2018-2019 Season Log

[Rick]

Date: 12/15

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: WNW brisk to light and back to brisk

Temperature: chilly in the wind (40-something?)

Moon phase: 24% waning

Special Notes: 2nd split opener

Waterfowl Activity: Incredibly poor for an opener. Early "flight" was nearly non existent, followed by a long lull of nothing, followed by some, but not many, high, high, high flights from the west.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Early mallard pair acted like they knew the blind, was treated accordingly and reflex called into a fatal pass. Everything else was part of high groups that power-dove when hailed and worked normally.

Hunters: 2, father and son, Troy and Hunter (Hunter has open the second split with us for year, but the grandfather who brings him, Tommy, has aged out of hunting.

Guns:

Malfunctions: Both guys had some self-inflicted gun troubles.

Dog(s): Marsh's work, both on the chipped half of the mallard pair and the wing-tipped gray were the hunt highlights.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: If we've ever before failed to fill out on a Mudhole opener, I've had the good sense to forget it. But this morning's near barren skies are going to be hard to forget. Makes me downright fearful of the week of stale weather ahead...

Kudos: Still got to visit with Tommy, who at least made the trip, at brunch.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 1 gw teal, 2 mallards and 1 shoveller

[Johnc]

Bet that’s the high hunt on this page.

Hardly anything here and scary scattered.

[Rick]

Hope you're wrong.

[Johnc]

Saw G Cole did well speck wise. I assume wager too?

[Rick]

I think so.

Just got back from the first of our family Christmases and learned on of my grandsons and an buddy did much better than we did on family land between Creole and Camron. Lots of grays there.

[Rick]

Date: 12/16 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear to cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light northerly to moderate easterly

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: not much

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Still in the barrel as far as next to nothing moving at influenceable altitude or above, for that matter, but at least what we saw was spaced out over most of our time out there.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Birds responsiveness was better than ours, but that's not saying much. Highlight was working a pair of pins into the "shoulda been gimmes box" with the hedge speck call.

Hunters: 2, Troy and Hunter again.

Guns: Berettas

Malfunctions: Hunter's gun wasn't always striking Winchester Super X primers hard enough and Troy's would fire without being loaded.

Dog(s): Easy morning for the bug.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Just didn't have remotely enough birds to get us past our hitches, glitches and crowd control issues.

Kudos: Nice folks who at least had more ops to fluff than yesterday's long sky-watch.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 1 pintail, 1 ringneck, 1 shoveller and 1 wigeon

[Rick]

Date: 12/17 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: negligible

Temperature: cool

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Thank goodness for the first little show of squealers of our season, as all we saw was they and a very few locals.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: The black-bellies were quiet as bec croche and plainly knew exactly what the spinners were. Fooled the couple bunches we did by killing the spinners and chattering on the herding dog whistle. Also tripped a mottled pair with single quacks, but they escaped just that much wiser.

Hunters: 1 and a bunch, Clayton and his three little boys, Joe, Jack and Bubba

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS and had to kill spinners for the black-bellies

Curses: Not remotely enough action to keep the boys entertained.

Kudos: We gave it up early.

Birds By Species: 5 black-bellied whistling ducks

Photo Ops: The crux of our adventure:

003a.jpg

[BGkirk]

I don’t foresee that crew being able to hide from much anyways haha


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[Darren]

Know just what that's like from a hunt a few weeks ago. "I'm bored!"

[Ericdc]

Would have been worse if you had lots of birds with that crew.


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[Rick]

Date: 12/18 Tue

Time: morning

Location: Mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear to dense ground fog to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: SEasterly, never more than light

Temperature: sweat shirt

Moon phase: 75% waxing

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw a few more teal than has been the case, but the only little bunch of mallards I can remember seeing was wisked away half way in by power diving spoons - of which there were precious few, too.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully very good, when I was quick enough killing the spinners for teal.

Hunters: 2 old favorites, father and grown son, Harold and Mark

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Been so slow Marsh whined at the first bluewings worked and got shushed, then broke when the guns went off. Made him drop his bird and return to the stand before being sent for it, which took up enough time that an unmarked bird chipped into broken marsh east of us was never found. Later lost another in roughly the same place that appeared to have bled out. All told four teal fell in the same general area where two were lost.

Special Equipment: SOS but am killing spinners before anything gets close to them.

Curses: Still no birds, as ours was the big hunt for the marsh, and the bird likely lost to Marsh's poor behavior.

Kudos: Shot a few birds and had a pleasant visit.

