Saturday September 1st 2009
Austin, TX

Another opening day in Austin.  This year I got back to Houston the night before and by the time I got packed up and such, I didn't get to Luling till around 1 AM.  I went there because my ATV was there.  Connie had warned me she really had not been seeing many birds, but I thought she just hadn't been outside or looking for them.  Nope, there weren't many there.  Collin met me at Connie's and we setup near the small tank, which was completely dry.  I bought a Easy Tree for the decoys, as the year before, it would of come in handy to get the mojo above all the tall grass.  Well this year, it wasn't needed, since there was no grass.  Collin and I were setup first and just waiting for the birds when the retard Jason showed up and drove his truck and parked it on the fence line near us.  We moved a little, but we still had to avoid certain shots or we would hit the truck and we got peppered a few times.  Not a good start to dove season.  After we left there, I worked on my ATV and we decided to just go down to the tank there in Luling and were able to pickup a few more birds.
 

Sunday September 2nd 2009
Austin, TX

Today, we thought we'd try a different field that you had to walk too, or drive an ATV too.  I know they wouldn't be there, so we went there.  Wow, it was even worse than the day before.  We did not get any set up where we were and both started walking some to try and jump up some birds.  I picked up two.  We decided to move near the tank where I picked up one more bird before calling it quits.  A total of three birds for me.  That afternoon we setup at the top of a sunflower field in some trees as cover.  The birds were flying better, but we had to be careful to not shoot near the road.  I shot eight that afternoon.
 

Monday September 3rd 2009
Austin, TX

With the ass kicking I had been taking the past two days, I just couldn't justify to myself to keep hunting.  So both Collin and I packed up and would hunt pretty early in the afternoon and leave from the field.  Plus I had all the things to do at the house I was thinking about while not shooting doves.  I shot pretty bad and only ended up getting four birds that afternoon.  A video Collin shot of it.

Saturday September 12th 2009
Lissie, TX

Opening day of teal season once again.  Just like last year, we scouted beforehand and found the only spot that had water, it was a nice and easy spot to get to as well.  In a weeks time we got a LOT of rain, so now everywhere had water, but our spot was still the best and had the most open water.  So Trey and Steve got there early to make sure we got the spot and we rolled in around 5:45 with five people, two ATV's and two mojos.  Matthew pulled up about the same time we did.  It didn't take lot with eight guys to put out about five dozen decoys and three mojos.  We were done and ready by 6:37, but it was so dark at LST we waited a good 10 or 15 minutes before we started shooting.  I brought the Cordoba to shoot today.  Brandon and I were on the far right side and both of us could have shot better, but the group was done by 7:45 with an eight man limit.  The best part about being done early, Vincek's still had kolaches!  The vampires weren't that bad, but the birds really didn't finish all that well either.  The highlight was dropping six birds in one volley.  A few more pictures here.
 

Sunday September 13th 2009
Lissie, TX

Same drill different day.  Everyone was back except for Jeff who had tickets to the Texans game.  We got there a bit earlier this time and the vampires knew it; they were much worse.  We also had a good shower dump on us right as we got there and it made getting dressed a muddy and wet ordeal.  Next time the older guy advises to get dressed at Shell under the covered part, do it.  The wind was a bit different today, so we went out on a levy and sat there.  I'm so glad I brought one of those bucket lid seats to sit on.  While everyone else kind of sank into the mud, I was high and dry.  The birds worked much better today and earlier too.  Brandon was on the far left and he was done by 7:01.  It would of been before that if we found one cripple.  I was shooting the SBE2 today and shot much better.  I was done around 7:17.  If it weren't for some bad shooting on the right side, we would have been done by 7:25, but we finished at 7:38.  A few more pictures here.
 

Monday September 14th 2009
Lissie, TX

My last day.  It was just four of us, Steve and Jeff, and me and Andrew.  Steve again got there early and got our spot, but we didn't see any other groups out there; better safe than sorry.  The wind was like our first day, so we were back on the road.  With it being a small group, I brought the 20 gauge.  The birds were sort of finishing at an angle to the road so I moved down to the far right in hopes of getting a more "in your face" shot.  It was still too dark to shoot at LST, and we almost got out the flashlights to "spot light" teal.  I still think that would of been cool to do.  Anyways, once it was light and the birds started to fly we saw more than on Sunday and they decoyed well; damn vampires were worse though.  I shot pretty well and was done by 7:04 and the group was done by 7:10.  A pretty good teal season for me.  Easy hunts and no ATV to spend hours on to clean.  A few more pictures here.
 

