Hey sportsman readers. I'm looking at a Dargel Kat 23 or 25 foot boat. Has a catamaran front and a tunnel in the back. Can get up in 12 inches of water and go offshore. It's a south texas type boat, that I have seen zero of in Louisiana....yet. Does anyone own one or a comparable type boat/hull ?Looking for discussion, advantages and disadvantages. Anything helps. Thanks.

Well, we had a great teal season. One of the best and most satisfying in a long time. We limited on every hunt we made. In between 2 and 6 people. Teal came in as singles through flocks of 4. Opening day we had a bunch of hunters, so people wanted to shoot at everything that came into range, which made it tougher to kill them good. Hard to work the birds. The second and third weekends we shot the birds feet down and lost only one or two to crippling. There is nothing like seeing bluewings bank around and seeing that lite blue wing patch in September. About 8 out of 10 birds we killed were drakes too. Not normal for us. Opening day was not the best for me personally. I’ve got a story that goes something like this. I brought my lawn tractor loaded in the bed of my truck with ramps. It barely fit, and had to have the tailgate open, but hey it was better than trying to put it on my trailer which has two bad tires and no spare. I did this because we have been doing debris clean up in Lake Charles, and to mow where we hunt. Went to the hunting spot, got out, walked down the levee about 300 yards and into the marsh about 150 yards; gun and decoys in tow. Teal start flying and I’ve found that I left my shells in the truck. I begged, borrowed and stole until I was down to like 2 shells. At this point we had about 3 teal down. Shooting time had basically just started so I decided to walk/run back to the truck to get my shells. As soon as I left it sounded like a roll of blackcats went off behind me…pow, booma, binga banga….I make it to the truck at a kind of weird half sprint/stop and rest kind of pace and got to my shells. I then decide, hey, let me unload the tractor and drive down the levee where we walk in. Save some breath you know. I proceed to start backing the tractor down the ramps and it breaks through one of them And just kind of hangs there, levitating like a space ship, half crashed through one of the ramps. Then I think, hey, let me push it onto the part of the ramp that wasn’t broken. Skin already soft from wet hands I grab the sharp backside of the garden tractor and try to pull to the side. Immediately I get cut so bad my whole palm runs red from two huge gashes. One on the pinky and one on my trigger finger. I’ve got duct tape, so I immediately get to wrapping. Blood continues to flow through the tape, but oh well. After taping my hand makes a crazy sort of hook em horns gesture because I can’t bend either finger. Exasperated and alone I decide to put the truck in drive. To hell with it, something’s got to give. And it did. The tractor finished breaking through one of the ramps and broke the other partially. Since it was shooting time, I didn’t gawk at the damage to the tailgate and ramps, I hopped on the tractor. I decided to dose my hands with off for mosquitoes of and promptly drew tears from the cut/alcohol interaction. On the tractor with two strangely bright orange duct taped fingers and a shot gun in hand I jet down the levee toward the hunting hole. Gun, shells, duct tape and a lawnmower. The next field over was a fellow hunter who as I shot by in my red chariot with 12 gauge and bright orange fingers just stood up and held a blank stare. As I passed, maybe he thought I was giving him the bird because I was holding my hand up with two bright fingers to staunch the flow of blood. We just looked at each other in amazement when I passed. When I stopped the tractor and made it to the hole the guys were pretty close to limited. I tried to shoot, but every time I did I was punished with the pain of a busted trigger finger and blood would ooze from the duct taped bandage. It was a good rest of the day, but not good. I mowed the hunting area, but busted two front drive belts on the lawnmower. Got the lawnmower back up on the truck with 8 by 12's. I then went to sweetlake to help clean up and busted my ring finger open when I was cutting a tree with my chainsaw. The tree was “nailed” and it threw the chainsaw back at me. Luckily, We had a first aid kit, and I ended up super gluing all three wounds, disinfecting and then taping. By 5-6 I was tarred and feathered. Not to mention Saturday afternoon of opener was about 100 degrees with no power in sight. Truck started running hot on the way home, in the stop and go on I-10, but nothing was gonna stop me. I made it home just in time to take 4 Advil, drink 4 gallons of Gatorade for the blood loss and drop into a nice comatose like sleep. I think I had a nightmare that the lawnmower rolled out of the back of the truck on I-10 and I woke up, but other than that I slept like a bebe. All in all I enjoyed time with Family and Friends and meeting new people through the devastation of Hurricane Laura. I’d like to think I am learning how to love my neighbor as myself a little better with each disaster.

Well, we had a blast at Chicot. I can't say it wasn't trying this go round, but we ended up finding some gigantic filet size bream, spending time with family, some alone time reflecting and talking with God as well as boat riding in general.

It started Friday. Somehow both of my batteries didn't take charge, so I paddled the boat from the boat launch to our cabin. After going to auto zone and buying new battery I cranked and cranked the motor..It must've been flooded, because I came back after dinner and it cranked right up. Me,My wife, sister, and brother n law headed out to go fish the channel and about half way there water starts pouring out of the back of the motor. At that instant the motor cut out. I lifted the cowling and about 5 gallons of water comes gushing out!!! Turns out the plastic piece that connects to the end of the water outlet hose fell off somewhere and the outlet water hose filled the inside of the motor with water until it backfilled in the carbs! That has literally never happened to me.....I tried to crank it, but to no avail. Along came a good samaritan (God Bless you man!) and pulled us back to our cabin. We proceeded to yank plugs, drain carbs and fuel filter twice before getting the motor running again....to the tune of 11:00.

Being that it was a full moon and I wanted to run the motor I went night fishing on the full moon with a stanley ribbit grass frog. I caught one nice bass, released, and had another one so big blow up so close to the boat that It scared me and I stumbled backward and fell off of the deck of the boat onto my trolling motor battery and ice chest....My back still hurts.

Early Saturday morning and Sunday morning we took a trip to the same cove and found some monster bluegills. I found them to be on steep drop off's. Every now and again we would catch a big ole chinquapin as well. I mean bluegill and redear's all the way to my forearm, 8-10 inches. These make basin bream look like dwarf's....We did catch a couple of big bream that looked like a cross in between a red ear and a bluegill. Maybe someone knows better than me. Check out the picture with 3 fish for comparison.

