The mudhole came into being as Lulu's Camp's "No. 4" under the direction of this fellow, Obrey Trahan (shown in it then):
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Though it was eventually abandoned due to lack of low water access, I'm told by those old enough to know that their/his original (or oldest anyone recalls) No. 4 blind was in a better spot well to its current south, presumably (given the course of a long abandoned and grown over boat trail) on this pond:
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Obrey solved his low water problems by moving No. 4 to a wide spot in the main boat run which, I'm told, was the sight of an old seismic survey dynamite hole and know to be the deepest area of our marsh that I'm aware of. And, according to those old enough to have hunted it with him, Obrey killed a whole lot of ducks in his new location, too. Unfortunately, those who followed him did not, and the pothole, which acts as a sump for all of the boat prop related debris in the trail dumping into it, was eventually all but completely abandoned and began not just being filled from below but overgrown by the surrounding flotant.
By the time our camp took over the marsh and I took on the No. 4's rehabilitation (2007?), the hole's east "bank" flotant was nearly to the blind's dog stand and thick enough to be mucked out with a potato hoe and carted off - which I spent much of a summer's free time doing, in order to open the hole enough for decoy placement encouraging birds to finish square in front of the blind. (Intended to dig the northern "bank" back some, too, but ran out of time, energy and will.) And that project spawned "the mudhole".
Would be much better for the location's future if I'd let it grow over thick enough in dry years for the vegetation's roots to help muck out what they're anchored in and haul it away, but dry years also greatly limit where meaningful quantities could then be dumped without creating new problems. Well, that, and I'm older and lazier now.
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