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!

Okay, I see now, I forgot I had the robo image in that location. I stopped posting the pictures on the website and started uploading them to photobucket.

Lol, that is pretty funny right there. Where did you get that picture from?

Depending on how big the crack is you may be able to fix it with some silicone type stuff. I wish I could think of the name of it but I can't. Its black and comes in a tube just like silicone. Its often used to seal flashings by roofers. If I can think of the name of it, I'll let you know, but I repaired a 4" crack in my 10' john boat about 10 years ago with 1/10th of a tube of this stuff and it hasn't leaked a drop since.

I hear a lot of people talk bad about the smileys and I find it surprising. Maybe it just has a lot to do with their diet and what they're eating in your area. I use to pass on them all the time because we were taught they were trash ducks. Well one year after a very slow morning I had a large flock of smileys come in and I dropped 3. A couple weeks later I invited 2 buddies over and I cooked the 3 shovelers and 3 Teal. Both of them including myself thought the shovelers tasted better than the Teal, and thats no joke. Now I don't let them go unless the mallards are dive bombing us. So far I've been quite lucky and haven't eaten a single strong tasting duck yet. I'm not fond of the geese either, but we rarely get an opportunity to shoot a goose where we hunt. There are thousands everywhere, but they're usually flying miles high and don't give very many shooting opportunities. Well that one hunt the fog was so thick we could barely see the furthest decoy and the geese were flying ridiculously low. I skinned them out because I really don't like them plucked and baked whole. We just make gumbo with those and if you add enough andouille sausage, tabasco, and jalepenos and drink enough beer its pretty darn good. [ 03-15-2006, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: sprigsss ]

You should look up analogy in the dictionary... Do you eat the innards? Some folks eat the intestines, do you? Do you save the feathers and make pillows? How about duck bill soup? Most internet surveys show about 70% breast out most of their ducks. I pluck some birds, breast out mostly... mudhen - CA You sure do know how to be a smartass, I know exactly what analogy means, do you? I'm talking about meat, you know muscle tissue. The same meat tissue you eat (the breast meat) is present on the legs/thighs and wings and there is plenty of it. Those that don't eat that meat are simply too lazy to take the time to remove it. No we don't eat the intestines but we do eat the gizzards and hearts. The legs/thighs and wings accounts for nearly 1/3 of a duck. So the next time you breast out 6 ducks, you essentially just wasted 2 whole ducks. As far as taking up too much room in the freezer, you can do 2 things. First you can debone the entire duck which will only take a few extra minutes and just a tad bit more space, or you can stop hunting when your freezer is full. But I'm sure you two don't give a rats *** about wasting the meat, the only thing you're interested in is getting back out there and seeing how much you can kill. Don't get me wrong, I also kill as many as I can, but every bird is eaten and not a morsel of meat is thrown away. I agree that the majority are lazy and simply breast out their ducks. However I also know that the majority of the people I went to high school and college with drove while under the influence, it doesn't make it right. But I guess since everyone else is doing it you'll never think twice about doing the same.

Every duck I shoot gets eaten, the whole duck. It really bothers me when I see people near us coming back to the camp with limits upon limits of mallards and pintails, and they filet the breast off and throw the rest away. I've deboned entire ducks before and 1/3rd of the meat is on the legs, thighs, and wings. It should be considered wanton waste when people keep the breasts and throw away the rest, its like keeping the backstrap off of a deer and chunking the rest. This is what we do with all of our ducks/geese: [ 03-15-2006, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: sprigsss ]

I don't believe the 3 1/2" shell gives you any more range. I just like the 3 1/2" shells because you can shoot bigger shot sizes without sacrificing pattern density. So you'll have the same number of pellets hitting the duck/goose, only they're bigger giving you more knockdown power. I really wanted the 3 1/2" chamber for deer hunting since I don't own a rifle and where I hunt the farthest shot is going to be about 40-50 yards. Well for some reason the Benelli's don't shoot goot Buckshot patterns, and thats with every choke tube I can find.

I don't know if you duck hunt or not but consider this. Over the next 15 years how much money will you spend on shotgun shells, decoys, gas, clothes, and all other supplies you'll need to go hunting. I have a Rem 1100 that my godfather bought when he turned 15, he's 55 today and the gun still shoots flawlessly. So if you take care of a gun it will last quite a long time. So in the long run I think $1200 is a pretty cheap investment for a shotgun thats so light, easy to clean, and versatile. Within the next 15 years or so I will still be shooting my SBE and will have probably spent much more money on decoys, shells, duck calls, waders, etc. If you take care of your purchase, I think its a cheap investment. But don't buy a Benelli because everyone else likes it. Go shoot one and see how you like it.

All I can say is to use what works for you. If ESTATE is made by federal it sure is strange how I've had tons of misfires with FEDERAL and none with ESTATES. Its also strange that mudhen has had several problems with ESTATES and I've had none. In fact last year during Teal season I was using the remaining 2 3/4" shells leftover from years past. I had several ESTATES and several drylocks. I was always a strong believer in the drylocks, but started buying ESTATES because they were cheaper. When I couldn't find ESTATES I bought the drylocks. Well I had several Teal buzz the decoys and several duds in my box. I never really payed attention to what shells I was putting in my gun. After the 3rd or 4th shell I started loading with only 1 brand of shell. I never had another dud with the remaining ESTATES and had several with the drylocks. I finally just gave up on the drylocks and ended up throwing them away. I had always shot drylocks prior to finding the estates and up to that time, I never had any problems. So I guess you can get a bad box of shells by any company. But until I get a bad box of ESTATES I'll stick with them. I haven't been able to find a better shell for the price. If I could find the Kent Fast Steel around here I'd give those a shot, but why fix something that ain't broke. I understand you not wanting to shoot ESTATES after having a few problems. Thats exactly why I won't shoot Federals. I know a ton of people that shoot only Federal and have no problems. But after getting several wads stuck in the barrel I'm too scared to take the chance again. It was probably just a fluke that I got the bad box, but if you found a shell that works for you, there's no reason to try a shell that has performed poorly for you. It is quite interesting how some people have horrible experiences with a particular brand and others have absolutely no problems. [ 08-22-2005, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: sprigsss ]

Thats strange mudhen. I hunt in brackish water where the humidity is always 100% and I've been shooting ESTATES for about 8 years now and haven't had the first bad shell. I've had several stuck wads where the pellets don't make it out the decoys with Federal, but I've never had a problem with the ESTATES in the saltwater and humidity.