On Sunday we went for a boat ride with the kids. We get to the channel and the motor just cuts out. I lift the motor and the bow rope has hung in it so tight I have to cut it with knife and operate like a surgeon. One of the kids didn't bring it in like I asked, Yeye yeye yeye...

I didn't catch much with the noodles. As a matter of fact the lake is to stumpy for them. I'm sticking with limb lines.

All in all a great time with God and family. We ended with 69 big bream and a whole lot meat.

Its been a good summer for us thus far. Blasting Bream in the Basin, catching frogs in the fields, to now hammering the reds in the traditional shallow water haunts. My boy is 12, and thank the Lord, he has become really interested in fishing and hunting.

The weather seemed just right for us to go hunt reds last Friday. Lite south wind with an incoming tide in the morning. I haven’t been to the flats since April. With the heat I was hoping the bait and fish have found the shallow water.

It started about 4:30 with a bone jarring ring from my alarm clock. The first thing that happened was nothing, meaning no catastrophe, which is good for a fisherman. Trip to the boat launch was devoid of injury, no issues with launching, didn’t forget anything, all equipment functioning etc. etc….

So to the hole we rode. When I hit the entrance to the flat the boat stalled in the 4” of water, but we hammered it down and made it through 50 yards of sludge to make the desired location. Immediately, when we got to the sweet spot huge wakes were churning the water everywhere. Then the motor hits a fish and I see a redfish tail in the wake! I knew it was on. I took the boat off of Wide open throttle, put down the trolling motor and the first cast of the castnet for live bait netted a 3 foot gar that punched a 6” missile hole through my brand new net. No worries though. The second cast netted me 3 dozen perfect sized finger mullet. Sonny boy did the right thing, by putting them in the bucket and up about 50 yards we went.

Within 5 minutes of soaking the live mullet the rear reel bait alert went off zzzzZZZZZZZZZ!!! We picked up and had the first red in the boat before 7. And on an on it went. The trouble for us was making sure to catch reds that were less than 27 inches. A small red in our area is 24”. Those flat reds are brutes and fat from feeding on all the forage.

As we were moving from the first spot I left the baits in the water right next to the boat and started to move with the trolling motor. One of the spinning reels goes to leave the boat but gets hung in the cast net! I pick it up and a 5 foot gar does a tarpon jump not 3 foot from the boat!! He got stuck in the jaw with the hook, so I was able to tame him with the billy club without him getting off. Yum Yum. Whoever says Gar is a trash fish doesn’t know good eating.

A little while later we found a spot where the mud came away from the bank about 20 foot. There was 1-3” of water over the mud and the reds were getting up in it running mullet….4 or 5 of them would jump after a huge explosion…It was awesome. We sat right there and finished our limit! For ten reds and 2 gar we had 100 lbs. of fish in a 100 quart ice chest. And it was full to the top!

What a day it was. We completed it by cooking redfish on the halfshell with barbequed Gar steaks. The sun went down on some good time…If this isn’t livin I don’t know what is. I hope everyone else is having a good summer. God Bless you all.

We got into em and I’m sure its no secret. The line to launch was 100 yards long at the Henderson boat launch. We had an absolute blast! The thing I like about bream fishing is the action is nonstop. Its great practice for kids and when you get tired of lifting bream you can relax in the shade. In our case we generally just fished in it. The water Is down so the beds are easy to see. Its on right now!

Friday morning we hit it early, just as the fog was coming off of the water. As soon as we got into the water I could tell it was way down. 6 foot or so. The first spot we pulled up too was a tree that had fallen parallel to the bank and was sitting in about a foot of water. The water clarity was 3 foot or so, and as we got closer to the tree I could tell the bottom in front of it was pockmarked with beds. There must’ve been 2 dozen of them! The first cast I let the worm settle right into a hole I picked and the cork just submerged..plooop. I didn’t even set the hook, just reeled in a wrist sized bluegill. He swallowed the hook, but that’s on him. And so it went on and on all day…. we caught a 15 lb carp and a 10 lb choupique on bream gear, hooked a 6 foot alligator and hefted in about 75 fileable sized bream. The kids had a blast and I fileted everything. Well, except the carp.

Monday there were lots of boats, but the same result as we trolled around and sight fished beds….We caught several bass though as they have become real aggressive on the early morning bite. We also caught trees, logs, gar and other assorted treasures. All in all pretty much a copy and paste of Friday.

God has been blessing us with the best blueberry crop ever and plenty of fish. Life is good. Get it while the getting is good!

Haven’t been fishing saltwater in a while. Why not. I know it’s a bit early for the shallow water action, but I need to get my gear organized and mind oriented right. We started early, but not too early. Straight to the flats we went. Got to the bait shop and no lid on the ice chest. Hmmmmm….. Why I can’t be rich and get a yetty with non crap hinges! If only Coleman would put four hinges instead of two, or double/triple the surface area of the hinge. We made due though. We put a huge rice sack bag, generously donated by a convenient store on top of the ice chest and proceeded.

One thing I like, no, love about saltwater fishing in the marsh is the unmistakable sweet smell of the foliage and air in the morning. And it didn’t fail on Friday. It smelt great. The wind in our face and the water right under our feet! Everything was lining up on the ride out.

We got to the first weir and plopped into wet clay, which almost sucked the boots of our feet. Made the first cast with my brand new 5 foot cast net to catch 2 3 foot gar, which missiled holes right through. So, with no bait we made the trip to the fishing hole. Hey, that’s okay we have frozen shrimp.

We get to the mouth of a cut that I like and I tell my sister and son to get the bait out of the rice sack ice chest. They get it out, while I cast 20 and 30 times for NO mullet. I look back just in time to see my son’s expression of surprise and the whole container of quickly unfrozen shrimp disappear into the ripping outgoing tide…..

So that’s where it gets interesting. Hard North wind, water leaving the marsh, Chocolate milk water and no apparent bait in the water. Well I castnetted and castnetted to catch 2 big mullet, 1 inch shad and a large gizzard shad. Maybe a handful of shrimp. I knew it was gonna be tough.

