More About Wolves

As I drive the backroads and even main roads of Louisiana, I see lots of roadkill on the highways.  Lots of raccoons, possums, deer, armadillos.  I see many mink that lay flattened and dead and do a little fist pump and rejoice as I pass them due to what they did to our flock of chickens.  We're still recovering from that.  Predators are just a fact of life.  If you have animals, there are always other animals higher on the food chain that are just obeying the instinct that the Good Lord gave them.

Fortunately, as human beings created in the likeness and image of God, we're higher on the food chain than they are, and many times, we are forced to take matters into our own hands.  Many predators are buried in our garden and grow wonderful vegetables for us.  A t-shirt I would love to have states, "Compost Your Enemies" on it.  That's not very Christian-like, now is it?  By enemies, I mean mink, raccoons, owls, possums, red tailed hawks, and coyotes.  Those do a lot of damage to livestock and birds around here.

In our last post, I said a comment about wolves.  I want to talk a little more about wolves.  Wolves have been extirpated in Louisiana.  That means none exist in the wild.  They disappeared in the area due to losing their habitat, being mixed with coyotes, and hunted out, despite once being numerous.  I've seen foxes in the area, but never a wolf.

But like I said, that wasn't always the case.  The news clipping below from the Basile Weekly from 1993 shows a group of serious looking characters posing with guns in front of a hotel in Oberlin, Louisiana in 1936.  They aren't playing around.  The article states that wolves had been killing sheep in the area and they were protecting the livestock.  The caption is cut off but there must have been a bounty on the wolves as it states "... for each wolf killed."  I wish I could find the first part of that sentence.  When I was crawfishing, there was a bounty on nutria rats.  You could bring in the tail of a nutria and get $5 for each tail!

The reason I have this clipping is because the gentleman second from the left in the overalls was my great-grandpa.  We called him Big Grandpa.  He was born in 1884 and died in 1973, making him 89 years old when he passed away. 

 I can barely remember him as I was young when he died.  I do remember going to his house and collecting eggs from a hen house with him, but that's about it.  He's buried in Durio Cemetery right smack dab in the middle of our family farm in Oberlin, Louisiana.  I tip my hat to these gentlemen.  If not for them, wolves might be hunting our goats as I type this on a Tuesday night.  I hear coyotes howl at night around our place, but fortunately no wolves.  Thanks Big Grandpa!

Friday Flying Feathers

Teal season usually opens in late September.  It's always a tough hunt.  Most times it's hot.  Nine times out of ten you donate about a pint of blood to mosquitoes in the blind.  But all the time, it is a memorable experience whether you bring back ducks for the first gumbo of the season or not.  Dad called me up and asked me to meet him at the shop at 5 AM sharp.  I'll never turn down an opportunity for a teal hunt on the farm.  So I set my alarm for 4:25 AM and boogied to Oberlin.

As the sun slowly made its way up peeking over the eastern horizon, it painted a glorious canvas.  Herons and grosbecks flew overhead announcing a new day.  We sat in the blind and talked in hushed tones as we anticipated the first flyover.  Teal don't play around.  They fly fast and furious.  When they see the decoys and cup their wings, it's time to shoot.

Shortly after sunrise we heard shooting coming from blinds far away.  We kept our eyes peeled and soon, teal became visible heading our way.  It was our turn to open up on them.

Dad in the foreground

Flooded rice fields are crawfish ponds make the perfect environment for ducks.  It's a short season this year, one that ended this weekend.  Normally, any ducks we shoot have to be found by walking out, but this time, we had an assistant who ran out and brought them back to us.  Raven did an excellent job!

We killed six and found five.  I hate it when you lose a bird, but sometimes a wounded one is able to crawl off on a levee and hide in the weeds.  Sometimes, they'll regain their wits and fly off, getting a second chance.  Blue winged teal are named for the distinctive markings on their wings.  Pretty birds, for sure.

I set the water in the pot to scalding so that I could get them plucked and cleaned.

In anticipation of the kill, I had harvested some okra the day before, cut it up, and cooked it down with onions to be used in the gumbo.  Teal are pretty small, so once you get them plucked they're easy to clean.  Doesn't take long at all.  I put 5 cleaned teal in a gallon ziploc.

As much as we'll enjoy that gumbo, the memories of teal hunting with Dad is where the real enjoyment lies.  What a great morning!

The Teal Hunt - Sep 2024

Mid September marks the start of teal season each year.  Duck season evokes the notion of cold weather, and although a teal is a small duck that migrates south, the cold weather never quite migrates south with the birds.  Teal season normally coincides with an influx of the thickest swarms of mosquitos mankind has witnessed.  But teal hunting is fun, and there's nothing quite like fresh harvested teal and sausage gumbo in the pot.  I purchased my Basic Hunting license, Resident waterfowl, and Federal Duck Stamp and set my alarm for early the next morning. 

