Waterfowl Season Prep-Work coming along nicely!

Over the last month plus we have really ramped up on our pond work to start getting everything ready for this upcoming waterfowl season. With our pond total just about doubling from last year, to say we have been super busy would be an understatement. For most of the spring we were worried that it was never going to stop raining for us to get started working on ponds and now we're having to flush ponds to get seed to take. It's definitely not the cheapest way, but we don't cut corners and want to make sure we have controlled everything we can to the best of our ability. Over the last couple of weeks we have been finishing pits, spraying, discing, planting and now flushing ponds and are just over halfway done. All our rice farmers are either harvesting or within 1-2 weeks from starting. As hectic as everything seemed 3-4 weeks ago, things are really starting to come together now and the game plan we had going into this year is really starting to take shape. All the hard work now will definitely be worth it once season arrives.

Below are a few pictures of the recent pond work we've been doing. You'll be hard pressed to find another group that works harder than we do to make it happen for our customers!

Very nice!

Looks good! Where are all of your ponds at? I saw that yall aren't far from palacios I have family that run a bait stand there. How has the fishing been?

So do y'all have levies or something built up around your fields? Do y'all just keep it flooded with a few inches of water during the season?

Looks great!! I wish that I had access to that kind of equipment....especially the drill. But, broadcasting and lightly disking has worked for me just as well it just takes more seed. I know what you mean on the flushing and irrigating. It has been a pain for me this year, but it will be worth it September on. Watering does cost more. If you don't do it though and it doesn't rain, you just wasted a lot of time and money especially when you have 100+ acres planted. BradyBuck, being in the area that they are in, I would assume that they are planting in fields that were rice farms once upon a time. They have good levees, have been flattened and slightly graded from the looks of it. Nice job again RnG!

Those open top tractors made lots of good cowboys

Lol I thought you pulled that disc with that NH until I went back through the pics. I was thing damn he is hell in a tractor..

It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll.

That looks like Matagorda county.

We have ponds & property scattered from East Bernard to Kendleton to Matagorda to Palacios to El Campo and everywhere in between. The fishing has really turned on lately and become very consistent.

All the ponds have some sort of levee around them. Some have the massive 3-4ft DU style levee and others are rice fields in rotation. The pictures that look like just big fields are 30-50 acre ponds and you just can't see the levee around the perimeter of it. We can hold 1-3ft of water on almost all our ponds. Most of them we'll have 18-24 inches on the low end and 6-8 inches on the high end.

Hopefully our area will receive some much needed rainfall this week and the weather guys aren't to far off. Either way, we still flushed another handful of ponds over the weekend just to make sure and will keep flushing more until the rain actually starts to fall.

Another successful day of pond work for Team RNG! Finished flushing another property, planted & flagged another, unclogged 2 ponds so they can finish draining and be ready to plant within a week, moved seed and tractor/planter to the next property to get planted tomorrow and sandblasted pits so painting can be done tomorrow.

Very impressive.
Hard work will pay off.
Will see you for teal end sept. Cant wait.

Looking forward to it! Guys saw roughly 1500+/- teal while checking water levels and pulling boards on Sat all scattered out across different properties.

Another little wad showed up on another property today outside Palacios. Video is a little bury, but you get the picture.

[img]http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/...4v5rq.mp4[/img]

When you say "flushing ponds" what does that mean exacgtly?

Looks like quite the operation!

he puts just enough water on the field/pond to get everything wet, and cuts pumps off...leaving nice wet, moist, dirt so the millet will go ahead and sprout

Busy busy times for the Run-N-Gun Crew right now getting everything ready for waterfowl season! Teal season in right at a week away and we have water pumping everywhere. Even pulling water off a few properties that have been getting rain. Millet is a little behind where we'd like to see it right now due to all the rain that stunted its growth early on, but it has really started coming on strong the last couple of weeks.

Wow I'm wore out just reading this thread,a lot more work than it looks like.

looks great as usual. I plan on taking some pics of progress along the way next year. You are definitely right hillbilly....people have no idea until they try it. A lot more to it than putting slats in a flashboard riser and pumping water if you even have that ability

cue... hard workin man

Do yall have water wells or where do u get all of ur water?

We have water wells or access to wells on just over 60 of our 65 ponds. Two we have to relift runoff water when it rains and then 2 we rely on LCRA water or rain water. We prefer well water properties because it's guaranteed water and LCRA is a toss up or has been the past 4-5 years.

We take a bunch of pictures every year so we can look back and compare progress and time frames from year to year to try and fine tune when to do certain things. Obviously weather plays the biggest part of the equation. Most people really don't have any idea what all it takes to make a great pond or habitat for waterfowl that'll keep them on a property for an entire season or at least give you a chance at holding them all season. Habitat, food and water is just a portion of the equation. Rest, rotating and how you hunt the pond/property is a huge part of it as well. Even how you scout and not driving up to the pond and blowing the birds off just to see what is there plays into it. Walking into a pond or using a spotting scope so you don't harass the birds makes a huge difference. Every little bit makes a difference and when you add them all up it could completely alter how a pond produces over the entirety of a season.