We started seeing big redfish bust and come completely out of the water and I couldn’t stand it. We cut the gizzard shad into bite sized chunks and hooked it to the 6500. Into the drink it went and within 5 minutes I had a big bite. I let the fish spool out about 20 yards of line. We were “fishing hungry”. I proceeded to set the hook and the line snapped. I retied and discovered I had rotten line. Into the drink with my backup 6000. 5 minutes and boom, another fish. Turned out the area was loaded with monster Reds. Filet knife destroying reds. We caught a few, broke some lines, slipped in the boat, got hung up a few times and started talking of leaving.

The second to last fish we caught I saw the dorsal fin break the water when I hooked him. It was a Shark. My son, who has a fascination with eating anything weird really was hell bent on keeping and eating it. I am aware of how onerous the regulations are on sharks, so when we got it in the boat I began the investigation.

Turns out, we caught an Atlantic Sharpnose, which has the indistinguishable white spots. And we can keep one! So I was on the hook to keep and clean the shark for him.
We hacked it out a bit more and decided to leave for comfort of a boiled crawfish meal. No catastrophe on the way home, which was good. I did clean the shark and found the fileting experience to be interesting. It was like I found the back bone, but not really. It was just tough. I was able to filet the shark like any other fish though and the meat was beautiful but stank of Ammonia. I bathed the meat in Cold water as per prescribed from the Louisiana sportsman article and it stunk less. We blackened it with the redfish and fed it to everyone. Some people commented on something different, but it was consumed like everything else. Personally, I knew it was different. Its hard to describe, but the meat almost tasted sand or something. My son ate son and has now proclaimed it the best meat ever. Heck, as far as weird fish I’ll eat gar or choupique over sharpnose any day.

I hope everyone else had a great day on the water this weekend.

P.S.
On a side note, anyone know what the mystery fish is in the last few pics?

And babies have come forth from our family. So I have been sticking close to the house. You can't beat the spawn in the local ponds/lakes. I've been fishing four times this spring and came home with 1.5-2 fish meals from every trip! The bass fishing has been lights out. I can't keep the baits on the hook. Mostly wacky style.

The Sacs must've spawned out moon before last where I fish because I was catching them in deeper water off of wood/structure. I was catching them like that the first week in March.

I hope everyone else is tearing them up!

Of course many of us on this forum and state live for this. We were hunting again in the beautiful freshwater marsh of Louisiana this past weekend. Louisiana beauty never ceases to amaze me. The diversity of fowl, large freshwater lakes and rich amount of wildlife is something to behold and appreciate. No better place to be!

Friday we were off to the camp with stuff piled on top of stuff. And you can?t remember everything either. I forgot so many items I forgot what I forgot.

The boat broke down on the way to the camp. And then it leaked. And then the hot wire touched the engine block, melting to it and cutting it. The Pop, boom and smoke was so horrendous I thought a mortar had exploded in our midst. But we respliced and went on. Nothing was going to stop us. When we finally made it to the camp we cut Roseau, wax myrtle and palmettos while sustaining only minor cuts to our extremities. We actually did see some ducks flying around, which is good for our area.

Friday night we cooked venison backstrap, pork loins and sausage on an open grill and lifted our heads to the stars. The weather was perfectly temperate, and it was beautiful. Dark open sky minus city lights is a spectacle indeed. Many of my camp mates were so liquored they could see stars everywhere. To each his own. We sat around the bonfire and told stories of ducks, deer and fish. Mostly lies, but hey, why not embellish a little. No one did a duck dance which I think hurt us the next morning. I will correct that next time though. After the meatfest and star gazing/story telling it was off to bed.

Saturday morning was a to do. We left the camp a little late. I ran the mudboat onto a bank and cost us about 5 minutes. Over correction with Rudder steering. We had strength in the boat though and that got us out of the jam pretty quick. We got to the pond and started setting decoys. Spoons, pintail, greys, mallards, teal. It was a free for all. The batteries for the motion ducks didn?t work. I knew I had charged them though. Sabotage perhaps? That hurt our blind badly, especially for the teal. I finally get into the blind and we start the morning prayer. By that time shooting had started. There were three of us and we waited and waited while everyone around blasted?.You know that feeling you get when everyone around is shooting but you? Disgust/anxiety/anger/doubt all wrapped into one. Finally three teal came blasting into the pond and didn?t even attempt to stop, but they approached from the wrong bearing! We shot three times and rained all three. Great shooting! But they were going so fast their momentum carried them to the nether regions of the grass. 20 minutes later a big duck came and spotted the mallard decoys. We gave him that lonesome hen quack and he circled like an airplane getting lower and lower every drop. You could tell it was a greenhead from far away it was so sunny and his plumage was sooo clear. I could actually see the curl feathers on his back and those notorious red/orange legs. Along the way he was uttering that wraspy low pitched whistle. You could see his bill open to call. Pretty neat. He didn?t waste any time and came in low on the final approach. He came right in and we shot him right as his feet hit the water. Done picture perfect. Next a group of 4 mallards came in right in front. They were hovering over the decoys about 20 yards and we called the shot?BANG, BING, BOOM, POP?..One greenhead falls! I was a little sick that we shot so poorly, but hey its opener. We knocked down about 4 other mallards and that was it for our blind. We rode it till about 9:30, but it was not to be.

The other blinds on the lease did well. One blind killed a 3 man limit and the other had a 4 man limit. One of the blinds killed a banded Mottled duck which was banded in Grand Chenier in 2015. Pretty neat because we killed a Mottled duck last year that was banded from the same flock.

Sunday morning 5 of us hunted together from the same blind. Beautiful new blind with a Roseau stand behind us and about 8-10 foot off the water. Clear field of vision in front. I had a youth with me and the first teal of the morning came in and plopped right amongst the decoys. I whispered ?Vaughn? shoot him! Ol Vaughn didn?t wait. BANG!!! Right over the ducks head. And the spigot was opened on the teal flight. Singles, doubles, flocks and carnage for 30 minutes. A flock worked its way over to my side and I killed 2 out of it with 2 shots which made me happy enough for the whole rest of the hunt. And then it died! The flight that is. We ended with 14 or 15 which isn?t bad.

All in all a good opener. I have the smell of ducks on my hands and a curl feather in my hat. Hope everyone else enjoyed Gods creation on the West and Coastal opener.

Its been a good past 5 months. The seasons come and go. God, Family and friends always surround us along with the daily challenges. And there is always the beautiful and critter packed area that we live in. Ripe (by the season) for the picking.

