2016-2017 Season Log

[Rick]

Right up front (where it's easy for me to copy), here is the template I will be using:

Date:

Time:

Location:

Cloud Cover:

Wind Direction and Velocity:

Temperature:

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity:

Waterfowl Responsiveness:

Hunters:

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s):

Special Equipment:

Curses:

Kudos:

Birds By Species:

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[Rick]

Date: 9/10

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil

Temperature: HOT

Moon phase: waxing 62%

Special Notes: Opening day of teal, and the marsh is still very high from "historic" flooding.

Waterfowl Activity: September count was second lowest on record, and it seemed it. Teal were very slow getting started, but wood ducks kept us amused. Also a fair number of, mostly fulvous, whistling ducks, but discouragingly few mottleds. Didn't hear near the usual banging from rice within earshot, perhaps because of flooding - or just few birds? Most teal we did see started out high.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had to jump on and stay on most to break them down and bring them around to our little hole, but they weren't as wild as usual for opening weekends with more banging and clanging in the area. Guys held their water well when the vanguard for our first big group dropped in ahead of the bunch, which then swung and dropped in sooo pretty it made my morning.

Hunters: The Fab Four

Guns: Crooked?

Malfunctions: First few birds were pretty expensive before some barrels were straightened, but the big malfunction was that my modified Mallard Machine, which would have helped save some ops when we were busted, wouldn't work. Went back after the hunt and learned machine was actually fine, but the fellow who checked its connection to the battery malfunctioned. Might give his pards ammo to use against him if I mentioned that it was Jarren, so I won't.

Dog(s): Young Marsh Fire, aka: "the bug," made his Mudhole teal debut and learned, to his great consternation, that he isn't allowed to retrieve from alligator deep water this time of year. But he only needed hushed a time or two before accepting his fate and settling in. Didn't catch on to picking of birds from the boat or handle as well as he'll have to on down the road, but was invaluable for rooting chipped birds out of the dense flotant.

Special Equipment: Two spinners, large and small, and the "inop" MMM

Curses: Only that it was slow enough to make the prospects for weekday hunts spooky without a serious influx of new birds.

Kudos: Was my first ever opening day play hunt, and I had a lot of fun with some guys our recent flooding had put in a bind for a place to go.

Birds By Species: 30 bluewing teal (29 males and one female - but our electrician, Jarren, IDed them, so it may have been the other way around.)

Photo Ops: The Fab Four:


Second teal of the bug's season:

[Rick]

There were three clamps on that battery, which would seem an odd number for two DC devices. I made a point of asking about the "alligator" clamps, because the spinner's are a little different style, but I should have known to ask you to take a second look, as I fell into the habit of often undoing one of the Mallard Machine clamps as a failsafe for it's switch that can be boogered if kicked by someone going in or out of the blind and probably pulled the clamp after Friday's test run.

[Bruce Yerkes]

The 'bug'.Can't wait. Hot up here in MD too, shooting 'at' some dove, and hopefully go after some resident Canada geese Tuesday, if it cools down.

Bruce.

[Rick]

Hopefully he'll be a fair hand by the time you get here, Bruce. But "we'll see..."

Good luck with those Canadas, they're sure pretty coming in.

[Rick]

Date: 9/11 (kind of eerie just to type that)

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE moderate to nil to moderate

Temperature: saved by what breeze there was

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Plenty of wood ducks working the spinners and even some mottleds finally dropped by but not as many teal as yesterday. Makes me all the more fearful for the coming weekdays.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Still mostly working better than usual from high and wide to a whole lot of fussing. Experimented yesterday with both the teal-reeded bored-out MVP that's been my standby the past however many teal seasons and a teal/gray drake/squacky big hen-reeded DC I've been toying with, and the later may be even easier to get max volume out of without locking, has more inherent scratch and appeared to offer an edge. So it was on my neck again today and gave me no reason to dig the MVP back out.

Hunters: Fab Four encore

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The bug had a couple lively cripples give him the slip, but did very well otherwise with the sort-of exception of not wanting to bring me a blown up bird. Would have lost several more without him.

Special Equipment: Spinners large and small and modified Mallard Machine was doing its thing.

Curses: Naturally wish we'd have found them all, but no complaints none beyond that.

Kudos: Passed a fine time.

