Not all that bad

It's been a long, dry spell since my
last hunting update.  That's because
January was a long dry spell.  We
hunted hard, but had continuing
equipment failures and fewer
and fewer birds to shoot at.

The surprising thing was that
when I tallied everything up,
this year was tied with 07-08 (62
ducks).  The years in between
were not that good.  We also
have really put a hurting on
the snipe (39).  So it's not
a complete disaster.

Here are some pictures from
various hunts.

ofs

Magic Pee

Each hunt we've noticed fewer
and fewer boats at the launching
ramp in the morning and heard fewer
and fewer shots on the marsh.  The
December lull has been on.

Also, the water has been dropping.
ChickenFoot is no longer huntable.
So, we switched to Teal Whackin'
and Poo Water (nee North Snipe
City). In both of these, the water
is still waist deep.  [Poo Water got
renamed due to the unique aroma
of rotting vegetation in that area.]

In neither spot, did we see the
numbers of ducks, attract the
numbers of ducks, or kill the
numbers of ducks that we had
earlier at ChickenFoot. We didn't
even have that awesome of a
day at TMG WMA when Tommy
had a top draw.

Still we never got skunked.

We've had other problems with
the hunting - equipment failures.
My Baikal has had numerous fail
to fires and has lost the pin sleeve
for the rear trigger housing pin.  Not
a single gunsmith will touch it.  I
ordered some parts on-line.  Who
knows if they'll show.  The Browning
Gold is also failing to cycle.  We're
hoping a thoroughly deep clean will
solve that issue.  There is nothing
more frustrating than having a
big wad of ducks over the dekes,
pulling the trigger, and hearing
nothing.

Yesterday, Craig, Jim, and I went
back out on the St. Johns and
ended up at Teal Whackin' again.
This is a four acre pond with
lots of smartweed and duckweed
starting to emerge as the water
drops.  I got the decoys out while
the big boys camoed up the boat.
We got everything in place with
about two minutes before shooting
time.

Jim heard black bellies in the
distance, but whistle as hard as
we could they never neared us.
In the pre-dawn light we saw
a few ducks buzz through the
decoys, but could never pick them
up until they were on the way out.

Then we sat for a very long time with
nothing.  It wasn't until Jim had to
pee that things turned around.  Nothing
attracts ducks like a hunter not hunting.
Skirting our left side and along the edge
of the pond came a pair of the first mottled
ducks of the season.  I'm glad I didn't
have time to think about that and was
able to drop the drake.  Later, it was
Craig's turn and we got a blue wing
while he was "busy."

Late in the day, it was my turn.

As I stood there looking out the back
of the boat, I saw another pair of modus
bouncing along over the marsh.  I grabbed
my Duck Commander Drake call and
hit a couple notes.  They swung towards
us, went behind some reeds, and I thought
the were going to swing around and
come through.  Instead they reversed
course and headed away.  I grabbed
my Duck Commander DC-150 and
commanded those ducks to come
back.  They did and Jim dropped the
drake.

Craig topped off the day by making
an awesome retrieve on a bwt that
got deep into the reeds.

We felt pretty good to come away
with six ducks total given the
circumstances.

ofs

Update

The reason there haven't been
any hunting updates is that there
is nothing to update.  We are
in the December lull and it
is depressing.  We've eked
out one or two ducks a hunt,
but that's it.  The surprising thing
is that there are still ducks around,
but we can't get them to come to
where we are.

Try again tomorrow.

ofs

ChickenFoot

Hit the same spot on the marsh Saturday
that we did on Thursday.  We only heard
one other boat and that guy only shot
twice that we heard.  I like being lonely
on a big ol' marsh especially when we
have a day like yesterday.

Getting out there and setting up were
uneventful.  The water is still well up and
it was four feet deep where it's normally
dry land.  We set up with plants to our
back and our backs to the sunrise and
the forecasted 25mph gusts from the
east.

Shooting time was 6:25.  At 6:15, we
heard shooting (from someone else not
the neighboring boat) followed immediately
by the blackbellied whistling ducks that
always clear out of the area just before
shooting time.  Apparently, that hunter
wasn't going to let that happen to him.

We decided to try a different approach.
The three of us got on our whistles and
began calling the bbwds.  We actually turned
a group of about 20 that swung around
us and came straight at the boat.  But,
it was only 6:20 and we held fire.  We
stayed hard on the whistles and the
ducks stayed right behind us.  I had
the three of us turn our backs to the
decoys and get ready to shoot just
as shooting time arrived.  Fortunately,
Jim hollered, "Behind you!" and Stu
and I turned back around and were
able to drop two immature birds out
of a group of about eight that came on
our right.  I rewarded my adherence
to the law by jumping out of the
boat on the retrieve and landing
right on the tail of my Go-Devil
long tail.  The pain was instantaneous -
I thought I had cracked my tail bone
or another vertebrae.  But, the 5mm
waders I had on must have cushioned
the shock and I have naught but a
nasty bruise today.

It wasn't too long after that that I saw
a nice, plump duck zinging straight in
from my right.  I dropped a beautiful
drake woody.



After that, it was all teal all the time.  We
varied between singletons all the way
up to groups of a couple dozen.  The
big groups always seemed to hit us
at bad times.  It wasn't until the last
big wad (the 10 o'clock duck) came
in that Jim doubled and Stu and I each
dropped one.  I ended up limiting, Jim
5, and Stu 4.  Another big day.

Stu got a very nice drake blue
winged teal.