Right after duck season I start thinking Sac-a-lait and this year wasn’t any different. We fished the full moon in February at a local haunt and fished hard. It wasn’t until about 3 o’clock in the afternoon until we found them. They were back in a cove and found the mother load eager to bite. Must have been a 100 square foot area that was loaded with bedding sac-a-lait The first cast in the cove and a huge sacalait bit my cork and held on so tight I was almost able to land him. I adjusted my shiner for depth and put it back and immediately caught one. We proceeded to pull 37 from that hole. All 10-14” fish too. Big and dark. All caught in about 12 inches of water. The house was full of the fried fish smell that weekend.

I got an opportunity to meet some new young people this spring. I thought the best way to get them hooked was to take them to the pay to play fish farm in Deridder. Sonrise. We went and hit the fish hard. I love Sonrise because you can drive your truck right up to the fishing spot. The banks are bare and hard, hardly any fire ants, and the prices are low. The people who run the fish farm are good people too. We caught 100 lbs., which I know is a 96 quart ice chest filled to the top. It took about an hour to fill the ice chest and it ended up being A good ole fashioned mess.

The next caper was Easter weekend at Toledo Bend. It was warm enough that I brought the kids tubing behind the boat, but the real fun part this year was the big blue cats were everywhere. I brought one 25 hook trotline and set it in the trees right out from Wildwood resort and caught some absurdly sized blue cats. We caught 2 25 lber’s and 1 30 lber. I was so sick of cleaning monster cats that Sunday morning that I just released them back in the drink. The neatest part was on that Sunday we celebrate Christ rising from the dead. On the way back to the launch I saw this wooden cross coming off of a tree stump out in the middle of the cove. It was a gorgeous reminder.

We made a trip to Rockefeller where we found specks in the marsh, which was interesting. This was probably April or so. We pounded them on live shad under a popping cork. Reds and monster drum got in the way. When we filled the ice chest we left. Crazy good fishing for the Rock.

The basin has been fun lately. We made a trip with my buddy where we caught 50 keepers. I fileted well into the afternoon. We also went last weekend, which was a young boys trip. We mostly caught limbs, but managed a few bream. Its fun with the kids.

Frogging has been a blast this summer. We took off to some crawfish fields July 3rd night and stabbed about 25. We ate like kings the next day.

All in all things are in order at the duck enticer household.

No better way to put it other than the ducks suffered this weekend.

The Saturday invitation was a funny thing. We invited 24 people and only two acceptances. We had the hitting average of a Houston astros batter, but like them the people we brought were home runs.

First of all, driving with a 30 mph North wind in an aluminum tunnel hull flats boat with no V, no problem. Driving into a 30 mph North wind with the above mentioned setup = prayer, pull the plug, hold the boat together with C clamps and curse the captain.

The hunting was good. We had it in our mind to fill the pothole with teal dekes and fully flocked on the other side. It probably didn?t matter, but we love appearances. Initially in the morning when the ducks got over the pond they rocketed in the air. We barely could shoot they were acting so weird. They started to settle though, in two and threes. The later it got the better they worked.

A couple of highlights. At about 7:30 huge waves of teal started to roam and circle. One flock of about 60-80 lit and then another 50 yard wide flock came and lit behind them. We were so stunned we really didn?t even get our guns up and shoot well. Let me rephrase that, I did, but the others didn?t. When they got up all hell broke loose in the blind. Patience got the better of me. Very calmly I selected my shot. One popped up giving me an out front right to left shot at 20 yards. Boom-plop. Another came from the same direction almost flying at the blind. Boom-plop. A third gave me a perfect shot at about 30 yards and somehow I missed. We ended up killing 3 out of the 150-200 ducks in the decoys. 3 for 12 with a batting percentage of .250.

We were working a flock of ducks and here come three out of the stratosphere. It was a spoon trying to commit suicide with a pair of mallards behind her. They followed her to their death. I folded the spoon and the others killed the mallards. But hey, you can?t eat without a spoon.

All in all a great morning! We ended with 20 and lost way too many in the grass. Way to many!!! Good ducks too, Wood ducks, Mallards and Mottleds.

Sunday was more of an impromptu hunt. I saw a buddy at church and said, hey you want to go float the bayou. He didn?t even have hunting clothes, but he said ?Oh yeah!?. So with one gun, borrowed hunting clothes a canoe with burlap covering the front we made out to the buyjew!

As soon as we made the first curve I saw a drake sitting on a log preening itself. I lifted and blam! Feathers everywhere and feet up. As we closed in on him up fly 10 more. I was so surprised it took a second, but bang-bang and a crippled hen fell. We picked up the drake and started the pursuit of a submaring hen wood duck. She would dive and we would wait for her to come back up again. We played cat and mouse for a bit until we saw her climb up on the bayou bank and just freeze there. It was a strange sort of thing, but I thanked her for making it easy for me to finish the deal.

Another couple of curves and we were done. I couldn?t hardly believe. It took about 30 minutes. As we worked our way further down there were several times I had my finger on additional wood ducks. We could?ve killed 12 wood ducks yesterday. Face shots too.

The squirrels helped us out as we continued the float. We were able to down four making a productive little bayou float including seeing an armadillo, 2 big ole raccoons, beautiful blue herons and a gorgeous barn owl that swooped and followed us around.

Life is rich these days. I hope everyone else was as blessed as we were.

We had a good opener.

Friday it was rush to the houseboat. The older I get the slower I get so I started packing on Tuesday only to find out I still had work to do on Friday morning. I went to work Friday morning and then rushed to pick up the boat at the mechanic before rushing back home. I then rushed to get everything in the boat and then rushed to check the kids out of school. I then rushed to pick up gas cans, only stopping at the signal in Jennings to rush further south to Lake Arthur. I rushed more than Leonard Fournette against Arkansas, but hey, we made it to the houseboat Friday by 2:00.

When we made it to the houseboat we unpacked and I did the chainsaw massacre to the wax myrtle for some blind hide. We nearly cut our faces off running through a Roseau laden narrow mud trail, but at last we made it to the duck pond. It was full of ducks which had the boys off the chain. Wood ducks too, like I have never seen. We spent about an hour setting up my stupid trolling motor of a concoction decoy which was frustrating. Imagine the start trek enterprise with a trolling motor sticking out of the top. That is what the decoy looks like.

