At least a few coots.


Blinds brushed


And ready for the youth weekend


Mid sept planting of millet is just about to start dropping seed.


Pit pumped cleaned and ready.

Good looking place brazos

x2 on the coots. Good luck next weekend with the kiddos.

Looking good.

Last pit finished up and ready. Just add ducks. 100s of coots yesterday vs 3 on sat.

Very nice. Did you find any snakes in that pit?

Big ducks will be in north texas on nov 16th

There are so many reasons not to like you Todd......the biggest is jealousy!!!!

Great looking place

what pit??? nice job, hope yall shoot em up for the youth opener!

Heading to my place today to brush blinds and check out bird numbers. Will post and update later today .

That is a very nice setup. I know you must have put in lots of hours of hard work to get to this point.

What all do you have in those ponds as far as vegetation? Looks like I saw some duck potato and possibly some lillies in another shot. We've been planting lots of stuff around my brothers pond but I think were going to wait until next season to do any hunting over it.

We've planted(mostly from native that we've found here or there)

Smartweed
Barnyard Grass
Coontail
Delta Duck Potato and Arrowhead Duck Potato
Duckweed
Banana Water Lillies(Those are the only plants that we actually bought)

All the other plants came from roadside ditches, rivers or local retention ponds. We're going to work hard next spring/summer to get a lot more stuff transplanted to the pond.

Sorry to hijack your thread but you appear to be pretty knowledgeable about all that from you post...

Our lake is a soil conservation /flood control lake. 35 of the 45 acres is knee deep at full pool. Every year it drains down at a different t rate. Different plants grow based on soil moisture and length of day when it dries.

Here's a list of things we've planted that were a waste of money.
Wild rice
Wigeon grass
Coontail.

Only thing I spend $$ on is Japanese millet and I plant the first of the month June, July, August, sept, and oct.

This year we are very heavy on barnyard grass and smartweed. Which means we will shoot heavy on grain eating ducks like pintails, mallards , and get.

Some years the water stays full and we are heavy on musk grass and we shoot heavy on birds that estate grass and snails- gads, cans, redheads.

I've had this place for 10 years and can pretty reliably tell you what we'll shoot the most of based on what grew.

That's interesting...wigeon must like cockleburs. That's dang near all we shot last year. About 24" of water with dead cockleburs very thick under the water.

Word to the wise-if a cocklebur ends up in your wife's underwear in the dryer-it's not gonna make her happy!!

Probably there for the invertebrates. Wigeons are generally grazers. They will eat every blade of grass in a pen raised setting.

Where is your ranch/lease located? My family has been looking into buying a property similar to yours

Waco area. Lakes like this are pretty hard to find.

Thanks man...that makes more sense. Surrounding the cockleburs and water is winter wheat but the birds were almost always in the burs. We would catch them up on the banks eating the wheat too...

There's your answer! Winter wheat or rye grass along the waters edge is wigeon heaven. I'm actually gonna try plowing and planting a 100 yard swath of wheat around my lake next year for this exact reason. Geese love it too.

My buddy had Eurasian and American wigeon in his aviary to produce hybrids. He got rid of then after 6 months because they ate the grass down to the mud.

Brazos, what do you use on those pit doors? I have the same Quirks pits and normally use Fast Grass mats on the doors. Is that raffia grass on yours? Looks a lot better than mine.

[quote=Teamjefe]Brazos, what do you use on those pit doors? I have the same Quirks pits and normally use Fast Grass mats on the doors. Is that raffia grass on yours? Looks a lot better than mine.

I take bundles of raffia about 18" long with a zip tie in the middle. I put4 pieces on each flap. You just zip tie them to the flaps. Hit it with some dark spray paint for color. At the end of the year I take em off and store them in a crawfish sack. I've gotten 3 years out of these with no problem. I add a couple bundles of the natural broom weed to each flat to break it up.

Here's one where you can see a little better.

That info helps a lot. really appreciate your insight...

soil conservation /flood control lake

Is that basically the same as a retention pond?

X2