This is the harvest history for our little wetlands here in N TX.

We didn't have a full season until 2005 so there's 7 years of data in the averages rather than the full 8 as shown.

Thank the Lord for Gadwalls last season. Our Mallard count was less than normal and it was the first season without killing a Honker there. Between Gads and Ringers we still kept Rusty Dawg somewhat busy by averaging a little over 3 ducks per our normal 90 minute hunt. Not too bad for an old man and his dawg, huh?

That right there shows the season for just about everyone. Gadwalls were a life saver and the mallards never got the push. Good information. Wonder if the gadwall count will be down next year they took a beating this year

Thanks for that Jim. Thats the reason I keep the notes I do. You can go back and compare seasons.

Thats what I shot of also and teal never even seen a green head here

BWT=0 This year.
Any explanation?

Good work by the way.
Starting my log book this week

And to think about how much complaining and moaning you did about water levels!

Nice season.

I thought I saw you in a post somewhere cappy with a ruddy, I could be wrong.

It was probably a Ringer, they look a lot like Ruddys.



Yep ... didn't hunt early Teal this past season.

Cool tally. Is this just for you and how big is this pond youre hunting? Was just wondering.

damn, 81% hunting days??

either uncle sam pays you double social security or you just sleep in your blind...

He's retired and lives just a few miles from where he hunts private, so no cost in just getting out.

The Wetlands varies between 7-1/2 and 11 acres depending on how much water we do get. I plant 5-7 acres around the perimeter with Sorghum, corn, Egyptian wheat, Millet and other crops, varying year-to-year.

I will typically hunt it 5 out of 7 mornings each week for a max of 90 minutes per hunt. Usually just me and one dawg but my wife will join us about every 3rd or 4th hunt if: (1) lots of birds are working, (2) the temp is above 40, (3) there's NOT a strong N wind, and 4) she can get out of bed that morning.

I wish I would take the time to track my data from this year. I leased 3 lakes in central Tx this last year and guided on them. Harvested between 425 and 450 ducks on approximately 24-28 hunts. Was a pretty awesome year! Only about 15 mallards. Mostly gads, widgeon and redheads (probably close to 100 redheads). No bands at all. Average hunt was probably right at 16-17 birds per hunt.

It was for sure the year of the gaddy..

It was odd for us between Freeport and Tivoli. Not as many gadwalls as usual. Few gads, few sprigs, few wigeon, a few teal and a few divers and there you have it.

I guess I just had an odd season with the exception of the first hunts right after the split where I hunted twice with limits of gadwall we didn't see them near as often as we usually do. The first split for us was Mallard domination including 3 straight hunts of full strap mallards.

cool tally.

Very interesting Cappy. I keep a journal too and it looked similar to yours until this year. The gadwall numbers were way up this year as well, but it is intriguing that you did not shoot many pintails. The pintail numbers here were incredible. I hunted 62 days this year but we had a few differences. The most obvious is places. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it because we travel all over the state and only hunt public. However, with the exception of 1 place, we almost always shot our pintails in the 2nd split. Mallard numbers were really good, but we shot most of those in the 1st split. We shot some in the 2nd, but had a 2 week period where we shot none. When we got rain the last week of the season the hunting went nuts. This is by far the best season we have ever hunted #'s wise. Glad you had a great year.

The journal we keep is very detailed with date, starting and finishing times, temp, cloud cover, wind direction and speed and other weather factors. Because we are hunting the same wetlands each time, the only variables (aside from time & weather) are which of the three primary blind locations I used and whether or not I deployed spinner(s) or not. And of course, the details of any birds harvested.

When we were hunting three dawgs it was nice to keep a tally by dawg so that each would get a fair share of the overall retrieves. Now that we're down to only one plus an occasional guest's dawg, it isn't that important.

I love my dog, but good lord.......

Cappy,

Has your wife always hunted with you?

Well ... for the 22 years that we've been married, yes. For wto years before that she was given the option to hunt with me or not complain while I was gone during the upland and waterfowl seasons each year. Back then I had GSPs.

Carol started hunting upland in Hawaii with me over a pointing Shorthair and fell in love with the dawg work. After that it was a 2nd Shorthair, a Llewellyn Setter, two Labs and now her Doodle dawg. She still loves to hunt with the dawgs and watch them fulfill their genetic purposes.