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Rockport Report - Bull Sprig Bling

3K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  MilosMaster 
#1 ·
(I tried to delete the other thread but couldn't figger out how?)

Three of my buddies (njacob, a lurker named Clint and a drunk named Bill)and I headed down to Rockport for a little duck action this past weekend. A great time was had by all, not as many ducks as we would have liked but they just aren't there in the numbers they have been the past few seasons. It was quite an experience sitting in the marsh as the cold front blew in Saturday morning, with conditions going from 80+ and completely still to 55 and honking 30-40mph in about 2 minutes. Gotta love this Texas weather. The slow hunt Sunday was salvaged by nice drake pintails for everybody and a party-shot band.

This pic is from Saturday before the front, still, hot and nothing flying. We were with Capt. Jeff Steckler, he worked his butt off building a cool little ground blind the hide four fat guys.


Milo escorting a drake Redhead back to the blind Sat. morning. No hero shot today but I think we had 5 redheads and a GW teal. Just not many birds around.


Sunday morning Hogheaven (Capt. Jason Brou) dropped us off in one of his blinds. It was windy and COLD, by Rockport standards anyway.


We saw approximately one gazillion pintails and nothing else. We each took nice drakes, here is Milo bringing one back.



The highlight of the day was definitely the beautiful banded drake pintail that njacob and Clint teamed up on. He is going on somebodies wall, not sure whose! Last year they also each shot awesome bull cans when I took them on a hunt I bought in a DU aution. Not sure I am taking these guys hunting anymore.




Hero shot with our sprigs


Despite the overall lack of birds it was a fun weekend. Chasing woodies and greeheads in the East Texas woods next weekend with the same guys, hopefully they didn't use up all of thier duck karma on that band!
 
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#5 ·
Thanks guys, the nice drakes and especially the band was definitely MUCH appreciated by our group. It was the first band for any of the group and we figured that between the four of us we have probably taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000-2500 ducks in our lifetimes. When he picked us up Capt. Brou even asked if that was us 'screaming like little girls' about shooting a band. I guess sound carries a lot over water, oops!

Don't know what happened to the pics of Milo retrieving that were above, but I thought they were neat so I am posting them again.



 
#6 ·
Good pics! Finally ended up making it down there myself, but did most of my hunting at the ranch looking for the muy grande. Did end up going duck hunting two times out of Rockport. We had 8 one day and 9 the next, mostly bw's but had the pintails and a spoonie.
 
#8 ·
Thanks, I was only down for a few days around Christmas myself and only managed to squeeze in two hunts. We had 7 Christmas Eve morning and 4 the afternoon of the 26th.

I wonder if Ike has something to do with the general lack of birds in the area this year? It seems like numbers are WAY down from the past several years and that is the only factor I can think of.
 
#9 ·
MM, if you get back in there and do some exploring, you can see a big habitat change that is a result of the storm surges associated with Ike and Dolly. There is little to no wigeon grass, and many of the back lakes are simply mud flats. There's also very little fresh water in the area. It's just not the same as years past! Still a huntable number of birds, but not what we're used to.
 
#10 ·
capn, that makes perfect sense, figured it had to have something to do with the hurricane. Due to work I haven't been able to spend much time down there exploring and scouting around this season. That is why I have been using guides; when I make it down I generally get in around 8-9 Friday night and have to leave Sunday afternoon. Doesn't leave alot of time for scouting. Going with the guides is still a great time, but not nearly as rewarding as scouting, finding a group of birds, strategizing on how to hunt them and achieving success. I have 8doz blocks down there that haven't even gotten wet this year, work sucks!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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