2021-2022 Season Log

[DComeaux]

Love watching those Pintails work!!!!!!!

They're nothing but a tease, most times.

[Deltaman]

Yes, they are frustrating most of the time, but when they decide to commit, it is a most beautiful sight to behold from a duck blind!!!!!

[Rick]

Date: 1/12 Wed

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy

Wind Direction and Velocity: light to nil and back NE?

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: 71% waxing

Special Notes: one of our black-bellies appeared lead poisoned: no meat left, and an odd feeling green-wing crop was filled with tiny red worms

Waterfowl Activity: Next to nothing moving, ours may have been the big hunt.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Meh Big bunch of big pintails broke own but wouldn't finish.

Hunters: 1 Bruce

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: nothing moving

Kudos: Still a pleasant morning

Birds By Species: 4 black-bellies, 2 gw teal, 1 ringnck and 1 shoveller

[DComeaux]

Little red worms come are from the banks of a towns sewer plant pond.

Did they look like this? I was a sewer pond hunter at one time.

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[Rick]

Yup, yummy. On my way out the door to catch all your Rockefeller pintails.

[Rick]

Fwiw, spoke with Chad Courville at our banding bee last night, and he says his Grand Chenier teal often have them in their crops which he believes come from his ponds' edges. May well all have eaten some, and I've just not noticed.

[Rick]

Date: 1/12/22 Thur

Time: Morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to light W to light NW

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Next to nil throughout the marsh, took our black-bellies out of one op and teal out of two.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Pond hoppers and only pintails seen blew me off.

Hunters: 1, Bruce's last morning

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Lost a crippled teal that apparently got under the pond's edge.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: few ops

Kudos: made good on them

Birds By Species: 4 black-bellies, 1 bw teal and 3 gw teal

Photo Ops: Mudhole's first poule d'eau of the season joined its gallinules this morning:

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(Not having several daily has been one of our signs of changing migration patterns.)

[Rick]

Date: 1/14 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: calm all morning

Temperature: upper 40s

Moon phase: waxing 87%

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: precious little of anything moving on our end, lots of black-belliy shooting to our east.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Thankfully good.

Hunters: 2, father and grown son, Steve and Eli, on first duck hunt for either

Guns:

Malfunctions: bit of getting used to new guns

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: given the givens, none from me other than lack of ops

Kudos: The guys were much quicker getting underway than most, let alone first timers, and fine company

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies, 1 gadwall, 3 gw teal and 3 pintails

[Duck Engr]

3 pintails is a fine start to waterfowl careers.

[Darren]

3 pintails is a fine start to waterfowl careers.

Perty ones, Rick? Or the egg laying flavor?

[Rick]

Perty ones, Rick? Or the egg laying flavor?

One a nice sprig destined for the wall, unless something nicer falls in the next two mornings.and two hens.

[Rick]

Date: 1/15 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: heavy with rain cells around

Wind Direction and Velocity: zip to westerly light

Temperature: 50s?

Moon phase:

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: One of what I think of as "pregnant days" when everything seems to be sitting and waiting on a pending front.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Better than the flight and our responsiveness.

Hunters: 2, Steve and Eli again.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: A corollary of Duffy's Law: the dog you brag on is about to screw up. Yesterday's bragging on the guys' getting underway quickly put the gris-gris on 'em.

Kudos: Still super nice guys.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies and 1 gw teal

[Rick]

Date: 1/16

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clearing

Wind Direction and Velocity: STRONG NW

Temperature: cold

Moon phase: big

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Nary a duck I'd think new - or many "old" - seen. And what squealers passed on their way to Cherry Ridge apparently did so on the east end of the marsh, judging by their bags.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: thankfully good

Hunters: 2, last morning for Steve and Eli

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: No new birds, as per usual on NW fronts.

Kudos: Nice folks still had a big time.

Birds By Species: 4 bw teal, 1 mallard, 3 mottleds, 3 shovellers and 1 speck

[Duck Engr]

Speck! Good story on it?

[Ericdc]

Rick, any hope in what looks like an actual arctic front late this week? This is predicted weather for where I usually hunt in northeast Louisiana.




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[Rick]

Speck! Good story on it?

Not beyond "woulda, coulda, shoulda had them both." Came to the call pretty as could be, guys were just slow getting underway in a heck of a wind. Were from Florida and cold, so may have even had hands in pockets. But they were stoked over it.

[Rick]

Rick, any hope in what looks like an actual arctic front late this week? This is predicted weather for where I usually hunt in northeast Louisiana.




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Sure hoping it's more meaningful for us, but "we'll see..."

[Darren]

Speck! Good story on it?

