Looking ahead...

[DComeaux]

"Baby steps", as you've mentioned come to mind often while working with my little tornado. It's going painfully slow, or it just seems that way to me. She'll be 7 months on the 19th and I'm still trying to get perfection on obedience before moving on to other things. I've become way more forceful with corrections but she's still so puppy minded. I'm trying to avoid things I moved past with Ellie that I wish I hadn't. I'm going to put in the time needed with Remi and hopefully it'll all come together.

[Rick]

Wish I could offer words of wisdom, but best I can do is "Hang in there."

(Sweet Chereaux is still prone to remind me, "He's not like the other pups.")

[Rick]

Rice is starting to make heads, crawfish cages are starting to make piles, and this morning the Call made the shift those before him have marked true summer with by limiting standing water time to short dips and splashed and focusing the great bulk of his ventures on tall grass and rice offering the evaporative coolant of thick morning dew.

Summer's here: we'll start abducting momma gators' eggs in a week or so, combines will start blooming in the rice soon after, and Marsh Bear will as surely be counting us down to September teal.

[Duck Engr]

Feels like some downhill momentum.

Summer solstice in a week and a half!

[Duck Engr]

Whoops time got away from me. It’s next week.

[Darren]

Summer's here: we'll start abducting momma gators' eggs in a week or so, combines will start blooming in the rice soon after, and Marsh Bear will as surely be counting us down to September teal.

Love all those annual milestones. Seeing them come and pass as an indication that we're progressing toward our season instead of away from the last one, sure, but also just the fact that they happen as part of the fabric of (south) Louisiana heritage, MB's countdowns included!

[DComeaux]

YES! The shift towards fall.

[Rick]

Have spent most recent mornings picking gator eggs in marsh north of the Intracoastal and have found most of it apparently no worse and perhaps better for last year's drought in terms of vegetation. Water levels are somewhat high, but not the issue its been closer to the coast, where most alligator nests were lost to the high tides generated by the first little Gulf storm system last month.

Mottleds have been conspicuously absent or, at best, rarely observed where we've picked to date. Black-bellies held to their pattern of showing in greater numbers as mornings progressed, and there was at least a scattering of young woodies, along with a few nice bunches, most everywhere we've been, apparently taking advantage of marsh invertebrates.

Closer to home, Call the crazy pup is still that, albeit, perhaps, not quite as much so now at 10 months. I often catch myself thinking he's matured, and he often proves me wrong. A while back he was too slow in responding to my "No, leave it." And the momma gator he'd gone a no harm/no foul round with earlier this summer torpedoed across the little flood canal and tagged him on a hind leg this time. Not seriously, but he has a few small scars to remember her by.

Nice that they've healed and we can be back to making country rounds on mornings off like this one, where I can mess with calling black-bellies and he can chase them across remaining crawfish water.

[Rick]

Happy to be back in the water or crazy dog trying to catch swallows buzzing the pond for bugs?

PXL_20240708_135058537.jpg

Took him twenty minutes, by my watch, of swimming to and fro to give up on the notion.

[PorkChop]

He looks to be pretty happy

[DComeaux]

I laughed.... We're in the same boat.

I was told by a good source that the mottled duck numbers in our area are very thick with what seems to be a good hatch.

Apparently, the release of gators has raised the population in the refuge to a ridiculous number. People are having trouble crabbing.

[Rick]

Shoot, Dave, we were mugged by a big Rockefeller gator for chicken legs while crabbing there in the mid '80s. Part of why $5 a dozen live in Lafayette seemed a much better deal to a young couple fresh from "up north". (Hard to even imagine them so cheap now.)

Glad to hear someone's seeing a lot of mottleds down there and hoping I've just not been paying enough attention. Will probably seem plagued with them November 9-23.

[DComeaux]

Shoot, Dave, we were mugged by a big Rockefeller gator for chicken legs while crabbing there in the mid '80s.

This is true.

[Darren]

Will probably seem plagued with them November 9-23.

Afraid of that myself, know for sure we gave out a few passes last year in the first 15.

[Rick]

Afraid of that myself, know for sure we gave out a few passes last year in the first 15.

My biggest slip-up last season was passing on a low head-on pair of dark birds at first light that turned out to be pintail hens. Which wasn't such a bad thing. Also a few early singles that may or may not have been...

But we didn't kill anything we shouldn't have and hope to keep it that way. Knock wood.

[Rick]

Picked Lacasane (their spelling) Land Co's ag land yesterday and moved a few mottleds. Also saw my "season's first" combine at work on the way home. Summer's moving along...

[DComeaux]

Picked Lacasane (their spelling) Land Co's ag land yesterday and moved a few mottleds. Also saw my "season's first" combine at work on the way home. Summer's moving along...

Last Friday morning I saw a video from Kevin B in a combine with the caption "2024 under way!!" I could smell the video.

[Rick]

Pretty sure he's custom cutting for folks now, maybe one of the Johnsons on 99 near Niblett Rd. Heard they were the first in our area. One I saw was just west of Morgan Shores.

[Rick]

Another seasonal reminder: the Gueydan Duck Festival with our state contests is still a month away, but Bill and his Riceland crew are hosting this year's Specklebelly World (and, I think, blue snow "world") calling contest is being held a few doors (and a graveyard) down from the house today. Also now has a duck "regional" that qualifies the winner for Stuttgart's "mainstreet" World competition.

