it up by 8:30 and headed in. Will was able to scratch out 3 around that time to stave off his own DNS. Only real bright spot, while also a bummer for me to not show him birds, is my son’s phenomenal attitude toward hunt success, particularly lack thereof. He never lets it get to him, wish I had his same spirit.

DNS


Annnnnd that’s enough of that, just another bum teal season. We’ll regroup and set sights on November preparations. Just finished putting away a bunch of shells for next Sept.

All of 5 BW teal killed on 4 hunts. We've had quite a few better teal seasons, but a few that were worse so that's that. It's worth noting, though, that some in SE La had big teal seasons with lots of birds, mostly in primo habitats right off MS River.

One such example were hunts this fella made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V3-izQw8Kg

Since a rep from the landowner passed me his name, I connected with him and confirmed he's picked up a couple of tracts that neighbor my own leased ground near Delacroix so may see some hunts near our area featured on there, for better or worse.