Got Lucky in Texas

[jduckhunter]

Traveled down to the gulf coast of Texas last week with a few friends to see if we could put a dent in the overall duck population. Really needed to get away from all this fear and lock down crap for a few days. Our plan was to hunt the marshes and backwater areas around Rockport but upon arrival we were informed that waterfowl hunting in that area so far this season has been pretty bad. We heard through the grapevine that the locals were having great success with ducks on a big lake about 80 miles or so north of our location, so the decision was made to make the trip up there the following morning and see for ourselves. The duck hunting up there was borderline amazing and almost everyone shot a limit of ducks. We made that trip for three days in a row and had some wonderful shoots and if everyone's shooting would have been up to par we would have gotten limits every day, some suffered quite a bit of ribbing but never the less, fun was had by all. The one thing that no one was expecting was to be shooting Cinnamon Teal on this trip, but there they were and we managed to take a few. Cinnamon Teal are considered quite a trophy duck for us here in the east as they are rarely or never seen anywhere near here. As luck would have it I have a hunt booked for next Jan. in southern California specifically for Cinnamon teal, oh well I'm sure by the time next Jan. rolls around I'll be ready for another getaway.
The biggest surprise of the trip was when our return flight out of Houston scheduled for Sunday afternoon got cancelled Saturday evening. Our travel agent worked some overtime to get that sorted out and we wound up driving to San Antonio to catch a non stop flight to Baltimore at 1:00 PM Sunday which got us home 5 hours earlier then our original flight. I've never seen people lose their minds over a few inches of forecasted snow like those southern Texans, they started shutting everything down for something that we Pennsylvanians wouldn't even consider much of a nuisance. Seriously though I hope everyone came through it ok.

 

[Red Leg]

We barely survived both the blizzard (solid three-inches in Williamson county with 4-inch drifts!!) and intense cold .......... Schools were closed with the first "snow day" in a decade.

What big lake? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hope you have that bird mounted - they are exceptionally rare here.

 

[jduckhunter]

We barely survived both the blizzard (solid three-inches in Williamson county with 4-inch drifts!!) and intense cold .......... Schools were closed with the first "snow day" in a decade.

What big lake? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hope you have that bird mounted - they are exceptionally rare here.

Glad to hear you made it through the storm ok! Not to worry that duck is at the taxi shop already. Here's a clue.

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats and thanks for sharing!

 

[koodoo62]

Glad to hear you made it through the storm ok! Not to worry that duck is at the taxi shop already. Here's a clue.View attachment 383908

Texas Parks and Wildlife website says teal season ended in September. Don’t see any thing about a special season. Am I missing something?

 

[Ridgewalker]

Never took a cinnamon teal. One handsome little guy though!
I use to jump shoot blue wing and green wing teal. Great fun and IMO, the best tasting duck out there!

 

[Bullthrower338]

Choke Canyon is awesome fishing too! Some big gators in there also

 

[jduckhunter]

Texas Parks and Wildlife website says teal season ended in September. Don’t see any thing about a special season. Am I missing something?

That was the special teal season.

 

[WAB]

Texas Parks and Wildlife website says teal season ended in September. Don’t see any thing about a special season. Am I missing something?

Typically teal season is an early season for teal only. Teal are still fair game in the regular duck season.

 

[jduckhunter]

Choke Canyon is awesome fishing too! Some big gators in there also

Yeah the fact that there was a bass tournament going on there last week didn't hurt us at all. They kept the ducks moving. And yes we saw some rather large gator slides.

 

[Firebird]

It was a big teal year-we had a better than average year for cinnamons in utah as well. Glad you had a good shoot and took some trophies home.

 

[Trophyhunter01]

Nice to hear you found birds. Duck has been a real mystery last couple years I feel the flight patterns have changed and new food sources have moved the birds. The deer lease I am on is 5K acres with a large Trinity River frontage and only local Wood ducks can be found. Those are some pretty teal.

 

[Tubby’s Canteen]

I wonder if it was just an exceptional year for teal we had really good numbers of blue wings early this fall.

 

[CAustin]

You had a good hunt sir! Congrats

 

[buck wild]

I have several very good friends from Rockport that are big duck hunters and yes they have been wearing out the ducks at Choke Canyon lake this year with quite a few cinnamon also.