Didn't know it wasn't still held in Katy until learning I'd missed it at Lacasane Land Co. last year, but am told I've no excuse for not stopping in this year. Well, other than not knowing what I'm supposed to be listening for. (Ronquest called to invite me up to judge Mack's first speck contest some years back, and I begged off on grounds of being grossly unqualified.)

Still, hopefully, a chance to shake hands with old friends and, perhaps, make a new one or two, so I hope to stop by.

[Rick]

Another sign: just stopped by our local coffee and BS place and found a stack of LDWF mottled duck regulation and ID pamphlets on the coffee drinkin' and BSin' table. $400-$950 for first offense, yarch! Would hope the agents show more sense than the whiz kid thinking that fair, given the givens.

[DComeaux]

Another sign: just stopped by our local coffee and BS place and found a stack of LDWF mottled duck regulation and ID pamphlets on the coffee drinkin' and BSin' table. $400-$950 for first offense, yarch! Would hope the agents show more sense than the whiz kid thinking that fair, given the givens.

There's a lot of those taken every year, more than the limit. Ignorance should not be an excuse.

[Rick]

Another sign: just stopped by our local coffee and BS place and found a stack of LDWF mottled duck regulation and ID pamphlets on the coffee drinkin' and BSin' table. $400-$950 for first offense, yarch! Would hope the agents show more sense than the whiz kid thinking that fair, given the givens.

There's a lot of those taken every year, more than the limit. Ignorance should not be an excuse.

My feeling is that a fellow screws up, counts the bird in his limit and carries it out, it ought to be a case of "Don't do that no more."

[DComeaux]

Another sign: just stopped by our local coffee and BS place and found a stack of LDWF mottled duck regulation and ID pamphlets on the coffee drinkin' and BSin' table. $400-$950 for first offense, yarch! Would hope the agents show more sense than the whiz kid thinking that fair, given the givens.

There's a lot of those taken every year, more than the limit. Ignorance should not be an excuse.

My feeling is that a fellow screws up, counts the bird in his limit and carries it out, it ought to be a case of "Don't do that no more."

Same..... I would think it's a little more difficult as a guide with a blind full of unknowns.

[Rick]

Woodstorks have shown up for their annual summer visit, marking another mile stone of summer's passage. And we pushed a paddle-wheeling mottled duck from its hide in the marsh this morning suggesting their molt is underway. Clock's ticking, if ever so slowly.

[MARSH BEAR]

I think my clock stopped

[Rick]

I think my clock stopped

Hoping most of these every day squalls are missing your marsh, which I understand was already higher than desired. Know our rice farmers are having a time cutting between them.

[Rick]

The conundrum our neighborhood black-bellies present could have come to an ugly conclusion this morning. Made the mistake of not checking out the front yard before taking Call out the back door to feed our homers and then waving him to the side yard to dump. Went as usual until, instead of seeking "the spot," he hooked hard around the house to the front yard and was next seen crossing the front ditch and onto an often busy state route in pursuit of the black-belly pair. Most fortunately, there was no traffic at that hour, and my "NO!" turned him back across the ditch he's forbidden to enter, much less cross, and into the yard's safety. This time.

And still no sure thing, given the Call's occasional lapses into virtually uncontrollable, by either of us, wilding sprees. Not that he doesn't want to be good, as he'll usually break from a zooming or over-exuberant playful spell to dart into his box or, after a bit of hopping back-and-forth, sit when so bid. Just that his "spells" aren't always under my purview and subsequent control, as with the start of this morning's. No telling how it might have ended had I still been in the back, instead of the side, yard...

Conundrum, of course, being that it's not as simple as breaking him of interest in snakes or gators or most other dangers. Don't want him to fear black-bellies or chasing the crippled ones he'll surely encounter come the season - just not chase those that have become our black-bellied neighbors.

Wishing they'd never moved in.

[Ducaholic]

I feel your dilemma. Each time I take my girl into the yard and over to the Bayou for training I am on the lookout for vehicles and I live on the old highway. She has no clue what a collision with a car or truck would mean to her or me.

With that said I am much more concerned with the Irish Setter and his padna that have been snooping around and checking the air for signs of her fertility.

[Rick]

...I am much more concerned with the Irish Setter and his padna that have been snooping around and checking the air for signs of her fertility.

Only female I've owned cycled three or four times a year, instead of twice, and was a slut who'd drag the ditches for lust given a moment's opportunity. Beyond the nuisance of keeping her confined or rounding her up, she eventually found a partner and presented me with eight mixed pups to find homes for. Broke me off girl dogs for life.

[Ducaholic]

...I am much more concerned with the Irish Setter and his padna that have been snooping around and checking the air for signs of her fertility.

Only female I've owned cycled three or four times a year, instead of twice, and was a slut who'd drag the ditches for lust given a moment's opportunity. Beyond the nuisance of keeping her confined or rounding her up, she eventually found a partner and presented me with eight mixed pups to find homes for. Broke me off girl dogs for life.

My girl has not been in heat since last September. I reckon she's due. It's a pain out here in the country. No doubt about it!