My buddy Gary asked me to meet him on Saturday morning, and I was there at the appointed time.  We rode his four wheeler out to the blind where we sat down on 5 gallon buckets turned upside down and waited.  It was a beautiful morning, with a full moon overhead.  Decoys were set out just in front of us to lure the birds in to their final resting place.  We talked in muffled whispers about stuff that old friends discuss - our kids, work, projects that we are working on at home.  

We heard a volley of shots go off from several locations to our west, south and east.  We saw a group of ducks fly overhead.  They were high and their motors were running.  They were in a hurry to get somewhere and it wasn't our pond.  Two cat squirrels played in the fork of a sweet gum tree behind us, dropping acorns that they had robbed from another tree.  They were making a lot of racket, distracting us from the job before us.

Soon we heard the flutter of wings and a whistle.  Ducks coming in!  They cupped their wings and landed in the pond.  Unfortunately, they were wood ducks.  Wood ducks aren't in season yet.  Wood duck drakes are, in my opinion, the most beautiful bird on the planet.  They eat acorns and aside from looking nice, they taste splendid roasted in a cast iron dutch oven with a dark brown gravy.  These birds knew they were safe in our pond since they were out of season.  I watched one wink at me and laugh.  Try that in "big duck" season, partner, I told him.

Many, many more wood ducks flew past us, maybe 35 or 40 in total.  Some got really close.  I could see their colorful plumage reflected against the rising sun.  But we couldn't shoot them.  The teal were non-existent.  The few that we saw were out of range.

Even if we could have shot some teal, I wouldn't have been able to.  When my alarm went off the morning of the hunt, I found the following sticky note: "Remember, No shooting a Gun."  Tricia made me promise her that due to my heart surgery, I would not shoot a shotgun.  Darn it!

So the only shots I took were with the camera on my phone that I shared with you tonight.  I felt like a VEGAN hunter!  Hopefully soon I will be freed up to shoot my shotgun when big duck season opens.  There are some cocky wood ducks I know that have a reservation with my cast iron dutch oven.

Opening Day of Teal Season

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This post needs a sub-heading.  "Not Much Meat For the Gumbo" sounds like a good description.  It was opening day for teal season.  I logged onto the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries website and purchased a resident hunting license for $20, a resident waterfowl license for $12 and a Federal Duck Stamp for $25.  I printed them out and carefully folded them in my wallet in the event we're visited by a game warden bright and early Saturday morning.

I set my alarm for 5 AM.  I had talked to my buddy, Gary, and was to meet him at the farm at the air strip at 6 AM.  That would give us ample time to get situated in the blind prior to sunrise.  Gary and I carried our shotguns and five gallon buckets down to the duck blind.  We turn the five gallon buckets upside down and sit on them.  They also are helpful in carrying out the game we kill.  Gary had gone out a few days prior and set out the decoys.  The pond is in a cut in a rice field that we had stopped up to save rain water.  As the sun began peeking up in the east, you could see the decoys bobbing in the water.

It was partly cloudy, with a gentle breeze.  Actually, quite cool for this time of year at 70 degrees.  Mosquitoes buzzed around us in thick clouds.  I began slapping my neck.  Gary passed a can of Deep Woods Off to me.  We heard shotgun blasts from other blinds in the distance as the time of official sunrise passed.  My Dad was hunting with my nephew and his friends not far from us.  Neighboring farmers were scattered in blinds adjacent to us.  Mexican squealers, crooked beaked cranes and cattle egrets flew by.

The ducks were coming in slowly - one or two at a time.  Some would cup their wings and land amidst the decoys.  Bigger flocks flew higher overhead.  Some groups circled our pond and then changed their minds and flew away.  Gary and I took shots when we had them.  Some of our shots were true.  Some were hopeful at best and fired when the teal were well out of range.  I thought I saw a teal look back at us and wink.

Gary and I use the occasion to catch up.  He's a good friend and we don't get to spend the time that we ought to.  We talk about family and work and the things you normally talk about like life, health, and memories of times we shared when we were younger and worked together.  In retrospect, some of this talking likely scared some of the teal away, I'm sure.

About 8:15 AM the ducks stopped flying.  The sounds of shotgun blasts from other ponds stopped.  We walked out to the pond and retrieved our ducks.  Sadly, Gary killed one and I killed one.  We missed four or five.  Not a very successful hunt, if you gauge it by the weight of your game bag, but we enjoyed ourselves.  Dad, and the other three in his blind killed 10.  Here's Gary with our two birds.

