Teal Season Check In

Terrible teal season. Houma, La. Did make a hunt in Kaplan and shot 3 limits there. Made 4 hunts in Bayou Black and didn't fire a shot. Marsh has spotty grass, but nowhere near what we typically have. Salt water intrusion last winter appears to have taken a serious tole on the marsh.

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Made 4 hunts in Bayou Black and didn't fire a shot. Marsh has spotty grass, but nowhere near what we typically have. Salt water intrusion last winter appears to have taken a serious tole on the marsh.

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Saw some videos of our lease shot yesterday, big cuts along the canal banks, essentially islands of floatant drifting around. Pond that was full of grass looks clean as a whistle now. Traveling further North there's an abrupt change to lush ponds loaded with SAVs, just like last year. Thought the freshwater being diverted thru lease would help that area out, but doesn't appear to be the case.

Yes, marsh has certainly changed. Our property essentially parallels the ICW. We have gaping holes with turbid water funneling in and out everytime a tug boat passes. Unless they fix the ICW levees, the marsh will continue to deteriorate. We've been back there for over 30 years. We have more open water now than ever. Luckily, our property is about 85% covered with vegetation. The rest of the leases/properties around us are more like 15 -20 % coverage. Not good.

Been hunting down there for over 20 years, the land loss in our area is staggering.

Same here. Been hunting Orange Grove for 25+ years. As a kid, we has small trenasses and small ponds. Then it started opening and is now one big lake with floats shifting around. Some years moves more than others. We don't have much grass at all this year. Feel bad for my old man, he re-built his blind a few weeks ago on a Sunday, then Francine blew it away that following Wednesday.

I heard the other day there is a lawsuit of some sorts in the works for the OG area due to the environmental impacts of the Hansen pump station. I thought the introduction of extra water would help, but apparently it's had the opposite effect. I assume it's because its the stagnant low oxygen swamp water instead of "healthy" river water like the west side of Bayou Black. Everything has taken a turn for the worst for us. Fish, frogs, gators (sizeable), good aquatic vegetation, marsh loss, you name it, it's incredibly worse off.

Glad I didn't teal hunt. I had every intention to, but never put it together. Looks like I didn't miss much. All the teal were on the west end by the river and down the bayous in southern part of the parish.

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Last year was bad because of the drought,

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We actually had a great year last year in Bayou Black. I would assume the was thanks to the drought.

That is very interesting. One piece of property we have permission to hunt used to be amazing, and over the years for different reasons we have more and more freshwater being introduced, and we all thought that would increase SAV, but it really has not. Maybe the ponds are too open now, but not good looking at all.

I killed my first duck as a 10 year old in bayou Dularge back in 2002.
That area was already broken marsh with high salinity, I imagine it’s only gotten way worse and the hunting is probably not very good.
My dad and his buddies said that area was pot holes and small ponds up to the early 80’s and by the early 00’s it was a lot of open water.
It’s a darn shame what has happened to southeast coastal Louisiana.