Birds By Species: 4 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 2 gw teal and 2 shovellers

[Rick]

Date: 12/19 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy clouds to light rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to moderate easterly

Temperature: warm to cool when wet from mist and wind came up a bit

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Still next to no game but did see some very high flights I took to be migratory. Though that didn't last long.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: A few early mallards tried harder to get killed than we tried to kill them, but I was lucky just to bend, let alone break the really high birds seen.

Hunters: 2, Harold and Mark again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh did better than we did.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: No birds.

Kudos: Nice guys.

Birds By Species: 3 bw teal and 2 mallards

[Ericdc]

December has become my least favorite month to hunt, except for the 5 days after Christmas.


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[Duck Engr]

December has become my least favorite month to hunt, except for the 5 days after Christmas.


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AMEN

[Ericdc]

It’s no mans land for the most part, early birds are shot up and hidden and we are waiting on arctic air now.


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[SpinnerMan]

It’s no mans land for the most part, early birds are shot up and hidden and we are waiting on arctic air now.

The high today is 50

No really cold weather in the long range forecast, but they can change dramatically. Let's hope. If I believe the forecast, I won't have decent goose hunting for a month.

[Rick]

Date: 12/20 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy to rain and back

Wind Direction and Velocity: too nearly calm to moderate NW

Temperature: 50s

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Had sure hoped for better, as nothing came out of the marsh when it rained and wind didn't seem to shake anything out of big water rafts. Very few birds seen high or low.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Low little birds came on skates, and high big ones seldom even bent. Worked a very few locals, but they're onto my tricks.

Hunters: 2, Spencer and Boyd

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had an easy morning.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: no ducks

Kudos: Nice guys who've been having it even worse well SW of us.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 3 gw teal, 1 scaup and 1 wood duck

[BGkirk]

Date: 12/20 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy to rain and back

Wind Direction and Velocity: too nearly calm to moderate NW

Temperature: 50s

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Had sure hoped for better, as nothing came out of the marsh when it rained and wind didn't seem to shake anything out of big water rafts. Very few birds seen high or low.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Low little birds came on skates, and high big ones seldom even bent. Worked a very few locals, but they're onto my tricks.

Hunters: 2, Spencer and Boyd

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had an easy morning.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: no ducks

Kudos: Nice guys who've been having it even worse well SW of us.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 3 gw teal, 1 scaup and 1 wood duck

todays Thursday Rick. although I was hoping this report was yesterday’s and today’s was coming with lots of birds to talk about


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[Rick]

Might as well be Fiddulleeday.

[DComeaux]

Feel the same way........ I hope to do as well on Saturday.

[MARSH BEAR]

With Spenser around there is never a lull in the conversation.

Did you buy one of his duck calls?

[Rick]

I really enjoy visiting with Spencer, as few are as enthusiastic about life in general or hunting in particular, so it was kind of a bummer that Boyd was between us today - not that he's not fine company, too. Just not as proficient at filling long lulls. Spencer brought Doug a call made of some sort of super hard pine milled in the way back when, but I've not seen it, yet.

[Rick]

... I hope to do as well on Saturday.

Me, too.

[Rick]

Date: 12/21

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW strong

Temperature: 40s?

Moon phase: near, if not, full

Special Notes: Supposed to be making it right for some folks who scratched Tues morning.

Waterfowl Activity: About as close to none as I've seen.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: One teal flight we saw turned and came but too fast for our guns. Lone pintail must have been as desperate to see birds as we were and dropped to the call and guns from way the hey up. And a greenhead that plainly knew better got caught up in the single quack and should have died.

Hunters: 2 father, Frank?, and daughter, Lindsey

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Worked Marsh's buns off trying to find a mallard Frank Forest Gumped ("in the buttocks") and I did little or nothing to help anchor. Was last seen 10' off the marsh going behind the cane stand east of the mudhole and may still be going.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Not safe to think it can't get much worse.

Kudos: Nice folks who'll be back on a make-up hunt New Year's Eve. (Though that may turn out another curse, I'm glad to have another crack at making it right.)

Birds By Species: 1 pintail (Ed had 12 and every other blind 3)

[Darren]

Wow I thought sure mudhole would be rockin' today.......maybe not in the cards this season.

[DComeaux]

oof!! I'm at a loss for words.

[Ericdc]

They just aren’t here yet, we’ve killed 1 mallard up here for the season. If it weren’t for teal and gadwall we’d be in big trouble.


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[DComeaux]

They just aren’t here yet, we’ve killed 1 mallard up here for the season. If it weren’t for teal and gadwall we’d be in big trouble.


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We're in the middle of December! What you think, February?

[Rick]

What you think, February?

If that's when the snow finally gets deep enough to push them out of the fields to our north.

[Ericdc]

We usually do better after Christmas through the end. Thanksgiving to Christmas is always a struggle


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