And here's me with the teal.

Gary was going to bring his daughter out hunting Sunday morning, but I told him I'd meet him next Saturday.  I'm waiting on a report to see how many they got.  With only one bird, it didn't make sense to get out the crawfish boiling pot I use to scald them or the big plucker we use when we butcher chickens.  I just decided I'd scald them on the kitchen stove.  It might have been my imagination, but I thought I sensed displeasure from my wife in this decision.

Once the water got to 145 degrees, I began dunking the bird.  You can see why they are called blue-winged teal, can't you?  I plucked the teal in the kitchen, being ever so careful to put every single feather in the five gallon bucket that had served as my seat in the duck blind.

I had sharpened my knife while waiting on the water to boil.  I took the teal outside to gut.  I certainly didn't want to push my luck.  Tricia sat out with me while I cleaned the teal.  It didn't take long.  In no time I had the teal cleaned along with the gizzard, the liver and the heart.

Not much meat for the gumbo, but that was only day one.  I'll get more.  We can always "stretch the pot" with some sausage, too.  

The Blue-Winged Teal's Final Flight To Louisiana

This past weekend was the closing weekend for teal season.  Teal are ducks that migrate south for the winter.  They enjoy dabbling in rice fields for seeds leftover from the harvest.  They are generally the first ducks south and the last ducks to leave in spring.  Teal season opens on September 15th and runs through September 30th.  There is a 6 bird daily bag limit.  We have to wait for "big duck" season until later.  The trouble with teal season is that it is still hot.  Mosquitoes are in abundance.  In fact, last weekend we didn't kill any ducks, but we got more than our legal limit of mosquitoes!

Here is a look at our pond with the decoys in the foreground.  We sit on the levee camouflaged by tall weeds 

We arrived at the pond at 6 am, before the sun rises.  We walked quietly out to the blind with our guns and a 5 gallon bucket to turn upside down and sit on.  We load our guns and while slapping mosquitoes, we quietly talk and wait patiently for the ducks to come swarming in.  You can hear them before you see them, their wings rapidly beating through the thick, humid air.  They fly fast and furious, ducking down, rising up, circling before they cup their wings and commit to landing among the decoys.  That's when we let 'em have it.

The flights usually slow down or stop around 7:45.  We trudged out and picked up the birds.  We ended up shooting eight, but one was wounded and crawled away, hiding himself in the tall grass.  I hate to lose a bird!  They were all Blue-winged teal.

Here is a photo of my hunting buddy, Gary.  Gary and I grew up together and have hunted together for as long as I can remember.  Gary has keen eyesight and can spot the birds flying in wayyyyyy before I can.  He told me to go ahead and take all 7 of the ducks home to clean.  I'm not gonna argue with that, but I agreed to give him all the ducks we killed the next morning.

Here I am with a handful of teal.  They aren't heavy.  Teal are small ducks.  The male weighs a pound and the female slightly less.

Now's time to pluck, gut and clean them, but first, something shiny caught my eye.  One of the birds has a band on his leg.  See it?

So what you do with a band is you get on the Internet and go to www.reportband.gov.  When you get to that sight they ask you many questions about your encounter with the bird.  They ask you to drag a 'push-pin' to the exact spot on a map where you killed the bird and the date of the encounter.  Finally, after submitting answers to many questions, they send you a certificate to let you know interesting information about the bird you harvested.

One of the things they said was, "Bird banding is important for studying the movement, survival and behavior of birds. About 60 million birds representing hundreds of species have been banded in North America since 1904. About 4 million bands have been recovered and reported."

Check out the certificate they sent me:

How cool is that!  So my teal hatched in 2015 and was banded on August 16, 2016 near Fairmount, Saskatchewan, Canada!!!  That little bird did some powerful migrating, right?  Since he was banded in 2016, this is likely his second trip down.  I did a search to see how far it is from Fairmount, Saskatchewan, Canada to Oberlin, Louisiana.  It is 2,033.7 miles.  How's that for some frequent flier miles?

I plucked and gutted all the birds and packed into a gallon-sized ziploc bag.  The cleaned birds weighed only 3.75 pounds.  It is exceedingly less expensive to just go the the store and buy some meat, but then you miss out on all the fun.
 

Tricia put them into the deep freeze and promised that she'd be making a gumbo with them soon.  The first cool front should be approaching in the next couple of weeks.  I cannot wait.  It was 95 degrees today.  When it gets cold, we call that "gumbo weather!"

It was a lot of fun going out and hunting with my buddy, Gary.  It was also very interesting to kill a banded duck and learn about the long trip that he flew.  Unfortunately for him, he won't be making the second leg of his journey back to Canada in the spring.