Re: Post Season Things

[Duck Engr]

Speaking of Tony and bubbles, I saw a podcast he did this summer, and one thing glaringly stuck out to me. I think it was actually dive bomb’s podcast, or maybe Joe Weimer. Anyway, I don’t recall how it came up, but Tony made the comment “we’ll probably never pay this place off”, meaning they’re leveraged like everything else in our economy. Gives hope to the little man like me that it’ll all crash out and there will be a buying opportunity for land.

[Darren]

Speaking of Tony and bubbles, I saw a podcast he did this summer, and one thing glaringly stuck out to me. I think it was actually dive bomb’s podcast, or maybe Joe Weimer. Anyway, I don’t recall how it came up, but Tony made the comment “we’ll probably never pay this place off”, meaning they’re leveraged like everything else in our economy. Gives hope to the little man like me that it’ll all crash out and there will be a buying opportunity for land.

For further insight on how HF all came to be, listen to podcast with Aaron and Ira McCauley where they indeed speak to that, borrowing left and right to chase the primo ground in their area. Ira made MoMarsh which I presume Higdon bought out or heavily invested in so he's prob just fine. But Tony had no such side business to my knowledge.

Episode link below:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6m9vsg ... 76546841fc

[Rick]

Apparently good bunches of pintails showing in some corner of SW La rice the last few days per vids online, first vids of non-teal I've seen.

Good to hear. CR was still spooky barren of anything other than squealers when Call and I made our last lap a few days ago, and there weren't as many of them as at that time in recent years. Hope to be pleasantly surprised next trip.

[DComeaux]

I asked this morning how things were looking in the marsh in Chenier bird wise and this was his reply. "Was in the marsh on Tuesday with airboats and pretty good clouds of birds got up. Seeing pintail, spoonies, and teal". That's probably the first south American wave.

[Darren]

Habitat Flats finally sharing footage of big duck numbers, prob grays and pintails. With significant fronts/flyway-wide strong north wind events on the horizon in the coming 1-2 wks, I do like the (theoretical) setup for birds that are currently confirmed to be in MO and AR.

[DComeaux]

I've been away for a week, away from life's distraction's and aggravations. I didn't see any ducks in the Caribbean mangroves and marshes, but I did see a few Kudamundi (Coati) and many iguana. The monkey's were being shy.

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[Darren]

Real nice down there, enjoyed the one time I went to Tulum but I hear its not quite like that anymore. I feared abduction, and at one point thought sure it was happening, but I was so very wrong and it was magical (cenotes, etc. ).

[DComeaux]

Blake and I went out to the blind on Saturday to do a little work to our boat hide and get things ready at the camp. We'll be back down there this Thursday to finish up the brush work, and deploy the crab traps and decoys.

We saw a few ducks, grays and teal, but my videographer is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other so he missed some of the fowl. A group of gray ducks were standing the the mud ditch. We have very low water. (Insert happy face here)

I spliced together what Blake had shot from his phone so y'all could take a ride-along with us to the blind. Go full screen for best viewing. It's not much but it makes me happy.
I wanted to ad that in the first segment of the video you'll here Blake say OH-OH-OH-OH. We hit something pretty hard and I need to find out what's down there and to remove it if possible. On the way back in I went a little wider and still hit it.

[Darren]

Got pics of how boat hide came out? Hopefully frontal passage brought you more birds.

[DComeaux]

Got pics of how boat hide came out? Hopefully frontal passage brought you more birds.

Not yet. We just put the painted Mexican thatch on the top and sides and we'll brush the remainder Thursday of this week. I'll post pictures when we're done. The water is really low exposing more of that boat hide. I had lowered it last year just a bit but I'm afraid to go too low in case we get a water rise.

[Rick]

Given a halfway decent fog, I could do 360s "crossing" that open flat.

[DComeaux]

Given a halfway decent fog, I could do 360s "crossing" that open flat.

LOL...Make a left turn at a post with reflective tape and stay straight for 300 yards.

[Rick]

...and stay straight for 300 yards.

There's the rub...

[Darren]

There's the rub...

Absolutely.

If anyone has doubts, just try it yourself sometime......a straight line A to B by blind "feel" is puzzlingly difficult in the fog.

