Rice field hunting: How do you like you levees?

I like all the brush around the blind to be the same height and thickness as the rest of the levee

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I like all the brush around the blind to be the same height and thickness as the rest of the levee

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This. And stop stepping on the damn brush!!!

I prefer to walk in the water along side of the levee as oppossed to wearing out a trail that ends at your blind.

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you're overthinking this too much. if i had a dollar for every duck that landed in my fricking decoys or flew very close to me, while is was picking up my ducks, i could retire.

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Yeah but you could have retired earlier if you had a dollar for every duck that landed in the decoys while you were hiding.

geese are different. they get blasted for frickin 9 months out of the year, and hit a brick wall at 60 yards unless you can call very well

As a rule of thumb I like the grass to be at least knee high if the field is cut rice bc that usually means all the levees are grown up. If there is water on both sides I usually have brushed flaps to throw back when geese or ducks are landing. early in the morning the flaps stay down for quick shooting when the lights low. Also wt high brush sometimes we will just sit on the back of the blind and get down when we see something. and usually shoot while standing on the seat.

If the field only has water on one side or is dry on both sides I usually put one fold away flap on the water side or the side away from the sun.

Now if the field wasnt planted at all and is just disc up. maybe the farmer is rotating the field, planted beans (my fav for geese), or tore down the old levees for what ever reason and built fresh levees around the blind i def dont want to be the only high grass in the field. I will brush much lower and sometimes bring in grass clumps from the marsh to plant down the levee.

so i guess it just depends on the field. hope that makes sense.

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def dont want to be the only high grass in the field.

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For YEARS, the main pit at my farm was the only high grass on the farm. Short rice around the outside radius where the water ended, and fricking 6 foot grass around the pit. The geese would split over the levee every damn time, and the ducks would land near the edge just out of range. Brush cutter changed that shite real quick.

I keep a gas powered hedge trimmer or metal saw blade weed eater in my truck for constant pruning. as the cold weather knocks down the brush, cows, or idiots u bring hunting. I make major adjustments to all my blinds in the rice fields and marsh 3-4 times a season. as well as decoy spreads, etc. in my dry pits i usually only put out half a dozen speck full bodies. gotta call good tho. some of my marsh blinds i use 9-10 dozen duck decoys to start the season. ill shift some bc of wind and by the end of the season ill only have about 4-5 dozen out.

I have a dry pit with roll top that hasnt been hunted in years, might need to get on it this year for the geese. It has been hard for me to concentrate the ducks into reach out of my pit blind for a while, seems like there is a forcefield wall or something about 50 yards out. Been hunting a raised blind backed up to a small group of trees we flooded for the past 2 seasons.

I wish hardhead was online because he can tell the story much better than me. He had me rolling when I first heard it...

Basically, he was/is on a lease with a bunch of high rollers. Ol' hardhead is the only dog in the camp with a little hunt left in him if you know what I mean. Anyway, they all show up for the work weekend and when hardhead rides out to one of the blinds he finds guys weed eating and pulling natural vines off the blind to replace it with fresh cut cane that is not presently growing anywhere else in a 5 mile radius.

He asked them what they were doing and they straight faced got mad at him because he was questioning their methods.

I hunted out there and I have to agree with hardhead. It looked bad. Like top 3 worst brush jobs I've ever seen. It was comical it was so bad...

Hardhead said he just gave up on trying to help or explain what he was trying to tell them and let them have at it.

Luckily it's in a great location and ducks were still killed. However, I contend many more ducks could be killed with a proper brush job.