2019-2020 Season Log

Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Jan 12, 2020 4:20 am

BGkirk wrote:I’d sure like to get you In our marsh to see if your bwt momma hen call would work on our locals


Nothing to it but a steady "ah-ha, ah-ha, ah-ha..." begun when they're headed your general direction and repeated until you either shoot or don't. I've not been able to get a blue-wing in the hole with spinners running for weeks, but am still running them to pull teal off their more open favored courses, shutting them off when the teal push, kacking like crazy until they turn to it (or don't) and momma calling from there on in.

Believe it's steady beat has the same, perhaps mesmerizing, effect as unbroken single quacks often do for our mottleds and localized mallards. Might not make them any more apt to land in a spot they're afraid of, but often enough toll close enough, anyway. 'Least until they've been burned by it.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Jan 12, 2020 4:27 am

Johnc wrote:Serious wind. I got too blind. Orange sticks. Decoys all over


Not at all surprised by that. Was somewhat surprised my marsh specks were still in place, even though they're bungied to stakes sitting in three-foot-long pvc "roots" planted into the flotant. Pulled my spinners for fear they'd me ruined and glad I did.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Sun Jan 12, 2020 12:36 pm

Date: 1/12 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE brisk

Temperature: colder than the 40s are supposed to be

Moon phase: big

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Hoped for NE wind big duck show didn't happen: teal and pintails came as singles, mallards acted iike localized pairs and the spoons were the only thing we saw as a bunch.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Got lucky with most of what we saw.

Hunters: 2, Tim and Dennis again

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Did a nice job with a chipped teal that went a long way before putting in on an otherwise too easy morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Ours was the "big" hunt for the marsh.

Kudos: Nice guys at least got to shoot a bit more than yesterday.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 1 gw teal, 3 mallards, 2 pintails and 2 shovellers
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Mon Jan 13, 2020 12:28 pm

Date: 1/13 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: Hazy with intermittent rain

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light to mod

Temperature: 50s

Moon phase: n/a

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Lots of teal to our east and even a few more ops than has been par for us. Next to no big ducks seen high, low or sideways.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Tried taking our green-wings on the power-dive before they'd head east and hit them one at a time. Momma kacked our blue-wings in groups of four and three and killed them all.

Hunters: 3, Ernie, Jim and Beau from SC

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh lost a tipped green-wing in deep water southeast of the blind.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just the lost bird and that I couldn't show my guys the kind of shooting the broken water blinds enjoyed.

Kudos: Nice morning with nice folks.

Birds By Species: 7 bw teal and 3 gw teal
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Mon Jan 13, 2020 2:23 pm

The teal are catching hell this year.

I had noticed our most northern blind's boat was out yesterday and was the only one hunting, he took 2. Our retired guy hunted this morning and took 2. I'm trying to get out of the office to hunt Friday and Saturday and hauling all of of stuff out on Sunday. For me, it's time to end this mess.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Mon Jan 13, 2020 4:57 pm

DComeaux wrote:The teal are catching hell this year.


Not at my blind. Green-wings have lagged behind mallards at the mudhole since early in the first split, and not because there are a lot of mallards.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:19 pm

Rick wrote:
DComeaux wrote:The teal are catching hell this year.


Not at my blind. Green-wings have lagged behind mallards at the mudhole since early in the first split, and not because there are a lot of mallards.


Seems I'ts the main birds I've been seeing on straps all season on the internet down here and it came to mind when I saw your take today. When one of our camp neighbors, who hunts north of 82, did kill a couple it was BW, GW and ring neck. They seemed to have many of the latter hanging around this year.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:18 pm

Date: 1/14 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: fogged in all morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: Southerly nil to light to nil to...

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw a pair of likely local big ducks pass to our east without response to call and another to our front that turned well short of the pond and couldn't be coaxed into showing themselves again. Also glimpsed a little pod of jacks passing at the edge of vision behind us. And that was our morning.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Whistled until we were likely all sick of it before giving up on that sometimes useful fog ploy.

Hunters: 3 from SC again, Ernie, Jim and Beau

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): No need for the dog wash or kennel time to dry before getting back in the house.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Third scratch in 14 seasons at the mudhole.