Have told it before on here I think before but will always recount a hunt with a buddy in HIS boat so he was at the wheel, I was navigator....and we did a slow circle and encountered the very boat we'd just passed, he thought it to be someone new.

Also navigating open water (Lake Pontchartrain) in fog.......I've never been more doubtful of a GPS's accuracy when pit against my own gut/feel for our heading......the GPS is never wrong, your gut is.

[Duck Engr]

Yep. I was traversing a very windy and flooded river years ago in the dark and fog, not paying attention to my gps because “been down this thing a hundred times”. Ended up so turned around after hitting a dead end wall of buckbrush I found myself going back upstream for farther than I’ll admit here…

[SpinnerMan]

I had a short 50 yard row diagonal across a small lake. Got very confused when I nearly ran ashore on my right. Made more of a right hook than a straight line.

It's not that different then spending the day in the woods when it's snowing heavily. My dad dropped me off because he didn't really trust me driving yet in that kind of weather. I hunted this big flat section halfway up the mountain. After spending the morning wondering around not really paying attention to where I was. Been here countless times. Time to go. Looked around to get my bearings. Couldn't see the mountain to the east or the drop to the west. Picked a direction and just started to walk. Sooner or later I will hit a landmark. Finally came to a valley falling away the wrong direction. A mile or more off of where I wanted to be. But I knew it would eventually lead me to the road I wanted. That was safer than trying to walk a long straight line to where I meant to be. I finally came out to the road only about 2 miles from where I wanted to be.

Very strange feeling to have absolutely no clue which way is which when you are somewhere you have been countless times.

[DComeaux]

I saw my first woodcock of the season this evening (November 11th). Is this a sign of things to come?

[Darren]

I saw my first woodcock of the season this evening (November 11th). Is this a sign of things to come?

It's on!

[DComeaux]

Blake and I got the crab traps set and brushed then boat hide and blind. We saw a few teal and gadwall, nothing spectacular. We'll set the decoys in the morning and try to find some redfish. The water is very very shallow. I hope we get a little rain in the near future.

Before

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After

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There was an airboat doing land survey across from our boat landing and they pushed this little gal to the ridge.

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[Darren]

Brushing looks good!

[Duck Engr]

Wow nice work on the blind Dave!

[DComeaux]

I don't think I've mentioned this thing with Remi. To my surprise she was diagnosed with heartworms back in Late October or early November. She was in an early stage with the minimum count of adult worms counted on the slide, so I decided to hunt her this season rather than starting the kill then and having her miss the entire season. She had and still has no outward signs still today.

She started the ProHeart 6 preventative @ 6months and most recently changed to ProHeart 12. I started the new protocol for eradication this past Friday and will continue this for 30 days. It involves two gut worming liquid applications by mouth 7 days apart and 2 doxycycline tablets twice a day for 30 days. I have an appointment for the half kill deep muscle injection on March 24th. That'll be monitoring and a checkup during a 30-day period and then the last injection at the end of those 30 days. Then another 30 day no activity period following that last injection. So, by the end of May we'll be done and she can run free.

She is so high strong and anxious that I have no other option for a vet visit but to sedate her a bit so she can get the shots she needs. I tried without 3 times and one with not a high enough dosage. I left the office twice without getting her shots needed or blood drawn. This is something I was wondering about with her as I had no issues with Ellie. She'll have to be knocked out for a short time during the deep muscle injections. They're too close to the spine near her rear end for a wild child without sedation.

The makers of ProHeart will pay $1000.00 towards this treatment which will hopefully cover most of it. I wasn't looking forward to this but I'm glad it's started. I went through this with Ellie. I forgot to mention that she had stepped on something a week ago and had a very swollen and painful right front paw. I've been soaking it in warm epsom salt and it's healing up quickly. This in itself was a chore with this wild animal.

She's like a wound-up rubber band, and a very picky eater.

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[Rick]

Well, hell. Sorry you're both going through that, and trust/hope the new official treatment course is less dangerous than the old arsenic one.

[Ducaholic]

Glad she's on the mend!

[Deltaman]

She sure looks healthy Dave, and hope you can get the HW's knocked out soon. Damn mosquitos