We're less than two weeks away from opening up the regular duck and goose season! The RNG team has been working hard for months to get ponds and properties in top shape for the opener and the entire season. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone that works harder to provide the best waterfowl habitat in the area and no one controls more hunting ground than we do. Combine all that with how we rest & rotate ponds/fielding fields and countless hours scouting and you have a pretty good recipe for success! If our teal season was any indicator of how the regular season will go, it's going to be a GREAT one. The goose hatch was one of the best in recent years which means there will be lots of juvenile young geese down, add in all the rice that was farmed on our properties and it is shaping up to be a goose season to remember.
Food is the key component that most forget about when it comes to waterfowl. Water will attract them, but it's the food that make them stay! We put A LOT of time, money and effort into making sure we have plenty of food ready for the birds when they arrive.
Our hunts take place mostly in Matagorda and Wharton county around the following cities: El Campo, Markham, Bay City, Blessing, Palacios and College Port. Hunts take place over rice stubble, flooded rice, DU projects, moist soil units, planted millet, volunteer regrowth millet from previous years being planted, winter rye grass, winter wheat, corn and more. We hunt out of pit blinds, avian A-frame blinds, skid blinds, mobile ground blinds & ghillie blankets.
**OCT 20th Update**We're pumping away! 9 wells are roaring and 7 more will be getting cranked up over the next couple of days. We're currently between 500-600 acres of water pumped up, which means we're right at or just over the 1/2 way point. We'll have over a 1000 acres of water pumped up by the end of Oct. We expect a pretty good push of birds to arrive over the next couple of days as this front blows through tonight. Good numbers of ducks are already using the water that we have out and a small group of specks have homesteaded on one of our roost ponds. Things are really starting to come together nicely!
Directly from Nick Stillwell on Oct 20th
"The clock is ticking! Goose and duck season will be here before we know it. Things are starting to shape up for a great waterfowl season. It all starts with the land and land preparation. We worked all off season picking up new farms and making improvements. Just driving the prairie today I saw lots of duck and goose food. I even saw a nice group of specks and about a thousand pintail on one pond. There are still a ton of blue wing teal around which will make for an exciting opener. The prairie is very dry now which makes duck hunting great if you have water. I assure you RNG has the water. We have seven wells pumping now. So if you enjoy the fast action of teal mixed in with some big ducks and mild weather. You need to get on the books for November. Historically some of our best duck hunting falls in this month. Many people miss out on it. The ducks decoy well and they are usually plentiful.
What I am really excited about is the record high goose hatch! A good goose hatch is the main factor that determines how successful our goose hunting will be. The higher the percentage means more young birds. Young birds is what snow goose hunters dream of. I expect some huge hunts this year. In the 12 years I have been running guided goose hunts I have never had so much access to property. We have five major roosts spread out through three counties. This means I will have geese to hunt everyday starting Thanksgiving. I will also be able to rotate farms giving them time to rest and build. I plan on hunting a feeding field almost everyday. You add all this up and it is a recipe for many barn burning hunts.
We have a few openings in early November and a few around Thanksgiving if you would like to get on some duck action. We also will have some early season speck hunts going on November as well.
Prime time goose hunting here in Texas starts Thanksgiving and runs through News years. I personally have very limited days still open during this time frame. If interested please call now. We have brought in some more goose guides who can run as well. They are the same caliber as me. So if you want to shoot some geese Texas style give us a call."-Nick Stillwell, Head Waterfowl Guide and Co-Owner
**OCT 19th Update**It was a super productive day for the crew working on waterfowl properties. Wells are pumping everywhere, 2nd crop rice is starting to be harvested on a couple of our farms and we were able to set a few more tub blinds today. Birds are holding good everywhere we have water and with all the wells going and a front on the way, we should really load up over the weekend. We still have some openings in November for anyone still looking to book a hunt. Tomorrow will be another busy day and we'll be moving diesel around to get additional wells going and topping off those that are already pumping, along with checking water and sending to new ponds.
Here are pictures and videos from the last couple weeks of us getting ready for season, hope you enjoy and wishing everyone the best of luck this year!