Friday night we were bored so we set noodles. We chased needle nose gar mostly, but caught a few channel cats and blues, so it wasn?t a complete loss. None of us slept well Friday night, probably because of the grandiose dreams of ducks.

Saturday morning everything worked right except the ducks and shooting. The ducks were real leery which made good shots hard to come by. Maybe it was the star trek enterprise in the decoys, who knows. The boys did burn a box of shells a piece though, so they got some practice. We had a flock of 50 teal come in and 48 left -12 shots. Yeah, I know. 3 Greenheads came in to the fully flocked decoys just right, cupping up and giving us a straight on shot at 30 yards. We all pulled up. My son?s gun jammed, My friends gun had a jam, but my gun worked and I dropped a gigantic greenhead! Some wood ducks came in and got smoked, which made us feel at least acceptable. Man it was really great to be out there, but hey, I needed some redemption, so onto Sunday it was.

Sunday morning it was me and my uncle. We filled the pond with his new avian X teal + wood ducks. From the get go we knew it was on. The teal went exactly to the teal decoys. We actually only shot about 5 and then stopped promptly as we wanted to wait for big ducks. 2 wood ducks came by and skirted the decoys only to do an indy 500 circle back to lite exactly on the wood ducks decoys. It was awesome, as they flew by you could see the drake twist his head to look at the wood duck decoys. His decision to come back was a fateful one for him and his padnah. We also had two grey ducks drop from the stratosphere to come right into the hole. 15 yards! Boom, Boom, plop, plop. With 12 we ended the day with high fives and picking up decoys.

We were really blessed this weekend. I hope everyone else had the same experience.

We have going here and there fishing lately

We hit them right Friday before last. We fished a small lake and I knew they were gonna be bedding right up on the bank with all the stable warm rainless weather we have been having. My second cast a good little 11-12” bass hit the shiner and baptized the cork right next to the bank. After that it was really a blur. More frenzied than anything, Cork in the water, cork submerged, fish on, put fish on stringer; Rinse and repeat.
At one point in the melee we hit a corner of the lake and I could see holes, about 6 of them right off of the bank. We each casted the shiner cork combo on the upwind side of the hole and let the whole thing drift over it...Looooooppp went the cork several times as we hit a bed of solid 10-14” Sacalait. I couldn’t be happier. Catching Sac-a-lait made me happier than catching bass which is a change from my history.
Maybe the neatest part of the trip is one shaded section of bank where the bass started eating only the cork. The would go past the shiner and wack the cork with a thummmmpppp sound!...Crazy. We foul hooked one by accident, but you can imagine most got away.

The day after the melee we hit the Bell City drainage adjacent to where we duck hunt. It was tough to say the least because I had two young boys and we mostly bank fished with shiners. We did pull out about 5 nice sacalait, 2 bass, 3 nice catfish and a mammoth choupique, but it was mostly work compared to the day before. The highlight of the trip was fileting the choupique and trying it for the first time. I ate it much like I did gar for the first time. Chunks dipped in Panko bread crumbs fried in Oil inside a black cast iron skillet. OH MY!!! Sauce Bon, but the meat has exactly the consistency of a Gar, which means water basically destroys the meat. The good news is you don’t have to break out a cane knife or hatchet to clean a bowfin, just zip zip with an electric filet knife.

And then last Friday the grand finale. A buddy of mine got an invite to a small lake that has been around for a good while. The rain had the water clouded, so we started with slow presentation of live bait. After an hour with nothing I tried a wacky worm and the bass attacked it instantly. My shoulder began to hurt after about 4 hours of steady actions. We ended with 37, and about 80% had eggs. The best thing is the land owner had something against bass and she wanted them out. “Throw em on the bank if you don’t eat them” was the term we got from her. I obliged the trash fish and took them to the filet knife.

Good times and God Bless

Ducks that is. The second split has been such a blur I dont know where to start. I guess with the most recent expedition which pitted us versus the redhead ducks in Rockport, TX. There were 10 of us scheduled, then 8, then 6, and then 5. People are tough to schedule, They remind me of that Katie Perry song . Youre hot then Youre cold, Youre yes then Youre no. I am glad it turned out like it did though. It was my son, good hunting buddy, brother-n-law and nephew. We had one boat and about 120 Redhead, Canvasback and scaup decoys donated by Smiths Welding Service.

The goal of the trip itself was to get out there and hunt as much as possible (Thursday-Saturday). We left Wednesday night about 11:00, drove through the night to check in at Holiday Inn at 5:30 in the morning. We were all dragging, but the candle continued to burn for my hunting buddy and me. The young-ns and driver slept the morning thru while we went hunting.

It was easy as pie. We arrived at the launch, put the boat in the water and drove about a mile to an island on some flats. The water was about thigh deep and hard sand bottom (something we dont usually see in Louisiana). We plopped out all 120 decoys without sinking in the mud, hid the boat about 100 yards away and sat on a bucket in an island full of green tall shrubs. And the show began! A line of what looked like blackbirds emerged from the horizon. Steady flying they came in flocks of about 8-10, but wave after wave of them. The first single came screaming in from left to right past the decoys about 10 yards. Blam, bang, bing boom. MISS to the 6 shots! There goes three dollars worth of steel shot. The second duck comes in from the left right past the decoys. MISS 6 shots! Okay, I need to chill I was telling myself. Maybe my sleepless eyes were affecting my shots. Then came a flock at about 50 yards. I focused on a bird led him by a ton and released a shot, down came a bird 4 foot past the one I was aiming at. As the bird helicoptered to the water I realized how fast these birds were flying and how far they really were.

As I was picking up my bird in fly three birds into the decoys. My buddy who was also picking up a cripple took aim. He shot and I watched a pattern go over three red heads. They flapped their wings and swam in closer to the decoys. So I tried them. Blam went a load over one of the ducks. He made a crooked gesture indicating he was hit while the other two just gawked at him. My buddy then shot again and the rest of the ducks got the idea and left. Redheads are ate up with the dumb! After fishing out the crippleds my buddy came to the blind with the words Holy Hell! He was gasping like a fish out of water from all the excitement and mile long haul to fetch cripples. That left us with one bird shy of a limit. And in she came, actually lit in the dekes. We both pulled up and shot her about 5 times on the water just to make sure?..And we were done! 4 dead ducks for putting 120 duck decoys on the water. Not good benefit/cost, but hey we go all out for hunting.

