Teal and Gator Season Recap

We started out 2015 gator season on a high note. We only set 10 lines opening day because we had to save some tags for other donated hunts later in the season. We took some good friends and had a blast! 6/10 and the best day I've had for gator hunting. Too bad the prices were chit this year. Stupid farm raised gators. $5/ft under 6 ft, $10/ft 6-8', and $15/ft over 8'. The prices have literally been triple this the last 3 years. After seeing the prices we pretty much stopped hunting them altogether.





After that I had a black cloud over me all weekend. We had horrible hunts opening for the most part opening morning between 3 blinds in our reservoir. I think we had 30 teal between 10 hunters. The next morning I decided to sleep in and low and behold my brother and his friend were the only ones who hunted and it was incredible. I guess the birds got run out of the rice and settled into the marsh Saturday afternoon. My buddy didn't lock the boat trailer down Sunday morning properly so it came off the ball going over a bridge so I had to drag it all the way over and back down because I could get it back on the ball on that steep slope. Blew a tire out at the boat ramp just before that. After that we regrouped. Thank god for my cousin. He found a pile of birds in their marsh that were roosting in the rice and heading into the marsh to rest all day. None of his family members would make the walk in so we had them all to ourselves. We hunted with him 6 times and killed limits every time. I don't think it took longer than 30 minutes on any morning. The afternoons were a little bit slower and took about an hour. The dogs did great also! Their marsh is 6 miles as the crow flies from ours. It is amazing how slow it can be in one spot and that good so close. They had probably 1200 acres of second crop rice flooded up and no one except us hunting the marsh so the birds didn't really have to leave the ranch I guess.

9/15 afternoon hunt 3 man limit



9/17 afternoon hunt 3 man limit



9/20 morning hunt 3 man limit



9/25 morning hunt 7 man limit in 15 minutes, we had 2 groups that we kill 15+ birds out of. Huge decoying flocks.



9/26 morning hunt 6 man limit. It was slower but we still killed limits in 30 minutes.



9/27 morning hunt we split up and my girlfriend and I had no problem shooting our 12 birds in 20 minutes or so. Perfect ending. The other group had 4 limits in a short time also.

Nice.

Where do you sell the gators? A buddy of mine has like 25 tags and has problems filling them because nobody wants to pay to get the gator processed. In Jackson County

I just looked it up and there is a buyer in El Campo, Larry Janik. We bring ours to Mark Porter in Anahuac. If we sell the gators whole, we don't pay anything for processing. You can buy meat for like $5/lb. I think they might charge a small fee for skinning the gator if you want to get it tanned but I'm not sure because I've never gotten one tanned. The processing fee shouldn't be much, it's the tanning that is expensive, I believe about $100/ft.

Yall still aint married yet?
Dont let that one take off like a fast teal
She is a keeper

Nothing says "cool and dry" quite like chest waders in Texas in September.

Hope you had the decency to tell her they were "breathable".


Bless her heart.

The two old guys on the left in that one photo wearing hip boots seem to know what they're doing.

You might want to pay attention to them.

Unless you're one of the old guys on the left, you might need to be asking that little girl advice on waders. It's a clear bet she knows more about hunting than 99% of the people on this forum.

Beaversnipe and I finally agree on one thing. He better marry that gal!

I'll take breathable waders over hip boots in that marsh 365 days a year. You would have been proud of me though, I wore knee boots into knee to thigh deep the first time we hunted out there. I opted for the "breathable's" after that.

I was going to buy some hip boots but I spent all of my money on snow goose and sandhill crane stickers for the back window of my truck so people know that I hunt

looks like a great teal season, John Paul

I'm jealous of the gators, always wanted to gator hunt, just haven't made it happen yet

Solid

It wouldn't take too many of those $700 a day Snow goose hunts for me to be broke too.


I'd discourage you from it. The American Chesapeake Bay Retriever Club and Texas DU stickers is more than you could pull off.

I have to use stickers cuz carrying a cow board around would make me feel foolish.

You'll be better served by stickin' with the Nederland - Port Neches Car dealer stickers. It will help keep folks expectations low so you can suprise them.

Oh wow you got me! I'm glad you revamped that comeback because the first version was even worse. Have a great season and I hope you come make yourself look like an arse again sometime soon.

Nice leezards!!!!

Dont worry bout gk. blowhard gotta know blowhard. Dog catcher Gonna dog catch...,,,,,

Looks like a good start for the season. Use your float blinds?

Yea we sure did. They floated great and were very stable. We put 5 people in 1 blind which was to many to hunt comfortably but it still had about 8" before the deck went underwater. We didn't kill very many ducks out of them because there just wasn't many teal in our area. Big duck season is always much better in our area than teal season. Hoping to really test them out 2nd half of the season when the ducks get smart.