Thursday October 8th 2009
Hanna, Alberta, Canada

My third trip to Canada with Blackfoot.  This year it was me, Andy, Ross, some of his buddies, and his dad.  Brian had been telling me the weather was very weird, but a front was coming and should push the birds down.  Plus, another guide we know was killing them up north, so I felt that the time we got there, we would have birds.  Wrong.  Our first hunt was near a roost pond that held a few thousand specs and a mix of snows and Canadas.  We setup a few hundred yards from there with one of the farmers using GHG decoys, a few outlaw silhouettes, and some SS snows.  X-Land’r blinds were set out and we grassed them up a little and got ready.  From the get go, you could tell the specs weren't acting right.  It didn't help we had no wind either.  A group of snows decoyed perfectly and the group of seven guns dropped 11 birds.  I was pretty impressed with that.  We were able to pick up a spec here and there, but then Brian had us move the blinds around to try and get the specs as they came at us, but they saw something they didn't like.  When we were facing the other direction as first setup, the birds would fly over us pretty low.  Hindsight, we should of taken the shots as they flew over us.  The high point of the hunt was having a group of swans that wanted in VERY bad.  It was cool to see them work.  Just as we finished picking up the decoys a COLD front blew in.  The field was covered in snow by the time we left and the wind was blowing!

That afternoon we busted ice on the only place around there that had ducks on it.  There were over 100 ducks on there and some greaters when we got there, we hoped they would come back closer to dark.  We all hid in a tree clump near the edge and took turns shooting, or so was the idea.  It was so cold and windy, no-one really wanted to be exposed too much and there really weren't a lot of birds flying.  I think the day ended with four ducks.
 

Friday October 9th 2009
Hanna, Alberta, Canada

The wind was blowing steady 20+ all night and we felt confident heading into the field that we would have new birds and plenty of them.  Wrong again.  We setup using snow covers for the blinds due to everything being covered in snow, grassed them up a little and got ready.  Andy and I were over on the right and we had a pair of specs come in perfect to us, Brian called the shot and for some weird reason, we shot each others birds.  Ie, I was on the right and shot the left bird, and he shot the right bird.  A little later some snows got a bit too close and we dropped four out of that bunch and a single spec came in range on the left and it was dropped.  Seven birds for the AM.
 

That afternoon we went to a field that was holding some greaters.  The blinds were laid out in pairs in the swath and we put out only silo decoys.  After the decoys were setup and the blinds grassed, we talked and BS'ed for about an hour until we finally saw birds on the horizon.  Then it was a Mexican fire drill to get in the blinds, load the guns and get ready.  When the shot was called, I believe five greaters were down.  Not a bad start.  Next up we had some high ones that didn't quite finish, but we dropped two out of those.  Then all the birds in the area got up at once, which is never a good thing, they all came and looked at us, but didn't finish.  One smaller group finished right between the far left and center pairs and they dropped five.  We finished the day with 13 greaters and 1 lessor.
 

Saturday October 10th 2009
Hanna, Alberta, Canada

After finding no birds scouting the previous night, they decided to try a snow hunt with e-caller in a field near where we hunted the first day.  The farmer said there were several thousand snow geese the previous day, so we put out all the SS and the e-caller, grassed up the blinds and waited... and waited.  Early into the hunt there was a spec that got close, but didn't finish and the shot wasn't called.  Turns out that was it for the day.  We saw no other birds.  Guess the snows bugged out over night.  Back at the hotel we ate some breakfast, packed up, and hit the road for Calgary where we hung out at a sports bar, watched some college football and ate chicken wings for a while.

The expression, 3rd times the charm, got it backwards on this hunt, unless it was the charm for the birds.  Wow, talk about a busted hunt.  We had good time and it was a good group, but damn, there were just no birds.

Saturday October 31st 2009
Francitas, TX

This year we got on a new lease near Francitas off of CR111.  Its pasture land with a couple of DU projects on it and some pit blinds; not a lot of land, but its in a good area and should have plenty of big ducks.  I didn't hunt it during teal season, but Andrew and Dane had good things to say about it.  One nice thing about the lease is, its only 20 minutes away from our family bay house on Carancahua.  I got to the bay around 5 on Friday and helped my brother rig up decoys by melting down old strap weights and cast them for Texas rigging decoys with my Flat Bank Sinker mold.  Our cousin Terry has a place down the way and he came over to BS and ended up helping Andrew with rigging up decoys, while I worked on Andrew's trailer.  That night we went over for dinner at Terry's, he cooked chicken fried nilgai.  Damn that was good.  Too many nights of eating there and I'll need new clothes.  Dane showed up a little later and after figuring out the game plan for the day finally got some sleep around midnight.

