Looking ahead...

[Darren]

That'd make a nasty bite for sure !

[Deltaman]

Y'ouch!

[Bud]

Many blue moons ago, I'd have reached for a paddle. Nowadays I'd have reached for Call, or at least have seen he was safe from a nasty lesson. Always hated weakening a paddle or losing one side of it. Still have one with both sides gone. They work pretty good finding mosquito ditches in uncharted waters and helping an old man to try and keep his balance should he find one.

Had a guy waving at us while wading toward us moons ago. We'd stand up to let him see where we were, then sit back down in our hide on public land. We spoke when he skirted too close to our setup. He kept waving and getting closer, picked up a duck, then turned and walked away. Never said a thing. He was checking for mosquito ditches with a 6' paddle out in front of him. Tried to never walk blind again, having been under the water with old canvas waders on and having to crawl out. So, paddle has/had two purposes from then on.

Thanks for taking the time to keep us posted, Rick. Thanks to WaterfowlerForum.net, too. I like Call. Keep up the good work!

[Darren]

Rick the Gueydan duck fest has come and gone; what's the latest on sightings? Are we behind the usual benchmark?

[PorkChop]

Snakes are something we really don’t deal with around here. There are rattlers in the Badlands and every once in a while, there will be a sighting in these parts, but very rare.

I have never heard of a mosquito ditch??

[SpinnerMan]

Snakes are something we really don’t deal with around here.

We essentially have no poisonous snakes in this part of Illinois. Supposedly one endangered pygmy rattler that is only in a very few places. Makes for a lot less concerning interaction when you run across a snake. Just about stepped on one the other day when I was fishing and didn't even flinch.

Very different than where I grew up in central PA where rattlesnakes and copperheads were fairly common or down in Florida where I don't even know what the snakes are but I know there are some you need to steer clear.

[Bud]

In SE GA, we hunt old rice plantations in a couple of areas out in the brackish water. The Ford(Henry Ford) Plantation has old rice
fields with levies or dikes built around them. The muck came from the river beds a shovel at a time in most cases many years back. Butler Island is another old setup kept for waterfowl and migrating birds. I'll have to search for a great picture with low water of one a great friend made himself. It may be in an old phone, though.

We don't pump our water: we use gravity and water levels. When the salinity is low, we pump water in before duck season. It is like a large wooden door that we close to keep the water. We drain the water off to allow seeds and such to grow easier. Now we use tractors to mow certain strips, like Rick is using a prop. We leave internal ditches to help drain the water off the inner areas, and they are necessary. When water sits in the ditches, they quickly become mosquito ditches. There are a few deep ones here and there to avoid. Too many eyes before sunrise cause most people to leave their dogs home. We only have a very small lottery to control gators here. Few tickets for only one gator. The mosquito ditches help them survive.

[Bud]

https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files ... k=LMXY9q1C

[PorkChop]

https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_480/public/2021-09/rice-trunk-structure-usfws_0.jpg?itok=LMXY9q1C

Saw some setups like that when I lived in Valdosta.

[Rick]

Thought I'd replied to Bud earlier, but must have effed up the posting part some kind of way???

Anyway, I only carry a paddle when in the pirogue or canoe in water too deep to pole, but the fellow who was head guide at Doug's when I arrived had one he paraphrased Galliger and called his "smackamatic" and mostly used to smack frogs he couldn't just grab, as we weren't allowed to pierce their skin in those days. (State didn't want folks shooting them with ,22s, I was told.) He was inordinately fond of it and nearly birthed a cow when I grabbed it from his truck to kill a bad snake in the camp lot. Feared I'd break that old friend on it.

My hoe handle gator stick multitasks much like the paddles you mentioned. From whacking stuff to probing water depth, albeit mostly under flotant I'm temped or trying to cross. Sometimes used for leverage to get back on top when the later fails.

Believe I was more than a little lucky to have it along to prob an old protection levee borrow ditch while looking for a nest and a 7-or-so-footer that had no nearby nest to protect put the lie to my belief that they'd not attack a person on relative land without provocation. Sounded like a deer or some such coming at me through the tall canouche/maiden cane, and I stood leaning on my stick puzzling over not being able to see it until the gator was nearly on me. Must have cracked it underhanded a dozen or so times before getting it stalled enough to switch to overhands that finally stunned it enough for me to back out. Most interesting part was when it grabbed its end of the stick during that transfer and was nearly swinging me from it - or so it seemed.

Anyway, the number of places I won't go without that stick expanded greatly after that long ago day. Though had it been the mega gator that may still live in what was then our nearby "little marsh" that broke through the grass like that, a M-60 wouldn't have saved me from death by heart attack.

(That's a whole lot windier than my lost post, which just said Call was safe in his "station" in the back of the mudboat, and that I think I have him broke of the snake killing he once thought great sport.)

[Rick]

Rick the Gueydan duck fest has come and gone; what's the latest on sightings? Are we behind the usual benchmark?

Seeing a good SWLA teal report on the fuge this morning reminded me that I'd not responded to your question about them. Issues with our "classic" truck kept Call and I out of the field much of the week, but I'm told they've been seeing a few more at Cherry Ridge. Still precious little coffee shop talk of them and nary a "T'ick like dat" in somebody's rice.

Hoped to be back in the marsh today, but the weather man says we'll be lucky to get out and run some edge off a house-bound pup ahead of the rain.

[Rick]

Ran Call in the dark to beat the rain but didn't.