Back to the Holiday Inn where we riled the youngns and bro-n-law from a leaden sleep. We napped for about 20 minutes and then off to some barbeque joint named MAC?s in Rockport where we sinned in Gluttony. Over feasting we discussed hunting the same place we did that morning. We could only kill 6 Redheads though. Out we went with all 5 of us. We set up about 2:00 and waited for about an hour before the show once again began. Boats would drive through a raft and they would fly the open bay. Some went by the spread, but inevitably a group or a single would come right over or swoop by the decoys. The kids unloaded their weapons bombastically with nary a feather scratched for the first three volleys. At one point I got excited and while trying to load my boys shotgun dropped mine in the water. The sheen from the oil that came off the gun trailed in the water for 5 foot or more. My son got so excited he tried to shoot with the safety on or the shell not fully chambered it was a series of unfortunate events that culminated to my son falling face first in the water. After he dried off we got a good laugh. And we did shoot 6 Redheads despite the shenanigans. It did take 2.5 boxes of shells though.

Friday was the best day. Firstly, we all slept in! I actually woke at 4:50, but thought it best to let everyone else sleep a little more. The clock jumped to 7:30 real quick like. I went downstairs joined by crew and we made Holiday Inn pay for offering hot breakfast.

We decided to hunt the same island as the day before with a little wrinkle. There was a blind on the point that was suited perfect for the wind. That is the thing about this place. There are blinds everywhere. And when I mean everywhere I mean every 4-5 hundred yards everywhere. In the bays on the banks, Ev-er-e-where. We plotayed in the blind and awaited the show. The first customer was a single female bufflehead that my nephew dispatched with a single shot. The next customers were a pair of scaup that lit outside the decoys. We put 15 shots on them and I think they actually just gave up living instead of getting hit. And then the fun started. Crippled scaup in an open bay, oh what fun. One of the major highlights of the trip was my son smoking a sizzling hen redhead at about 40 yards out. So in comes this single redhead from nowhere. My son sees her puts the bead on her and shots once with a 20 gauge and folds her. She was going so fast she skipped twice and then settled. As I was whooping and hollering he shoots her twice more on the water for good measure. We rode the high of that shot for about an hour. By 11:00 we were hungry again. Two adults went and got DQ and brought it back to me and the kids...On the water!

After eating we had a great spell. Starting about 2:30 these huge flocks of redheads 200-300 started flying the intracoastal directly to our North. Big portions of them would see our decoys and peel off. The first big flock came in. All of them. The first shot I pulled was a redhead drake at about 30 foot. The duck disintegrated right in front of me and left feathers everywhere. The second shot was a going away shot on another redhead drake. 2 more fell out of the flock and started swimming. We never found them. About 5 minutes after here comes another huge string of ducks right in. It was literally breath taking watching the feat of 200 hundred redheads trying to lite in the decoys. We layed in to those as well. It was a blast! Making a day of hunting is fun. We had a few singles come in and lite on the edge of the decoys. My Bro-n-law pulled up and shot one. The first shot connected and the bird was crippled. As it swam away he shot twice, then the next hunter shot three times, then the next, then the next. It is ridiculous how tough those birds are and why I think it is super important to shoot 3 1/2s at them. I didnt have that problem. At one point I was going to retrieve a crippled with both of its legs in sticking up in the air. I get within 30 foot and the thing rolls over and starts swimming away. I am thinking what the hell, it shouldve drowned?Nope.

A lowlight of the trip is some fisherman that parked and anchored their boat about 150 yards downwind of our spread, then one of them proceeds to put on his chest waders and wade towards us, ending up approximately 80 yards downwind of our spread. We were in awe. And they stayed there for about 2-3 hours. If ducks wouldve come from where they were fishing we would have shot directly towards them. We nicknamed the assailant Pinkie as he had a pink Colombia fishing shirt.

And then Saturday morning they were so close I hollered at one of them upwind of me in a 20 mph Northwind. Hey, you catching any, to which he responded, A couple. On Saturday they did move off when I asked him to though. I dont think it was pinkie on Saturday. Make no mistake about it though, the boats are your friends for the most part. They get up hundreds of redheads and allow everyone to get shots..

All in all an awesome trip and I am afraid a trip of this proportion will make the yearly calendar. I hope everyone else is enjoying the season. God Bless.

My wifes patience is thin as a dime at this point, but I will take hell for hunts like this. No doubt.

With all of these good hunts the first sucky one is gonna have me depressed; or maybe I will be thankful, taking it well and understanding that this has been a great season so far.

I went and met my friend (Brother-n-law prospect) in Port Arthur for a freshwater impoundment hunt right off of JD Murphy wildlife management area. It is a 2 hour drive, but I?ve never come back from this hole empty handed, so why not go again.

The first craziness of the morning was the fog! I mean at times I couldn?t see 50 yards. I lucked out and actually found the gate where we were supposed to meet. We met at 6 and went out to a spot where 100 grey ducks had been the day before.

After hiding the boat a single big duck materialized out of the fog as if manifested by a magician. Bang, Bang, Bang went my gun as a crippled duck went sailing off into never never land behind us. You forgot to pray said Kevin. As I started to thank God for the hunt a pair of wood ducks nearly decapitated us and came back to lite in the decoys. My partner nearly shot their heads off they were so close. The cool thing is he hasn?t killed wood ducks but twice over 5 years in hunting his place. I think God blessed us in a special way.

The next customer was a single greenwing drake that lit 20 foot from me. I took aim and stalled for about 5 seconds wondering where I should put the bead in order not to mess him up. I decided on about an inch above his head and proceeded to take the top half of his head off. Just right!!! Poor little thing just looked at me the whole time too.

After this the grey ducks started. KAACCKKK, KACK. I love that grey duck quack?Kevin and I would mouth call back and it became a good shoot on the greys. At one point 5 of them had their feet out at about 20 yards. No passes, just out of the fog and straight in. It was awesome. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. At the last minute they veered to the right making that left to right shot that I hate so much. We shot 6 times and dropped 1! Blahhhhh?..And we shot like crap the rest of the hunt too.