Birds By Species: 27 bw teal (25 drakes and 2 hens)

Photo Ops: Our gang:

[DComeaux]

Awesome way to start the teal season.

[Rick]

We've been very lucky with how well the marsh teal have worked from far and wide, but if this little northerly wind isn't bringing birds, it could turn grim in a hurry now that the weekend pressure is off in the rice.

[Rick]

Date: 9/11

Time: afternoon

Location: east end of Gueydan west

Cloud Cover: clearing after a stormy afternoon

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE strong enough to feel mighty fine

Temperature: cool in the breeze

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Lots of birds moving when I checked the site out and the tail end of the storm was passing, much less by the time we hunted, but still should have been plenty.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Our feet stunk. Don't know if they were bumping from our blatant lack of crowd control or had just seen enough spinners already to be afraid of them, but most birds refused to work close and wanted in to our north. Found the teal MVP more effective than the teal DC this afternoon and was generally Momma kacking with it when birds came as they should.

Hunters: 4 (identities withheld to protect the guilty)

Guns:

Malfunctions: Incredibly crooked barrels

Dog(s): Most everything was chipped down well out in a thoroughly miserable, almost hip boot deep flood with a tractor rutted sticky bottom, and we wore Marsh out lunging and plunging through the crap. Also eroded his handling pretty badly working him to far falls and left four strong cripples out there somewhere. Of course, I might still be out there trying to pick up without him.

Special Equipment: Mojo dove and standard Mojo

Curses: Was killing me not to be able to finish at least some of the cripples, but we'd shot enough this morning that my gun was in the truck.

Kudos: They're nice guys I enjoy seeing for their twice a year teal outings.

Birds By Species: 18 bw teal (17 drakes and 1 hen)

Photo Ops: The bug doing the best he could in driving water too deep to run and shallow to swim:

[Ericdc]

That's not a rice field huh?


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[DComeaux]

That's not a rice field huh?


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That to me looks like a fallow field that met with a buffalo very recently.

[Rick]

Eggzackly. Was plowed fine and collected rain water which duck salad and consequently ducks then took. But the flipping flood water is still high enough to prevent drainage on what appears to normally be a gravity drain farm. There's rice on the next farm that's drawing mostly squealers, but most of the little birds apparently prefer the salad shoots.

[Ericdc]

My first year in a lease up here the rice wasn't cut until October in 2009 and it was very wet. Field was a mess and a lot of grain got left. Once the stubble started rotting we had a good 2nd split, but you had to be very careful walking around.


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[Rick]

Date: 9/12

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE? just better than nothing

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: 80% waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw a few more mottleds, and the woodies put in their appearance along with mostly blackbellied whistling ducks, but teal activity was sloooow. Had a scratch going for what seemed like ever before some showed.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had a couple singles act like they knew exactly what was up at the Mudhole, but most everything worked well - sometimes from surprising distances.

Hunters: 1, Doug, making his first hunt with our camp after a disappointing weekend in two other locations elsewhere.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh is plainly getting the hang of searching the flotant but still failed to locate one (that I may have mismarked).

Special Equipment: SOS: spinners large and small and modified Mallard Machine

Curses: Just the bird we couldn't find.

Kudos: Doug was fine company who knew and hunted with several of the people I once did when I lived in Lafayette. And he shot extremely well.

Birds By Species: 11 bw teal (5 drakes, 5 hens and 1 with no covert markings at all)

[DComeaux]

Friday can't come fast enough....

[Rick]

Friday can't come fast enough....

You might not think that if you were only with us for the first hour or so.

[Rick]

Date: 9/12

Time: afternoon

Location: Gueydan west farm middle "blind"

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: easterly too dang light

Temperature: HOT

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Didn't see as many birds as yesterday afternoon but plenty began moving both high and low in the last hour.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Couldn't see the teal decoys that were out where we hunted yesterday amidst the duck salad, so I took some nearly black old G&H pintail hens that showed up well today. Also did a better job of crowd control and most birds worked pretty.

Hunters: 4 same as yesterday afternoon with on exception

Guns:

Malfunctions: I hid my decoy bag so well I couldn't find it and will have to go back with another tomorrow to pick up. (Don't get old.)

