sprigsss

Actually if I would have included all of them the finaly count would probably be close to 60 coots and 20 nutria. Both very good table fare.

If 12 birds were killed in a 3 man blind, there's 1 hunt, 12 ducks/hunt, and 3 hunter efforts, for 4 ducks/hunter effort. So over the course of the year we hunted 22 days, but some days we had just 1 hunter, other days we had up to 4 hunters. I counted a hunt as how many blinds we used. If there were 6 of us hunting 2 blinds, I counted it as 2 hunts, and 6 hunter efforts. Does this make sense??? I personally had 17 hunter efforts, another words, I hunted 17 days.

Second to last weekend: Nothing Spectacular but an overall decent season. We averaged a whole duck/HE more this year than last year. We killed far less mallards and pintails this year and more gadwalls and Teal. Here's our overall results: Myself: Species.....................Number..................(Drakes:Hens) Green-Wing Teal.............28.............................(20:8) Gadwall.........................14.............................(7:7) Mallard..........................5.............................(3:2) Blue-Wing Teal...............5.............................(3:2) Shoveler........................5..............................(4:1) Pintail.............................2.............................(1:1) Redheads.......................2.............................(2:0) Wigeon.........................2..............................(1:1) Canvasback....................1.............................(1:0) Ringneck.........................1.............................(1:0) Total Ducks...................65 HUnter Efforts............ 17 Ducks/HE..................3.8 Results for the camp: Species.............................Number............(Drakes:Hens) Green-Wing Teal.....................60......................(35:25) Gadwalls................................25......................(13:12) Blue-Wing Teal.......................19.......................(8:11) Mallard.................................9........................(5:4) Widgeon...............................9........................(6:3) Redheads..............................7.......................(6:1) Canvasback..........................6.........................(3:3) Scaup..................................5..........................(3:2) Shoveler..............................8..........................(5:3) Pintail..................................3..........................(2:1) Ringnecks............................3..........................(1:2) Mottled Duck.......................2..........................(1:1) Bufflehead............................1.........................(0:1) # Hunts............................22 # Hunter Efforts..................55 Total Ducks......................157 Ducks/Hunt.....................7.13 Ducks/Hunter Effort..........2.85

A group of Texas guys from Typhunters joined me for a weekend of hunting at the camp. It wasn't spectacular but a great time was had:

A quick 30 minute Teal shoot right by the camp: Same hole next morning. Again we probably hunted for less than an hour:

After shooting almost all puddlers the first split, the second split greeted us with almost all divers. I waited until 10:30 for puddlers passing on Teal and divers and only had 1 pintail. I finally ended up shooting a Can, 2 Redheads and 2 Teal to get a limit.

Was able to make 1 goose hunt this year. We had 2 flocks come in and we left with our limit of specks. They usually just leave when they get their limit of specks and let them use the field and they can pretty much shoot them out of the same blind all year.

Got to witness a North Carolina native shoot his first pintail. One guy couldn't resist shooting a nutria for the pot. Now thats some good eating right there.

Opener: I passed on Teal and divers until 9:30. I had 2 grays, 1 mallard and 1 widgeon, when the other group of guys with us were picking up their decoys, so I shot the next to Teal that came in for a limit. Brother-in-law has his limit of two grays and a Teal by 7:00. First week of the season had a great group of guys from across the country join me in Louisiana for the 2nd Annual Typhunters shootout. The shooting was fairly slow, but we had a great time.