Fortunately we made right on a couple of whistlers to finish and then capped the hunt at Waffle house with strawberry waffles and sausage. I am glad I had a 20 oz. coke on the way home, cause driving more than 1.5 hours is very tiring.

The good times surely are good!

The opener of second split and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ!

The game plan was to hit up Bell City. I called my buddy on Friday to see what the status of the marsh was. He said I jumped a million ducks. To which my reply was .what kind. What do you think was the snide reply. I laughed for a solid minute because I knew it was the little black headed demons from the Boreal forest. So of course we would need to exercise the demons.

I invited two other exorcists, because you need lots of power to exercise demons.

I brought out my sling blade and reduced the willows next to the house in order for adequate hide and we were ready to go killing. We got to the hole about 5:00 A.M. A 16 oz. of Joe had me skippin and jumpin. My buddies have been having a crap season up till now so I was super excited to see them kill some ducks!

We threw out decoys and I while I was out in the middle of them tossing, stumbling, talking and making all kind of noise a ring neck lit with the wood duck decoys and stayed there for the entirety of the decoy arrangement. It really is amazing how silly those things are.

Right at shooting time it was a show. We blasted and left a bunch on the water. Singles, doubles, triples and twenties. At one point we just kind of watched and didnt shoot. Huge flocks of teal buzzed and we were in awe. Ring necks mixed in with them and they created a lop sided tornado right in front of us. It sounded like a squadron of F-16s as they were cutting and diving every which way. The exorcists in the blind over were really taking it out on the demons. Flocks would fly over and two to three would drop out in the water. The splashes those ring necks make at 150 yards its out-friggin-standing to see. I guess it is the butterball shaped breasts.

The low light of the morning was the pair of wigeon that lit about 45 yards away from us on my side. I lifted them off the water with a Yippy Kuy yah to which I shot three times. Feathers went everywhere and the one I was shooting at flew off. It was disgusting.

We played around and finished up around 8:30. 24 ducks. 19 ringers, 4 teal and a grey duck. I am so glad my buds got to kill some ducks.

Sunday morning was even better! It was just two of us. We arranged the decoys a little for the wind shift and it worked just right. I also pulled the mojo and that played in our favor too. The ducks are done with the mojo in our area. Right at shooting time they were looking and working the dekes just right, providing that 15-25 yard right to left shot that I love so much. Boom Boom went the guns. The first was a pair of spoons and it was their fault really. And it was those so close the bird fills up your barrel shots too. At 6:50 with ten ducks on the water the hunt was capped by a pair of Greenheads that made three passes; closer everytime. A little bit of quacking and chattering was exactly what they needed to hear. They worked picture perfect too. They passed and turned about 100 yards outside of the decoys each pass, just leisurely coming in and talking all the way. They ending up hovering right outside the Fully flocked greenhead decoys about 35 yards away. We pulled up and dropped both. By the time we recovered them it was 6:55.

We picked up decoys and I made it to church only to hear about the Lord that loved us so much he gave his only son. What a weekend! Merry Christmas to all readers/hunters.

Of themselves that is. If there is one thing I was grateful for this past Holiday it was the ringnecks. Not only did they display Aerobatic physics defying feats that made for beautiful spectating but they also nearly blew my eardrums out by buzzing so close to my head.

Friday morning we got a wild hare to put out about 100 full body geese in a freshwater marsh. We took pvc pipes cut them into 40 inch pieces and painted them. We got out to the marsh at 4:45 and set decoys until shooting time. The first geese came over and never even stopped! But the ringnecks, we killed them just fine. Over duck decoys, over goose decoys?standing in the decoys. A flock of spoons came too close and we drew the bead on them. We knocked down 3 and only ended up finding one, which was disappointing, because I am getting tired of breasting ringnecks. I?m blessed though. I guess the powers that be saw fit to reward us for all the hard work of putting out speck/snow decoys. On the way back from the hunt a goose was sitting on the road and starting running from us. It stayed running on the road and just did that duck down and get low job when we got close to it. I picked it up and rang its neck. The autopsy revealed it had been chipped in the wing muscle by a projectile. It was probably an 8 lb specklebelly! Crazy.

Saturday was a repeat, except for finding a crippled 8lb specialbelly part. Geese flying over us all morning long and responding to the call, they just would not take to the water. We mopped up on ringnecks and killed a teal and a grey.

All in all a great little Thanksgiving break.

We had an interesting few marsh hunts from Friday-Mon. Friday we jumped about 500 ducks out of the pond on the way out. They made no calls when they jumped, so we didn't know what they were. I knew they weren't greys, Mallards wigeon or pintail. They revealed themselves quick enough when we got the decoys set though.....Left right up and down ringnecks came from everawhere! It was a beatdown and you can't discriminate in today's society, so we didn't. Besides ringnecks taste like any other duck! We were done in about 20 minutes despite bad shooting.

Saturday we hunted a newly made pothole (from all the rain) in waste deep water. It rained for hours, I got wet, My motor kept overheating. It was peeing just fine, just kept overheating. And from blowing up a motor in the past I guessed the thermostat was the problem. In the driving rain I removed the thermostat housing and what do you know, the thermostat had completely broken and was stuck closed! I removed it all together and don't think I am going to get another one. When I got home I wrapped in blankets and shivered like a wet dog for about 30 minutes. The fried boudin balls at the shop rite in Lake Arthur are awesome.

Yesterday we made a trip to my brother in law's right outside of Port Arthur. He hunts a sweet freshwater impoundment right off of the Highway. We set the decoys and here come 4 greys. They lit about 30 yards outside the decoys and starting swimming into them. When they were about 30 yards out they clumped and presented a target of opportunity. I aimed, pressed the trigger and heard plunk. No shot. Grey ducks went flying around. So I made a thirty yard hike to some roseau, stripped a cane and dislodged the wad from my barrel. I dismissed the shot because it was brand new Remington shot that had not gotten wet. Same thing happened on the next shot. Trying to remove the wad from my gun the second time I dropped my gun in the water and it made that sickening bloooopppp sound as it fully submerged. After cleaning all the crap out of my gun I started shooting my brother-n-laws shells and we put the hammer to the Fulvous's. We killed some big ones too. I love me some whistlers.

All in all a great little stretch.