Dog(s): Marsh is taking lines well but not casts and ate a duck head in the back of the Ranger going to the trucks. We've LOTS of work to do, but he sure beats nothing.

Special Equipment: Bigger, darker decoys and again added my standard Mojo to the Mojo dove that was out there. Had a spinner on each side of the levee, with the big one on our side, and it was the one they worked to best - perhaps because that's also the side I put the more visible decoys on.

Curses: Only that I lost that dang bag.

Kudos: Ducks came prettier, and guys shot a lot better than yesterday.

Birds By Species: 24 bw teal

Photo Ops: Started out mighty slooow:


Flood was shallower in this afternoon's cuts than yesterday's:


But no less rutted:


Managed to finish and get out well before mosquito time:

[Ericdc]

Rick I tend to think the bigger wings on the full size mojos work better than the baby and teal mojos. I've got 2 full size mojos with remotes to hunt over this fall.


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[Rick]

I've long been convinced the big ones draw appreciably better but continue to experiment when a cross wind makes it a fair test. Just wanted to note that I thought the more noticeable decoys may have been a factor today, when the difference was VERY pronounced.

[Ericdc]

Yea, we always put ours on north side of blind, obvious for south wind but we tend to be able to pull most ducks around the east or west end of blind into a north wind, and shoot them in front of us instead of facing south into a much brighter sky later in the morning.

I just try to put them slightly upwind of where I want the ducks to finish.


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[Rick]

9/12 afternoon adendum: 22 of our birds were drakes and 2 were hens

[Rick]

Date: 9/13

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: pretty clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: moderate from NE

Temperature: saved by the breeze

Moon phase: 88% waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Again just woodies and squealers for the first hour or so and may have seen our best teal flights while picking up around 9.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully still sweet. Had better luck screaming at high and wide flocks with the scratchier DC "teal than the cleaner MVP teal. Has seemed the preference has been DC in the marsh and MVP in rice, but maybe coincidence. Not ready to put either in the drawer, yet.

Hunters: 1, Rick from PA

Guns:

Malfunctions: Rick was a fine shot but so programed to watch his bird's fall and mark it that he seldom, if ever, shot again after dropping a bird, and I couldn't break him of it.

Dog(s): Marsh isn't taking casts well in the flotant, either, and couldn't find one bird in it. (Though not for lack of handling or trying.)

Special Equipment: Spinners large and small and modified Mallard Machine, hereafter: "SOS". Flirting with big spinner and mmm both did a fair bit of apparent good.

Curses: Lost two birds on the pond and probably have a gator or otter working its west end.

Kudos: Pleasant morning with a nice guy who'd not been here in 15 years.

Birds By Species: 9 bw teal (7 drakes, 2 hens, one of which was barely showing a hint of white trim yet)

Photo Ops:

Lagniappe:

[Darren]

Rick, is the DC call your referencing as in Commander? If so, stock or tricked out with your tweaks?

Think it was last year or late the season before when I switched to the stock DC teal hen call (tan/brown?) from my usual Haydels varieties for early teal. Been enjoying it for teal and big season, and so far this year it's been a champ in swaying wads big and small to give us a pass.

[DComeaux]

I'm exactly 19.79 miles SW of your blind. I'd like you to yell that out after each volley to those that don't hit the water or flotant.




Good to see you have birds to play with. Keep it rolling.

[Rick]

Rick, is the DC call your referencing as in Commander? If so, stock or tricked out with your tweaks?

Think it was last year or late the season before when I switched to the stock DC teal hen call (tan/brown?) from my usual Haydels varieties for early teal. Been enjoying it for teal and big season, and so far this year it's been a champ in swaying wads big and small to give us a pass.

No, it's a RNT Daisy Cutter tuned for teal and other squacky hens like pins and grays. Also does an ace gray drake beep.

I've had two Duck Commander teal calls, because so many folks like them that I thought my first must have been a lemon. But the second was much the same and just not what I'm wanting for teal. That said, if it works for you, it works for you.

[Rick]

I'm exactly 19.79 miles SW of your blind. I'd like you to yell that out after each volley to those that don't hit the water or flotant.

What makes you think we miss any?

[DComeaux]

I'm exactly 19.79 miles SW of your blind. I'd like you to yell that out after each volley to those that don't hit the water or flotant.

What makes you think we miss any?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!