We got up around 5:30 and after a cup of coffee, hit the road.  Andrew knew some route that was all back roads, I have no clue how we got there.  Finally at the gate, I get out to open it only to find our lock has been locked out.  Uh oh...  A few calls to the lease manager with no luck, so we decided to drive over to his place and see if he is still there.  Again, no luck, so we either call the hunt or try to find him.  We unload Andrew's ATV and Dane hauls ass looking for Frank.  After 10 or so minutes our hope starts to fade, but Dane hauls ass back to the trailer with the combo.  By this time its almost shooting time so we unload ASAP and head to the pits.  Andrew is first and says the #2 pit is flooded, so we can either go to the other pit or hunt the levy.  We choose wrong.  Pit #1 was not flooded, but it had no cover and was full of ants; we found the ants after we were already setup.  I'll skip to the end of the hunt where Andrew left the blind because he was getting attacked by the ants and he was having a pretty bad allergic reaction, and Dane and I took some high shots just to shoot.  Wow, what a cluster.

Sunday November 1st 2009
Lissie, TX

Andrew went back to Houston for Halloween, but I decided to stay at the bay and figure out my next move, nap.  Andrew talked to the guys on the other lease and they got a quick four man limit, damn, just our luck.  Well I decide to meet them there and leave from the bay.  Craig and Scott are gonna hunt Francitas.  Saturday night I hunt out with Terry and went fishing with them at their fishing lease.  His sister and BIL came over for dinner that night and we met them on the way out and Tim went with us.  No keepers were caught, but damn the people out there pulled in tons of 18-19" reds.  After watching them do that for an hour I put on a paddle tail on my spinner and caught one for myself, same size as the others.

Dinner that night was fried fish, fried shrimp, grilled shrimp, and bacon wrapped asparagus.  Hmm... good stuff.  Ok, so I planned to leave at 4 the next AM, but never once did it occur to me to look at the map.  I had planned to get to the lease like I was coming from Houston.  Good thing Andrew called me and told me to go another route.  I ended up being late anyways, but I parked the ATV and ran to the levy right at shooting time.

Wow, I was doing good!  I making shots left and right and ones way over my back after everyone else quit shooting.  It wasn't long before I had five teal and was waiting for some big ducks.  I tag teamed on two gadwalls that others claimed, fine with me.  On one of my last birds, I folded one cleanly and another one crippled overhead.  Andrew went to look for the cripple and I went to the dead bird.  When I got to it, I saw a reddish head/body and bright blue patches on the wing.  I knew what it was, but was surprised/shocked.  I yelled over to Trey and described the bird and asked who else had shot, Brandon said he had too.  Trey sprinted over to me and then went to Andrew to find that bird incase it was the same.  First time I've ever seen a cinnamon teal in the wild.  I saw one at Halls many years ago that someone had shot and put in the freezer to be mounted there.  We ended the hunt with a four man limit, teal, two gadwall, and two spoonies.  Sad thing is that was the only area in the lease that had water and the farmer pulled the boards to drain it and cut rice.  So now after he cuts it, we need A LOT of rain.
 

Tuesday November 3rd 2009
Francitas, TX

I really wanted to get some specs before I went back to AK, but with no cut rice at Lissie, we didn't have the chance.  So when Andrew said he wanted to go out to the new place, I was up for it, even though it was gonna be an long day.  Andrew wanted to leave his house at 4 AM for the lease, so I set my alarm for 2:50 and went to bed 99% packed.  I got on the road pretty quick and got to his place just as he texted me asking if I was awake; good thing too.  When he went to start his ATV he realized he left it on and the battery was dead.  So we decided to jump it from his Harley and let it run a while.  It ran idle for about 10-20 minutes, before we decided to load it up and hit the road.  We made it to the front gate with a bout 10 minutes to spare before LST.  Andrew put out his decoys and I put together the mojo's and then the rig 'em right jerk string rig.  A jerk string complete with anchor and four clips for fast setup.  I have six GHG magnum pintails I have just for use with these, so I set it up three and three.  After hiding the ATV's, we get under the camo blankets and wait for the birds.  Right as we were setting up we had some teal look at us, but we weren't setup yet.  A little later, we have a redhead drake and pintail hen come in as a pair and land before we could react.  We both get ready and try to flush the drake, but he was just sitting there while the hen took off.  She got a free pass, but when he finally took off, Andrew took the shot and dropped him.  Next up was a group of pintails.  I whistle at them and we both pull on the jerk string and the birds turn to look at us.  We worked them for about eight or nine passes before they finally bugged out.  Damn.  A group of gadwall were next they worked us closer and Andrew called the shot just outside of the decoys.  It was a bit of a shot for IC and #4s.  He brought down a drake.  I changed up to LM after that.  And then our final birds of the day were another bigger group of gadwalls that we called the shot when I thought we both had easy doubles.  I pull feathers off of two birds they kept flying while two other birds go down.  Andrew swears we knocked down three, but we could not find the last bird.  The hunt ends with four big ducks, not too bad.  Just as we were looking for the missing bird and picking up a group of widgeon look at the spread; figures.
 

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