I can understand everyone's concern with adding water to food, I believe the southern states have seen a drastic change in the migration patterns over the years. We don't get nearly the mallards along the gulf coast that we used to get, and I believe these flooded agricultural fields are the main factor. I do believe, however, that outlawing this practice would cause more harm to duck hunters than anything. If farmers were not allowed to hunt in their rice fields in Louisiana, all the ducks would pile into these safe refuges. By allowing hunting, it forces the ducks to move around. I think this would be tricky to regulate. I think if you can show that its necessary to flood your fields to grow your crops (rice fields) it should be legal. Perhaps there could be a way to prevent people from fields that are unnecessarily flooded when it comes to crop harvesting. There is no reason a farmer would need to flood soybean or corn fields, except to hunt. I believe Farmers have every right to hunt their agricultural fields cause I've seen what a single flock of geese can do to a field over night. So I can agree with outlawing some of these practices in which agricultural fields are flooded for the sole purpose of creating habitat to hunt over. However, I do believe it should be legal to hunt over fields that require flooding for the purpose of harvesting crops. I don't think its a good idea to go ahead and legalize adding food to your ponds. Once again I think this will be hard to regulate, because where do you draw the line? A ton of farmers in Louisiana flood their fields to crawfish. So should they be allowed to hunt these crawfish ponds? If so, what would stop a farmer from flooding a cornfield and saying, he flooded it to catch crawfish?

sdkidaho, they are excellent eating. The legs are full of small tendons that get hard when cooked and are much like fish ribs. The breasts are as good as any duck and the gizzards are huge.

Well, I was talking about handguns. Do you think the thugs are going to walk in and turn in their guns? I wish every woman out there would have a handgun in their purse so they could defend themselves when the rapists try to make a move. I wish all the women would have a gun and put a stop to it on the spot. I agree there are too many handguns on the streets, but laws will only reduce the number of guns honest law abiding citizens have. I'm not worried about these people being armed.

Simp, My problem with ANY gun restriction, is criminals don't abide by laws. Its already illegal to murder someone, rob a store, etc. Are there not laws on the book saying they cannot do this? There are also harsh consequences for killing someone yet they continue to do it. So why should honest law abiding citizens register their guns, when criminals will always get their guns off of the streets, do you think they're going to register theirs? If laws and restrictions would solve the problem, the problem should already be solved as its already illegal to shoot someone. I go round and round with a professor here at LSU. He's from Canada and is as far left as you can get. He beleives we should turn in all of our guns and use them like a book at a public library. When I want to go hunting for a weekend, I show up at the police station "check out" my gun, go hunting and then return it when I'm finished. I asked him if he thought I'd have enough time to "check out" my gun at 2:00 in the morning if someone decided to break into my house. He said I shouldn't want to shoot them anyway because maybe its someone thats lost, or maybe its a handicapped person at the wrong house. I asked him if he thought all the criminals would stand in line to turn in their guns, and he said they would have to because its the law. Laws are for honest people, simple as that. Why punish honest law abiding citizens when the criminals will do what they want.

First off I think one can ethically hunt deer inside a fenced in area. I know of a few places around here that have 20,000 + acres of fenced in property. The landowners felt it was necessary to do this because most of the people from Louisiana have the "If its brown, its down" attitude making it very hard for clubs to manage their property. So some people put up fences so they can manage their herds. I don't have a problem with this if they aren't cornering the deer with the fences, which it appears exactly what Jimmy Houston did. I don't have a problem with hunting in enclosed areas if you are hunting a reasonable distance from the fences and you aren't cornering the deer with it. Will I ever hunt in a fenced in area, absolutely not. I don't think thats hunting. To be honest, I was a huge Jimmy Houston fan when I was a kid. I think I have around a dozen Jimmy Houston tapes in the attic somewhere. I'd get up every Saturday morning and record his 30 minute television show. It was really the only fishing show I ever watched. I must admit I'm pretty disappointed after watching that video clip.

Mudhen, All I can see is that it depends on what they're eating. I gaurantee you I can cook you some shovelers and you wouldn't know the difference. I find the breast meat is much more tender than the teal and absorb way more seasoning. Maybe you just need a coonass to cook them up for you. Try stuffing them with jalepenos, apples, and andouille sausage and baking them in 50/50 italian dressing/white wine. I guess you guys don't eat coots either? They make one helluva gumbo!