Teal Season

[MallardBay]

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Opening Weekend

Finished blind prep work last weekend, just had to set decoys Friday afternoon. Decided to hunt our biggest water on the property to stay away from likely gator habitat in order to work my pup. Just made 2 years last month. Compounded by low prices, I decided to not fish them this year. Last year removed 95 in a week's time. Scary how many are out there that we don't see on a daily basis. At any rate, plenty of teal moving for myself and my 2 young guns for the weekend hunts. Hunted same blind last year for the pups first hunt and happy to report the difference a year makes. Of course, not by accident. Was able to get him a solid foundation with yard work and prepping for HRC and AKC Hunt test in the off season.

Easy 18 by 7:05 Sat

A little finicky for Sunday. Told the boys that once a little sun would hit the decoys they would finish better. Sure enough they knocked down 4 out of one flock and finished with 3 out of last group for our 18 by 7:45. Had the youngest (13) calling the shot all hunt. He didn't care for the pressure but it's good prep for himself one day following in his forefathers footsteps. He is ate up with it as some say. Definitely learned alot about hunting and not just shooting being engaged in the design making.

[Darren]

Very nice, thanks for sharing !

[Deltaman]

Great opening weekend

[Rick]

That's one Chesapeake looking Chesapeake. And it sounds like the two-legged pups are well on their way, too.

[don novicki]

Fantastic. What a great dog.

[MallardBay]

Saturday Sept 26

Gave up last weekends blind to another guide that had slow hunts during the week. I thought it had more to do with the fields not pushing birds to the marsh. At any rate, moved to a platform blind we built during the last drought when access was limited to only the deepest of our flats. Unfortunately, chose to leave the dog at home with gator possibilities but nevertheless a real pleasant morning.

Took till 8:30 and had to shoot quite a few on the pass but given the choice I'd rather shoot blue wings in the fall with a 28 gauge versus anything else. Boggles my mind when people speak of passing teal for big ducks during big duck. Of course that's much rarer to hear now. Mostly a duck is a duck, even at our place.

18 teal

[Darren]

Very nice. Still seeing lots of bright blue patches, presumably the early-moving bulls ahead of the rest.

Seemed like reports were largely slow from rice country to me end in SE La for the closing weekend; wondering if the migration is just behind and our week missed a good push.

[MallardBay]

Very nice. Still seeing lots of bright blue patches, presumably the early-moving bulls ahead of the rest.
Wondering if the migration is just behind and our week missed a good push.

Very likely. Saturday's take was 15 males and 2 females and 1 juvie male. Only saw a couple shoveler and of course resident mottled, woodducks, and black bellies the two weekends I went out. Most years, we see a few pintail, and even saw a ring bill last teal season.

[Rick]

We were treated to a lone pintail that I took to be an eclipse drake making a low pass over the spread one morning. Other than that, however, our only early birds were a couple of spoons granting the four teal they were with a pass.