Did, however, stop for hot coffee after getting wet and ran into the most reliable source in our (CR) marsh: "Still just a few little bunches." as of yesterday.

[jrock75]

Same for us in SETX. Definitely a few bunches around but I haven't found anything thick in the marsh or rice yet. We are supposed to get a buckets of rain over the next several days that is going to flood all the cut rice so they will have a ton of food at their disposal when they do show up.

[Darren]

A full 2 weeks for us to go here in La which is an eternity in teal migration timing, plenty time for them to show (or leave) multiple times in that span.

[BGkirk]

Lot to like about that outing!

Less so on the episode I mentioned; while I'm generally a big fan of that series to date, I'd rec passing on this episode.

The pass shooting hurts to watch


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[Darren]

Lot to like about that outing!

Less so on the episode I mentioned; while I'm generally a big fan of that series to date, I'd rec passing on this episode.

The pass shooting hurts to watch
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Some awful shooting in general for sure

[jrock75]

Same for us in SETX. Definitely a few bunches around but I haven't found anything thick in the marsh or rice yet. We are supposed to get a buckets of rain over the next several days that is going to flood all the cut rice so they will have a ton of food at their disposal when they do show up.

Starting to see some bigger concentrations. Jumped several hundred out of a moist soil unit on Monday.

[Rick]

Saw a little pod of "maybe teal," neither of us could be certain about while setting gator lines this morning, but all else were summer ducks.

[Darren]

Word out of SE La marshes is very few birds, not surprisingly. If anything, would rather scant numbers now than large numbers that blow out with the forecast front this weekend.

[DComeaux]

Word out of SE La marshes is very few birds, not surprisingly. If anything, would rather scant numbers now than large numbers that blow out with the forecast front this weekend.

They're taking the path of least resistance.

1725377365252.jpeg

[Rick]

Glorious cool breeze this morning and a grandson's (rescheduled by rain) football game coming up in a few hours to help herald the coming season.

Still not seeing teal to speak of and having reports of thousands batted down by "Just some squealers." Drove through a generally loaded by now Thornwell stretch at prime time and in a duck moving mist last evening, and the only "teal" I saw were of the "rainbow" variety.

Compared notes with the fellow I spent the past three mornings fishing marsh gators with, and neither of us would bet on more than "maybe". Did see young squealers still in down.

Took a super nice but new to hunting New Jersey father and grown son who'd bought a fundraiser hunt the past two mornings, which was something of a fun adventure for us, too. More of a learning curve to bolt action riflery than expected. But while a lizard on a rope may fuss some, it has little choice in the end but patience.

Even showed them the fisherman's trick for stretching a 9-footer to 14 for the folks back home:

thumbnail_PXL_20240906_145101171.jpg

[Darren]

Very cool!

Indeed the teal numbers must actually be pretty scant for now, usually we'd be seeing a lot more social media hype with swarms but that's largely absent. With all the rain we've had and more expected next week, the numbers we do have might be awfully scattered.

[Rick]

Having tagged out and picked up at CR and a couple smaller spots nearby, and having no more lines to run for a while, I took Call for a sunrise look at some recently flooded stubble said to hold thousands by a fellow who'd know what he was looking at but may have been reporting second hand - and learned another fellow who passes it often en route to his camp had pegged it with "just squealers". Well, unless the teal were staying put out of sight while the squealers bopped around and bec croix piled in.

Went from there to make a roughly 3 mile more exercise than training loop while the strong NE breeze gave us advantage over the deer flies and skeeters that have plagued us these past few weeks. Ran into dove hunters crazy enough to think that might be worthwhile that were already at the standing around BSing portion of that adventure, and were still there without having fired a shot as we neared our truck. I was NEVER that anxious to shoot a dove.

(Says a guys who's looking forward to spending 16 September mornings in a duck blind, whether teal come by or not.)

[Rick]

Grandson's team got clobbered by a much bigger one, but I did see a nice bunch of maybe 100 blue-wings buzzing a shallow flood just east of Thornwell on the way home.

[Duck Engr]

Nice consolation prize

[Darren]

Grandson's team got clobbered by a much bigger one, but I did see a nice bunch of maybe 100 blue-wings buzzing a shallow flood just east of Thornwell on the way home.

Sweet sight I'm sure! They'll have plenty shallow floods more after this storm is done with us.

[Rick]

Haven't forgotten when Ike rolled through on teal season eve and left us precious little but a flooded landscape. My slowest teal season ever - well, until last year when the drought dried up the marsh and left us without.

Then, too, past teal season storms to our east may have pushed birds our way, along with winds that made them extra sporty.

We'll see...

[Rick]

And I can't hear "storm surge" without thinking you y'all's wigeon grass along the coast, as if it won't bring bigger miseries.

[Rick]

Forgot to celebrate Call's 1st b-day on the 8th. Checked yesterday and found the "double the pup's four-month weight" (31lbs) has again worked out well, as he's now 61. Still haven't put his "crazy dog" spaz attacks completely behind us, but "kennel" redirects his flight path nicely. Focus on field work is seldom an issue.

[Darren]

And I can't hear "storm surge" without thinking you y'all's wigeon grass along the coast, as if it won't bring bigger miseries.

Ours tends to fair pretty well in storms, but that drought did it in last year. Lease partner did some research lately and mentioned that wigeon grass largely has a spring and fall growing season, so have to believe remainder of fall growth to hopefully come would mitigate any losses from today.