Kudos: Nice visit with nice guys who took it better than I did.

Birds By Species: Not just DNS, but DNTAS (did not think about shooting)
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Darren » Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:43 pm

The dreaded DNTAS !! Can't say I've ever logged it as such in my own record keeping, but can think of a few hunts that were indeed DNTAS instead of DNS.

Glad those fella's shot a few yesterday. Did east end do anything or whole marsh was shut down?
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Tue Jan 14, 2020 1:48 pm

This really saddens me.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Tue Jan 14, 2020 5:58 pm

Darren wrote:Glad those fella's shot a few yesterday. Did east end do anything or whole marsh was shut down?


For having come all the way from South Carolina, they took their licking well. Said they were used to it. Still ate my lunch not to be able to show them better.

Clyde had the big hunt with two jacks and a green-wing. Gabe had a jack, I think Ed had a pair of little ducks and heard Issac found a crippled mallard in his run on the way out. No one hunted the back blind, so I think mine was the only scratch in our marsh.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:04 pm

Date: 1/15 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: fogged in again until after 9:00, and then nothing moved, or I'd have broken curfew

Wind Direction and Velocity: southerly not enough

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Got to see a single and a small group of blue-wings cross the pond west to east, a pair of jacks cross south to north just wide of the west spinner and a single and pair of big ducks swing wide of the pond.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Teal and jacks passed while I was whistling, but none turned. If big ducks passed long after I'd given up on the whistle and didn't miss a beat when I called.

Hunters: 2, FIL, Sam and SIL Chris. Chris, now 47, hunted with me fairly often when he was in high school and I was running big white spreads.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Didn't need rinsed or dried before coming in the house.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Lightening just struck twice in the same mudhole.

Kudos: Chris and I had a number of mutual friends to visit about.

Birds By Species: DNS As the otherwise realistic ops were too fleeting for unpracticed guns to get underway, and I wasn't going to shoot without them.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby SpinnerMan » Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:26 pm

Maybe you all will get a little help. After the highs being mostly in the 40's and 50's even some 60's back around Christmas, from Saturday night through Wednesday morning the temps will not reach the 20's. That will reduce us for 100% open water to nothing but rivers and cooling lakes. Probably even freeze up the slower moving rivers. Not much snow, but at least it will stop looking like spring time with mallards on all the retention ponds. We should be froze out for the rest of the month. Now if we could get a little snow, I might actually go out goose hunting for the first time since November 17th :shock:
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Darren » Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:26 pm

Yowza! Looks like much the same for tomorrow over there, Friday looks like some E wind and a little cooler
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:53 pm

SpinnerMan wrote:Maybe you all will get a little help. After the highs being mostly in the 40's and 50's even some 60's back around Christmas, from Saturday night through Wednesday morning the temps will not reach the 20's. That will reduce us for 100% open water to nothing but rivers and cooling lakes. Probably even freeze up the slower moving rivers. Not much snow, but at least it will stop looking like spring time with mallards on all the retention ponds. We should be froze out for the rest of the month. Now if we could get a little snow, I might actually go out goose hunting for the first time since November 17th :shock:


Appears that front will get here just in time to make picking up decoys, denuding the blind and otherwise buttoning up the mudhole a PIA Monday. So it goes...
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby DComeaux » Wed Jan 15, 2020 4:36 pm

Siting here shaking my head side to side.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Duck Engr » Wed Jan 15, 2020 4:53 pm

Ouch. I was about to ask how much longer the abuse was going to last, but I see you’re down to 4 mornings.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby SpinnerMan » Wed Jan 15, 2020 4:59 pm

Rick wrote:
SpinnerMan wrote:Maybe you all will get a little help. After the highs being mostly in the 40's and 50's even some 60's back around Christmas, from Saturday night through Wednesday morning the temps will not reach the 20's. That will reduce us for 100% open water to nothing but rivers and cooling lakes. Probably even freeze up the slower moving rivers. Not much snow, but at least it will stop looking like spring time with mallards on all the retention ponds. We should be froze out for the rest of the month. Now if we could get a little snow, I might actually go out goose hunting for the first time since November 17th :shock:


Appears that front will get here just in time to make picking up decoys, denuding the blind and otherwise buttoning up the mudhole a PIA Monday. So it goes...