I get so amped up this time of year it is hard to restrain me. Every other ability I have becomes useless unless it starts with the word hunt. I understand there are courses and groups that treat this condition.

Friday we brushed blinds, the generator broke and the wasps had it out for us. I would run to one edge of the houseboat spray on the inside of the eve and wasps would just billow out. Some falling on the ground, others flying right at me. I sprayed, ran, bobbed and weaved. No lie, we killed about 500-1,000 of them. They even got inside and were flying at us as we attempted to eat and bed down…Awful!. We had the bug light on during the day and the wasps were just caked on it like icing. It really reminded me of the roach episode of the twilight zone. I hate wasps by the way and puff like a blowfish if I get stung.

We didn’t see much duck activity while brushing, and it was hot! Saturday morning all hell broke loose though. Wads of teal were coming in and we were getting them good. Then greys would come out the stratosphere to a hail call…..We had at least two flocks do it just right and we didn’t abstain. We killed at least 4 out of each flock. One flock was right on top of us and almost came down as vertical as an elevator. You could see their feet right above us and their wings all folded up. It was awesome hearing them get lower and lower. We creamed em too. We ended with a 5 man limit by about 8:30. Before the deluge….

Sunday morning we were all griping at each other. We were late to the blind, one was trying to pull a mojo poll and another was running his boat through the decoys. Moving em this way and that. It was a zoo…..I think we were griping because of the beating LSU took. The ducks helped relieve our tension though. Teal came in as singles all the way to 4’s. We commonly eliminated the whole bunch. Again, the Greys made us feel like superstar callers and about 1/3 of our limit came at their cost. Another 5 man limit!

We won the ducks even if we didn’t win the football game. At it again Tomorrow and Saturday. I won't report if we don’t kill.

Words really can’t describe how proud I am of my only son. I bought him a 20 gauge about 1.5 months ago after I received word of the selection for the White Lake youth waterfowl hunt. He is 10, so I bought him the small youth model maverick (Mossberg). He shot it for the first time 3 weeks ago and proceeded to destroy a half a dozen skeet or more. It was amazing watching him shoot the clay pigeons. Shooting is more simple than we think…

The morning of the hunt we arrived at White Lake Boat house. The weather was overcast and ready to bust loose with rain, but the hunt was going to carry on through it. We checked in to the hunt and went to a huge pontoon boat that had a fully enclosed canopy. It was nice and not something a Podunk jerry-rigger like me is used to seeing.

We then scuttled South across the intracoastal to an island with a huge boat shed and a number of living quarters. Because it was dark and we were so worked up me and my son just plopped into the boat we would be riding out to the blind in. While we were waiting to leave I initiated a conversation with the guide who was a real nice fellow and he kept emphasizing how the hunt was all about the youth. Whatever we wanted to do we could. I was taken back by how helpful the guides/staff were and how much they wanted to do everything. They didn’t even let us push the boat off the dock….Good people.

So from the mudboat we got into another boat which they called a pirogue. The pirogue was actually a 12-13 foot boat with an outboard motor on it. Ha, even easier. Once to the blind we got in and started the hunt. After a quick prayer the ducks starting coming and my son starting blasting. Boom! Miss. Boom! Miss…..The quote of the morning was shoot at him again. After about 20 shots my son clipped a bluewing. The guide hustled out to the teal and was about to grab it when it got up and flew off…..We were disgusted. Another 10 shots and he connected with a grey. She came crashing down and did the low profile swim away job…..She gonnneeee. After another what seemed like 886 shots my son connected with a ring neck. It was a head shot too. The wings instantly fully extended and the bird helicoptered to the water. When the guide retrieved the bird I knew it was true. My son had officially killed his first duck all by himself! Words can’t describe the feeling of how proud I was. But that wasn’t the end. After another what seemed like umpteen million misses and grey ducks blotting out the sky they were so close he connected with another hen. We took a picture of him with the bloody duck and then called it a morning.

The other kids all limited and had a great time as well. The bags were mostly comprised of teal and Greys with a few ringnecks and a Mottled duck. We must have seen 1,500-2,000 ducks that morning. Gobs of teal and plenty of Greys. The marsh itself was a pretty freshwater marsh loaded with Lilies and plenty of freshwater grass. It was a real shooters delight.

Onto the clubhouse and food. After the hunt they fed us. We rolled up to island and stepped up on it only to find brick house after brick house. It was strange to see such nice structures south of the Intracoastal Waterway. On a paved walking path we went from the boathouse to the dining area which was preceded by two huge palm trees. For someone like me who is not used to high profile I didn’t feel worthy of entering the den area. The dining area must’ve been 2,000 square foot. There were several large tables with nice plush chairs. The mounts were incredible. Every foot of wall was covered with all kinds of mounted waterfowl. Me and my son went from duck to duck identifying and observing. It was a really neat place. I felt so unworthy that I had to go the bathroom and wash my hands and face before eating. And then again.

The trip was flanked with great food. Eggs, bacon, sausage and biscuits. I burped, my son slept, and it rained on the way home. What a trip!

Thank you Lord for our Youth and beautiful state!

I was fit to be straight-jacketed the Friday before opener. One of my leases had fallen through, the boat was in the shop (no public), and the one spot I was counting on was full of people. I moped around the house and wanted to cry. Especially the way the weather was predicted.

By chance I received a call Saturday for a hunt in the marsh on Sunday. Even though it would be a late night with the near LSU loss I couldn’t say no.

Sunday was no letdown. Flocks came in all morning. And they kept coming. After the first few came in and tried to lite I told my buddy to stop pass shooting and kill the one’s 40 foot in front of us. It was beautiful. While simultaneously trying to copulate with the mojo’s they were looking for a place to lite. Thing about it was there were so many Lili pads they couldn’t find a spot. So they did this kind of hovering, comparible to a hummingbird at a feeder. We killed easy limits and so did the other 7 hunting the marsh.

Last week I hunted at a buddy’s spot in Morse. It was like the law of diminishing returns for that spot. 34 on Monday, 20 on Tuesday, 13 on Wednesday and 9 on Thursday. I went there this past Monday morning and killed a whopping one duck.

I spoke to some friends that hunt next to Rockefeller refuge. They said It has been poor until Monday when they killed 14. I guess that means those birds are about ready to cross the big pond. I hope everyone is tearing them up! Good luck and God bless.