Duck Hunting Forum banner

T'was a decent week......

4K views 118 replies 34 participants last post by  bighop 
#1 ·
Well, with the migration being late, we knew we would have to work hard to stay on birds. That proved to be true. Duck numbers were 10~15% of what they should be right now...and that's being generous. But we did manage to put together some decent hunts, though we did have to reach deep into the bag of tricks and pull out some old tried and true tactics to put birds on the straps. :wink: Needless to say-we needed that arctic blast that rolled through on tuesday pushing lows down to 34* at the camp. First mistake I made was looking at the weather forecast for a week of mild weather and not packing enough warm clothes. Luckily Our cousin was coming out to the camp on Monday and he brought extra warm clothes for us. We picked up quite a few ducks with the frontal passage as large flocks of greenwings and shovelers could be seen in the marshes weds. along with some smaller flocks of cans and redheads too. We saw Larry Reynolds doing the flyover survey on weds.....I wonder what his report will bring as far as migration news?

First mistake Woods made was a doozy, a freak accident with the cane knife. He was stopping to cut willow poles for the trot line on the way down form the launch to the camp, and as he was walking on the bank, his foot got caught on a limb or log or something and he tripped with the cane knife in his hand. As he was going down, he tossed the cane knife (which had been sharpened for this trip to a knife edge). The cane knife bounced off a sapling or a limb or something and hit is left hand as he was falling slicing his left pinkie to the bone and putting a good slice in his ring finger too. That whole day's worth of activities had to be put on hold to deal with the medical emergency. I had to hurriedly unpack the big boat and throw stuff on the camp deck and then we left for the launch to go the the ER. We left the camp at 11:30am and made it back to the Indacamp at 430pm. Luckily, our buddy's 20 year old grandson made the trip with us and stayed at the camp to straighten out the mess on the deck and tend to my dogs while we were gone. Woods needed 6 stitches in his ring finger and 4 in his pinky. Pics. later on that....I was walking around outside and the wind picked up to 20 knots in town. I was hoping it was a good sign. Supper thrusday night was a quick microwaved plate of left over jambalaya I brought from the house. no pics. though.

So..after a hectic start to the week and a day behind on projects, we started early on friday to make up for lost time. Woods was good enough so that he could drive the mud boat and go find some birds for us to hunt on sat. I set the trot lines with the grandson helping me, then we cut brush to make the blind. after that it was time for Our annual opening eve steak dinner!


Buck's Onions were ON TIME!!! :eek: Thanks for sharing da secrets Buck!!!! :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: Much apprecieated my friend!!

Ribeye steaks, Buck's onions, and Camp hashbrowns....
 
See less See more
3
#4 ·
Woods found the birds for us, but come Sat. morning, we had some young kids move in on us and they were shooting at anything that flew by 120 yards up. I lost count of how many shots they fired off, but it was north of 150. needless to say, we could not decoy any birds-even though we were where they wanted to be- because of the constant skybusting all morning. Then when the duck flight slowed, the started pot shooting coots. We did manage to decoy some pintails after they lost water where they were set up and were forced to leave. Saturday was Redhead Day. We saw a lot of them and we all shot our two. I got a snappy double on drakes out of a flock barreling past the blind and shot a Drake Canvasback on a crossing shot at 35 yards against a 20 knot wind. I added a greenwing that snuck in low behind the blind. Colt passed on numerous opportunities waiting on different birds. we ended up with 8, Woods and mhn got 5.

view from the blind...

Not a bad run of openers going back 7 years, We always managed to get away from the opening day crowds, but this year we had someone move in on us and mess up our hunt. It was a repeat on Sunday. Bayouboy left the camp sat, afternoon and since we had 2 two man blind built, Woods decided to sleep in and nurse his wounds while I took mhn to one of the blinds. we did not kill a bird....I think the kids shot north of 200 rounds that morning and after about 2 hours, me and mhn decided to call the hunt, regroup, cut some more brush and move for monday. We found a better spot for monday and put together a nice stringer of birds. 10 of a possible 18 and should have gotten our limits...also had the first ruddy bagged for the Indacamp. We had a rookie out at the camp and as I was re setting two decoys in the spread that were banging each other when the tide flipped a lone ruddy set in the kill hole at 20 yards. I called out to take it because I could see it highlighted with the sun that it was a ruddy. I hope to bsgone this season and do a taste sampling.

Our buddies birds from their blind that day...
 
#5 ·
Oh...sat. night we had white beans and salt pork over rice with pepper laced fried pork chops. when we ran the trot lines after the hunt on saturday, we picked up a 5# flathead catfish, and 15# of blues and channel cats. we fileted the flathead to add to the pile for the fish fry on sunday night. :thumbsup: We cooked at our buddies camp Sat. and Sun. nights and I did not have my camera with me either night.

Sunday we had fried catfish, redfish, speckled trout, and bass along with steak fries. Our buddy brought 8# of fish and we ended up not frying all of it that night.

Being that Woods was injured and I had to pick up his slack all week so he could keep his cuts dry, we did not run the lines as often as I would have liked and only got about 25# total on the lines.
 