We breasted out 13 of those 15 ducks,
the 14 from the Thanksgiving day hunt,
the fulvous from our Tuesday hunt, and
two wood ducks from Early Teal.  It took
four POUNDS of bacon to wrap the
marinated breasts.  I was able to squeeze
all of them on the grill and cooked them
up medium rare.  They were juicy and
excellent.  We only quit eating because
we ran out of room.  Stu's bwt and my
wood duck, we plucked whole and cooked,
but - at least for me - the breasts were
much tastier.

ofs

Hen Killers

Tuesday, I took Jenny and her friend Abby
out to TMG.  We were first draw for the
reservoir and should have had an excellent
morning.  But, I had scouted the day
before and there were few ducks there
despite the conditions (topped out
hydrilla) being excellent. 

We ended up with one fulvous duck.
It was disappointing to say the least.

But, that was then.  On Thursday, Jim,
Stuart, and I headed out to hunt a "secret" spot
I had scouted the previous Saturday (after
a spectacularly failed opening day hunt.)

Few people ever hunt this area but I've
had some good hunts.  We got where we
were going with ease.  Got the decoys out
and got the boat up against some bushes.
I was shocked to find hulls in the water
where someone had hunted between Saturday
and Thursday.  [What's worse, the guys who
had hunted there had been shooting #1s and
BBs at teal.  What were they thinking about?]

We put out coots, bwt, gwt, a few woodies, and
a pinner for decoys.  I figured I'd try my mojo
teal one more time.  Wow, did we set up well.
Not only were we deep in shadows all morning,
but the decoys were set up perfectly for
ducks coming from left to right into the wind.
Never have I had so many birds want to decoy
and land.  There were times we had to yell
to get a duck to fly up out of the dekes.  They
just couldn't see us.  The wind was right too.
The decoys really looked real moving in the
water. 


We had a lot of singleton ducks come through
and a few small groups.  It was a lot of fun.
Jim and I both limited (his first). And, Stu
got a teal and a very confused and lost ringer.


The odd thing on the day was that every duck
was a hen.  Not a drake on the marsh.  Go
figure.

ofs

Hunting on the Cheap

I am cheap, not least of which because
I'm Scots.  I like to find ways to hunt
that won't bankrupt me and still get
the same results as using expensive
tools and gizmos.  To give an
example, I decided that I needed
a floating platform for my Mojo
Teal for water that was too deep
for the short pole that came with
the decoy.  In essence, I wanted one
of these without forking over the
dough.

I ended up buying an innertube
for a riding mower tire and fitting
it to two boards.  It worked really
great until Tommy shot it while
finishing off his crippled mottle
duck last year.



For early teal, I just used a long
piece of pvc conduit pipe that I
stuck in the middle of the decoys.
The problem with that was that the
water was almost deeper than the
pole. 

Then, last week, manna from heaven.
Stu and I found a large, baby blue
chunk of thick styrofoam in Sarno
Marsh.  It's probably been there since
the hurricanes in '04.  I've now rigged
it to be my platform.  The below picture
shows the block painted, but I'm going
to actually put a sheet of black visqueen
over the block and it will look just
like water.



Now I'm going to go make a homemade
jerk string and knock off Rig 'em Right
decoy lines.

ofs

Early Teal Too

Tommy and I took last Tuesday off and
went out for Early Teal to Big Bend where
we did so well on wood ducks last year.

Because the water is up so much after
the drought ending, I wasn't sure what
we'd find.  When scouting, I hadn't seen
a duck.  Still, Big Bend has yet to fail
us.

We got out and got set up fairly easily
other than finding that I'd lost the thumb
screw that held the wing on my mojo.  That
was right about the time that the wing
fell off and sank like a rock.  I decided
to just have a one winged mojo and
hope we would have stupid ducks
come by.

We really needed stupid ducks because
I put the teal we painted this summer out
there too.  They actually looked a little
more like ducks for some reason than
they had on the previous Saturday.
Fortunately, I had some wood duck
decoys too. 

The day dawned and started slow.
There were NO birds of any sort out
there.  It was eerie because there are
normally hundreds of shore birds
(ibis, herons, cormorants, gallinules,
etc.) around.  There weren't even any
red wing black birds, grackles, or the
little yellow marsh birds.  But, there
were mosquitoes.  [I sincerely believe
the person who invented the Thermocel
should get the Noble Prize.]

At one point we did see three ducks
flying our way, but they were black
bellied whistlers.  They were out
about 100 yds and passing us on the
right.  I grabbed my whistle and got
them to turn, fly over the dekes,
realize there were no cousins down
there, and then fly over the boat as
they left.  We could have easily
owned them had they been legal.
November can't come too soon.

An hour into shooting time, I saw
some wood ducks out ahead of us.
Turns out they were part of a wave
and two came right across the front
of the boat in a right to left shot.  I
nailed a nice drake and might have
had a shot at the second one if I
hadn't heard an "Ouch" from Tommy
getting his ears rung.  I gave him my
ear pro after that.

The water was too deep to do a retrieve,
so I left the duck floating safely.  Another
hour passed before another woody wave
came over.  Two of them swung wide and
then behind us.  I was hoping they'd come
back when a third one landed plop between
both wads of decoys.  Tommy wanted
to whack that one, but I made him wait
a bit.  Finally, I green lighted him and
he nailed it with one well placed shot.

That was it for the day but we hung
on a while longer.  I got worried when
my duck started swimming.  Turns out
something had it.  There was a big
splash and it disappeared for a couple
of minutes.  All I could think of was my
buddy Mike T losing one of his birds to
a gator on the previous hunt.  When my
bird popped back up, we broke down
the blind and went on a retrieve with
the boat.  I was really happy I had a
dip net.  We never did figure out what
had the duck, but it must have been
small:  only the head and the back
were a little chewed upon.  The
breast meat wasn't damaged at all.

On the way home, I did a little
scouting and kept hearing people
shooting behind us.  Turns out half
my muffler had fallen off and I was
hearing my own backfiring.  Just
got the boat back today - a well
invested $260.

ofs