Not beyond "woulda, coulda, shoulda had them both." Came to the call pretty as could be, guys were just slow getting underway in a heck of a wind. Were from Florida and cold, so may have even had hands in pockets. But they were stoked over it.

Just getting one is a winner, glad for em

[Rick]

Date: 1/17 Mon

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to light NW

Temperature: still cold

Moon phase: still big and bright

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Still nothing but a very few locals moving.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Feel good about fooling what we did.

Hunters: 2, John and Rufus

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Did a nice job on a runaway mottled and still remembered where its mate fell.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: no ducks

Kudos: nice guys

Birds By Species: 2 bw teal, 1 mallard, 2 mottled, 1 pintail and 1 wigeon

[BGkirk]

Always impressed with dogs marking multiple birds, and then remembering them. Boone has slacked in that aspect but i occasionally can remind him “ ya got another one” and he seems to recall there was more than one..
Goes to show how important the off season work is


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[Rick]

Always impressed with dogs marking multiple birds, and then remembering them. Boone has slacked in that aspect but i occasionally can remind him “ ya got another one” and he seems to recall there was more than one..
Goes to show how important the off season work is

What made it notable in this case was that we humans were all watching the chipped hen's flight and none of us had marked the drake's fall, while the bug managed to do both. Not the best marking Chessie I've had, but worlds better than me.

[Rick]

Date: 1/18 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE moderate

Temperature: colder than I dressed for

Moon phase: still BIG

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Our marsh and even Cherry Ridge was remarkably quiet, and it seemed like nothing moved high or low after LST, not even pond hoppers to speak of.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: But it also seemed like we tripped up and killed nearly everything that did.

Hunters: 2, Rufus and John again.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Our lone jack beat the bug in the big water south of us.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Nary a one from me, other than that the rest of the marsh struggled.

Kudos: Nothing day turned out to be quite something, given the givens, for nice guys.

Birds By Species: 3 bw teal, 2 gadwall, 2 gw teal, 4 mallards, 1 pintail and 1 shoveller

Photo Ops: Photo op of a photo op, John and Rufus:

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[Darren]

Perty birds !

[Deltaman]

Nice hunt for a slow morning Rick

[DComeaux]

NICE!!

[Rick]

One of those mornings that makes you wonder how it went so well.

Had a no-go banding party this evening that was probably a good thing, as we were short-handed. But learned that 6 of the birds we banded just the other evening have been shot already, to include a pintail that was killed in Mississippi.

[Duck Engr]

One of those mornings that makes you wonder how it went so well.

Had a no-go banding party this evening that was probably a good thing, as we were short-handed. But learned that 6 of the birds we banded just the other evening have been shot already, to include a pintail that was killed in Mississippi.

Not sure how many you banded but damn!! 6 already?!

I’ve wondered if recently banded ducks are very vulnerable to be killed as they’ve just seen the boogeyman up close and personal and are likely to make some changes to their routine to try to avoid that whole trapping scenario again.

[Rick]

Not sure how many you banded but damn!! 6 already?!

I’ve wondered if recently banded ducks are very vulnerable to be killed as they’ve just seen the boogeyman up close and personal and are likely to make some changes to their routine to try to avoid that whole trapping scenario again.

I thought the rough number of bands I heard from someone else with the state that we went through that night so crazy high that I'll not repeat it without confirmation from the project leader, himself. Was he who told me about the six kills and that they were from bands not yet processed into the system, which everything else we'd done before that catch has been. But he didn't want to quote that last capture's numbers until he's processed the bands and has an accurate count.

Don't know about avoidance. But it's my somewhat surprising understanding that some study(s?) indicates banding captures, like hunting mortalities, tend to lean toward the weak, for any of a variety of reasons, in the population. So, perhaps, they're even a bit more susceptible to hunting for a bit in that regard, despite wanting to avoid buffet crowds for a while. Don't know. Do know recaptures the following year sometimes occur at a bird's banding site, so the bad memory of what the project's right hand lady frequently likens to being abducted by aliens probably isn't long term.

Hoping to gather enough of a crew for a similarly large capture, only in good light, this afternoon. But it's a lot like hunting, so "we'll see..."

[Deltaman]

" Do know recaptures the following year sometimes occur at a bird's banding site, so the bad memory of what the project's right hand lady frequently likens to being abducted by aliens probably isn't long term."

Made me Laugh, Thanks!!!!!!

[Darren]

" Do know recaptures the following year sometimes occur at a bird's banding site, so the bad memory of what the project's right hand lady frequently likens to being abducted by aliens probably isn't long term."

Made me Laugh, Thanks!!!!!!