Post-Season Ramblings - Spring 2026

[Rick]

Call and I made it to the marsh earlier this week, and the water's pretty much where it needs to be for June gator nesting to be safe from all but a major storm's flooding. Which is a good thing for our coming egg season.

Saw more gators than ducks of any sort but still got the itch and finished the last of my remodeling projects. Well aside from installing some hooks in the boat hide's roof supports to hold a spare "blind gun" out of the way and weather.

[Darren]

Sounds like a nice spot for a spare gun!

In our fishing outings I'm seeing native roseau patches coming along nicely so will presume ours on the lease are doing same. We've got some minor blind work to be done and tides have been up, now would be the time to get boats to blinds and knock out those efforts.......but everyone just wants to fish. We are also now finally past spring gnat season so it's safe to get out there in the bushes.

[Darren]

Paperwork (and of course fees) went out via mail today to landholder for our little club in the SE La salt marsh.


Johnny and I and my son gave the fish a try with limited success, highlights being some big fish we landed and put back after photos

Graham started us pretty early with this one on a shell reef we were catching a few trout on

redfish May 2026.jpg

Then it was my turn, thought I had a rock, then it realized it was hooked:

rods May 2026.jpg

black drum May 2026.jpg

toothy trout

trout May 2026.jpg

Raised boats extra high in the hoists, expecting some elevated tides later this week from a little low pressure system that likely puts water over the dock. It's that time.......

We're supposed to head down the following weekend for a rodeo, but TBD on what the weather outlook is at that time.

[Darren]

Caught this episode of Standard Sportsman over the weekend while cooking. Had a few quotes of note:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3izP0y ... EMrKUMrV6A



Guest, longtime hunting farm broker in the area, with the same outfit that Brent B now works for, no need to name on here as his name isn't critical to the premise:

Guest talking about potential of neighboring clubs being adverse to your own goals:

This guy's running a commercial hunting outfit, they sit in the pit every single day with the same decoys" implying that to do so is just the death of the hunting there and the areas surrounding it......

But this is the exact practice of some of the most long running/storied/successful of many of Louisiana's historic clubs. Yes the decoys were there all season, yes the blind was hunted every day, when it was like it should be/used to be, it didn't matter. And even in today's situation, success is still pretty danged impressive. See note from previous post on this: We are not playing the same game; what Ark knows of ducks, is very different from what La knows of ducks, historically speaking.

Another quote:

Guest:

Planting for ducks based on what they can afford to manipulate, or grow I should say, not for production. And I don't see that changing any time soon.

Cason S. immediately chimes in: "That's a word you try not to use a whole lot...."

[Darren]

And just like that, the load up command I use so much and that wooden platform is no problem. Training notes say I hadn’t worked on this since January with her and with struggling results at the time. Can only guess the hunt at seasons end where she and harry shared one of these and maybe some maturity have come into play.

IMG_0042.jpeg

I signed on the dotted line and the landowner cashed the check so we appear to be locked into our little club property for the three seasons to come, for better or worse. Who knows what this season holds but was easier to write the check coming off a productive season there. Guess we’ll just go see come fall.

[DComeaux]

Looking good.

[Rick]

She's giving you the "Well?" look.

[Darren]

Escalated our training program with a pretty good leap to what's a fairly demanding training ground at end of my street yesterday. Rains had creek level up a bit, never seen anything other than turtles there in all my years living here, and thankfully that didnt change yesterday.

training 1.jpg

Indy hunted-up in the tall grass very well for the muddy land retrieves and did largely fine with the water ones as well though balked at the send at the end, maybe fatigue. Saw that exact occurrence with Harry on his first rigorous hunt and recall posting on here about it. Earlier also admittedly got ambitious and tried a blind across the canal where she wouldn't take the other bank so was looking like a lost dummy.

training 2.jpg

Ended up going home and coming back with tried and true big brother H who promptly sniffed it out after some joy swimming on a hot day.

training 4.jpg

Plenty of good, some ample frustrations, just a typical dog training day

[Rick]

I'm thinkin' he's glad she balked.

[Darren]

I'm thinkin' he's glad she balked.

Poor guy, kills me to leave him behind for training Indy but its a zoo trying to coord both.

[Darren]

From opening day at what was, and continues to be, our best pond on the lease:

Nov 7, 2015

It was harry's first regular season hunt where he wasn't limited by gators and on the first few single retrieves he was solid but as the retrieves got a little longer (dead birds, but further out in pond) he started to balk and it's got me wondering if he didn't get tired and lost focus. He wouldn't even cast out by the end of the hunt which is the first I've seen of that. Once back at the camp threw a few of the birds off the dock and he was eager to retrieve and did so just fine so that's what had me wondering about the fatigue.

I recall it was 12 grays for Raymond and I about as fast as we could load, had to move the birds out the way to paddle into the little point of grass we sat on.

The look I got from Indy over the weekend reminded me of that from Harry that day for sure.

[Rick]

Acclimation and conditioning are huge. Been blessed with a situation that's always afforded the opportunity for those and firmly believe the lack thereof is the biggest thing limiting most dogs afield. Well, that and clueless owners.

(Call and I stopped for gas on the way home from our morning country round, and the counter gal asked if I'd been swimming. "No, just walking the dog.")

[SpinnerMan]

conditioning are huge.

and clueless owners

That just triggered a memory for me. I used to be heavily involved in a bowfishing club. Not a lot of bowfishing up here in February, but more than you would probably think. So the club would often do a trip to the local "chicken farm" and get some pheasants dumped out and spend the morning shooting them. Not really a fan beyond dog training, but decided to go along for the social aspects.

I rated my dog as mediocre for pheasant hunting and given how much we were paying for the birds, I didn't bring her because I didn't have the confidence in her that I wanted.

My buddy many times told how good his dog was. I had a great pheasant dog as a kid and at the time a young mediocre one with potential.

OMG, my buddy's dog was the most useless couch potato dog I have ever hunted with. He was a "very good looking dog."

The dog really didn't even know how to use his nose to find birds. Basically he just ran around back and forth and tripped over some of the birds. By the end of the morning, I really thought we were going to have to carry this poor dog back to the car.

The guys we were hunting with weren't much better than the dogs. We pushed a field to the end. When they were about 10 yards from the end of the field, they all just started congregating and not pushing the field to the very end. Anyone that has hunted pheasants at all knows they will run as far as they can and then hunker down and not move unless you practically kick them in the ass. Or you have a dog that isn't useless and does that for you.

I told them to keep working the field. Sure enough, there was a rooster that the good looking dog had to have passed by more than close enough on couple of his passes running around that he should have crossed its path and followed his nose to find it.

I truly regretted not bringing my dog. We would have got quite a few more pheasants and she would have done me proud by comparison.