#6 ·
I got some of the pictures mixed up....this was our hunt monday....me,woods, and mhn:


We ended up with 9

mhn left monday mid-day and Indafire and the rookie came out to the camp and hunted with us on tuesday. This is tuesday's birds and the day we shot the ruddy:


I thought I'd seen it all until we witnessed an off shore boat try and navigate the cut in the marsh to hunt a duck blind.... :rolleyes: :fingerhead:

they figured out real quick that it ain't happening when they hit the silted at the end where it dumps out into the pond and almost got stuck. :help:
 
#8 ·
This is good stuff Swamp. Glad yall were able to scratch some birds out. Hopefully Woods' wound clears up soon. Also, I've never seen a red head not fully plumed. Pretty neat to see them speckled like that. By the time they come here they are solid.
 
#10 ·
Tuesday we had good 10-15 knot winds and had a decent hunt considering we were hunting the same birds since sat.
Tuesday night the Actic front rolled in. the temp dropped from a high of 80 to a high of 52 in 24 hours. We had 20-25 knot winds tuesday night building to 35-40 knots by morning. there was a gail force wind advisory thru wed. at noon. we elected to sleep in, get up at 7am and eat a big breakfast then leave out for the blind once the wind let up to 20 knots.

tues. afternoon's birds..


Tues. night we had Shrimp Creole over rice and we fried the left over battered fish...

Shrimp Creole inda pot:

Hanging out by the fire:


The rest of the fish...


Dat's steen's dipping sauce on dat plate John.... :wink:


Weds. afternoon's birds and thursday's birds...
 
#12 ·
Weds. morning when we woke up at 7am to gail force winds and 3-4 ft. seas in the channel, we decided wisely to wait until the winds eased up to hunt and used that time to make a big breakfast.....we had "Shrimp and Grits" with the left over shrimp Creole.... :yes: I made a big pot pf grits tuesday night and spread them out on a sheet pan to cool in the ice chest, then the next morning I cut 5" X 5" squares and fried them in bacon grease...then covered them with the left-over Shrimp Creole. We had Venison breakfast sausage on the side with toast. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Shrimp and grits...

Venison Breakfast sausage...

 
#14 ·
While I had the camera out, I took some camp pics...that is one tired dog in the blue kennel!!



Weds. night I warmed up some pre-cooked Smoked Duck and Cauliflower Soup and baked some biscuits. I can only bake 4 of the grands biscuits at a time...went ahead and baked the other 4 and fried 1# of Goose breakfast sausage to make sausage biscuits for inda blind thursday morning...



Goose breakfast sausage:


Thursday and wednesday's birds:


over all...not a bad week fellas....except for the medical emergency. I told Woods he ought to go ahead and cut his middle finger and his thumb just to get it out of the way. He sliced the knuckle on his index finger last season if you remember that.....
 
#17 ·
tmclaimerFL said:
This is good stuff Swamp. Glad yall were able to scratch some birds out. Hopefully Woods' wound clears up soon. Also, I've never seen a red head not fully plumed. Pretty neat to see them speckled like that. By the time they come here they are solid.
thanks guys...

Woods' stitches come out in 3 days, but it will take a while for him to totally heal. His fingers are a little tender right now especially if the beak of a coot decoy hits the tip of his finger... :lol3: about put him on his knees picking up deeks thursday morning!

We saw a lot of birds still in molt. the pintails are late as well as a lot of the greenwings. No doubt the breeding was late this year....
 
#19 ·
Botiz630 said:
Looks like a good time, Swamp. And it sounds like Woods is as accident prone as I am.
:lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: that was a running joke around camp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3: :lol3:
 
#22 ·
Birds shot included Canvasbacks, pintails, mallards, gadwalls, widgeons, spoonbills, greenwings, bluewings, mottled ducks, redheads, and the lone ruddy duck-a first for the Indacamp. No bands for the first week this year which breaks our streak of 4 seasons with a band the first week....
 
#24 ·
Indaswamp said:
Birds shot included Canvasbacks, pintails, mallards, gadwalls, widgeons, spoonbills, greenwings, bluewings, mottled ducks, redheads, and the lone ruddy duck-a first for the Indacamp. No bands for the first week this year which breaks our streak of 4 seasons with a band the first week....
Funny that y'all dont kill any ruddys. I saw several flocks of 10+ birds in each flying around on one of the lakes here the other day. I kill a couple every year.
 
#25 ·
tmclaimerFL said:
Indaswamp said:
Birds shot included Canvasbacks, pintails, mallards, gadwalls, widgeons, spoonbills, greenwings, bluewings, mottled ducks, redheads, and the lone ruddy duck-a first for the Indacamp. No bands for the first week this year which breaks our streak of 4 seasons with a band the first week....
Funny that y'all dont kill any ruddys. I saw several flocks of 10+ birds in each flying around on one of the lakes here the other day. I kill a couple every year.
We see a few every year, but this is the first one that we have had the opportunity to shoot.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top