Saturday I'm on my way to Florida. I will either be really happy I'm walking on the beach or pissed that the geese finally showed up and I'm 1,000 miles away. If they do, I do have a couple vacation days I can use when I get back for the last few days of the season.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:42 pm

Hope you can get some good out of it. Be nice to finish with geese the way you began this year.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:51 pm

Duck Engr wrote:Ouch. I was about to ask how much longer the abuse was going to last, but I see you’re down to 4 mornings.


Morning forecast appears more of the same. But I'm hoping to be able to at least see a few to squawk at Thursday.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Duck Engr » Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:59 pm

Fingers crossed for a little more action for you tomorrow.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:13 am

Rick wrote:Morning forecast appears more of the same. But I'm hoping to be able to at least see a few to squawk at Thursday.


See that I've even lost track of time in the fog, as I meant to write "Friday". No breeze at all at our house this (Thursday) morning, just more fog...
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby SpinnerMan » Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:09 am

Rick wrote:Hope you can get some good out of it. Be nice to finish with geese the way you began this year.

Definitely would be. Regardless, I had a really good year even though it was heavily front loaded. I missed a nice 8 point or it would have been a great season.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:50 pm

Date: 1/16 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: fogged in most of the morning again

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm

Temperature: t-shirt

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Wonder of wonders, we actually saw a few, mostly little, ducks. More than a few if high jack flights counted.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Whistled continuously until the fog finally thinned, and everything but the jacks worked as we'd wish, except for a pintail pair broken down and around that was cut off by and scooted off with a spoon.

Hunters: 2, young guys, one a plainly new hunter but the other more experienced and quicker getting underway

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Plainly glad to both working and able to get onto the flotant to take a dump.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: First op of the day was a mallard that floated in sweet as could be and left unharmed when one guy missed, the other didn't shoot for unknown reason and yours truly tried to stop its escape with an unloaded gun.

Kudos: Nice guys and we didn't scratch.

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 2 gadwall, 1 gw teal, 3 ringnecks and 4 shovellers
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Darren » Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:15 pm

Rick wrote:Curses: First op of the day was a mallard that floated in sweet as could be and left unharmed when one guy missed, the other didn't shoot for unknown reason and yours truly tried to stop its escape with an unloaded gun.


Coming off of two days of not even shooting, can't imagine that didn't sting something awful.
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Deltaman » Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:55 pm

Glad to see your luck changed Rick, know it has been frustrating!
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so"
Mark Twain
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:40 pm

Gonna sound silly, but I'd changed hats Tuesday morning and actually stopped in the drive before leaving for the camp this morning, went back in the house and swapped back to the one I had been wearing. Now, I'm not generally superstitious, but you can guess which hat will be on my noggin the next three mornings...
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Deltaman » Fri Jan 17, 2020 8:05 am

Made me laugh Rick, but I get it!!!!!!
My wife washed my favorite fishing hat last summer, and the next few outings were slim in terms of our catches.........couldn't help but rag her and tell her she washed the "lucky" out of my favorite hat :lol:
Hope this weather change will be a positive impact on your last 3 days of the season!
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Rick » Fri Jan 17, 2020 12:33 pm

Date: 1/17 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: easterly fairly strong

Temperature: 60s

Moon phase: 50% waning

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw but one little bunch of teal and precious few big ducks.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Grays and teal came to die, but a black pair worked as cautiously as local mottleds.

Hunters: 2, Ernie? and Steve from Ohio

Guns: Both were shooting 16s, one a Wingmaster and the other a Model 12 - thinking about taking mine tomorrow, just for the hey of it.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had a good day.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Just the lack of opportunity.

Kudos: Nice guys and the black duck was a treat for me.

Birds By Species: 1 black (fifth for the mudhole), 2 bw teal, 2 gadwall and 1 shoveller

Photo Ops: True/Yankee black duck:
002a.jpg


017a.jpg


019a.jpg
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Re: 2019-2020 Season Log

Postby Darren » Fri Jan 17, 2020 12:36 pm

Wow!! Very cool!
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