St. Landry teal hunters have good season

You know it’s going to be a good duck hunt if the birds are already hanging out with their plastic counterparts when you get to the blind.
“Did you see them take off when we came up behind the levee?” asks Blane Frey as he takes his place in a blind on a rice lake levee just northeast of Eunice. “That’s a good sign. There must have been about 20 birds in that bunch.”
Frey, a farmer, has hunted the area not far from his home all his life. On this particular day, he is joined by Roland Matte of Crowley and Rodney Verret of Sunset. Fellow hunters Bubba Matte, son of Roland, and his own son Hunter of Tipatate have taken a place on the levee just south of the blind, and Shane Lejeune of Eunice grabs a spot to the north.
A light mist falls from an overcast sky and a good breeze makes the decoys on the western side of the blind bob in the water. Two spinning wing decoys complete the set up. It is great weather for duck hunting -- windy, cloudy, 60-something degrees and a little rain.
Five minutes after shooting time, a single teal lands in the decoys, and the elder Matte wastes no time harvesting the morning’s first duck.
“The ducks started flying late yesterday,” Frey says. “They were passing in flights of about five to 10 birds, and we got 31 of them in about two hours.”
“On sunny days, the flying is usually done by 7:30.”
It takes less than 10 minutes before a flock of teal buzzes the blind, and a barrage of firing ensues from a few of the hunters. Three or four birds fall into the lake. The hunters keep their eyes peeled for the next flight, and the downtime turns to small talk about an upcoming dove hunt, football and the weather. Shots are heard in at least two other directions from the blind, mainly the east, and it sounds like those hunters are seeing a good bit of ducks, too.
“They are shooting a lot,” Frey says. “A lot more than they were yesterday.”
Short lulls pass between several large flights ranging from 15 to 50 teal, and the ducks fly north to south or south to north just in front of the blind or come from directly over the back. In the 45 minutes since shooting time, a few birds are plucked from each of the passing groups. As the flights appear to taper off, a single makes its way toward the levee before flaring off unharmed.
Around 7:30 a.m., Frey and the middle Matte head out into the field to collect the ducks before the marks are forgotten, and the eldest Matte and Verret good-naturedly rib the two hunters doing the retrieving.
“Look at those two spoonbills coming in,” Matte says, laughing.
“We’ll have to bring some dog biscuits next time,” Verret says, laughing.
“Make sure they are sausage and egg biscuits,” Lejeune calls out, laughing, from his hidden spot in a thicket of grass.
Eleven birds are retrieved, and as soon as the hunters are back in the blind and hidden, a group of teal works the levee. The two younger Mattes and Lejeune fire into the fray.
According to Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Waterfowl Study Leader Larry Reynolds, rice lake hunters fared better than marsh hunter’s during this year’s “spotty” teal season, and in general, the season was sub par for most in the field.
“I think early in the season rice lake hunters did the best and then it balanced out to the marsh in the end,” he said. “But rice lake hunters probably did better overall. It’s typically like that every teal season.”
“Overall, the harvest was below average, and WMA (wildlife management area) harvest numbers were low. The season wasn’t too good. Some had an outstanding season. Hunters in Roanoke and Welsh did well the entire season.”
Those in the marshes to the west and south of Eunice, including those at the White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area south of Gueydan, did a little better later in the season, and hunters on the northern end of the state saw birds for the first week before they hauled tail for the remainder of the hunting days.
“Hunting was also poor throughout southeast Louisiana, but there were a few hot spots,” Reynolds added.
Prior to the season, the waterfowl study leader participated in an aerial teal survey, and what he saw from the sky clearly translated for those hunting rice lakes and showed what the season would be like overall.
“In survey flights before the season, that’s where the largest concentrations of blue wings were, in the rice lakes,” Reynolds said. “Marsh teal hunters haven’t done too good in the last few years.”
“The teal population survey was the third-lowest on record, and the survey is a fairly reliable indicator of teal harvest success,” he added.
One of LDWF’s staff members charged with tagging birds in the Port Barre area told Reynolds that he saw 5,000 to 10,000 teal on a nearby farm just before the season opened, but the birds were nowhere to be seen come opening day.
“We had some weather right before the season opened, and the birds moved off,” Reynolds said. “One of my colleagues said, ‘That’s just teal being teal.’”
“It was a pretty typical season (compared to recent years).”
When Matte and Lejeune return with the ducks, the total moves to 15. The team is not back in position long before a flight of about 20 teal is spotted headed for the blind. Everyone hunkers down, and the birds are called down to the lake.
They circle twice and get in the perfect position right in front of the blind. It is a safe assumption that every hunter on the levee is firing, as it’s the best working group of birds all morning. It’s one of those times when you have your bead on a bird, and the minute you move to lead, the duck falls out of the sky. Teal drop everywhere, and others spiral down before splashing into the lake.
“Those came in perfect,” Frey says. “They sound like little jets passing by. I love that sound.”
The next flight wastes no time in arriving, and the group coming in from right in front of the blind is so thick, at a distance it resembles a cloud of red-winged blackbirds. The firing begins, and a few ducks plummet from the group.
“That group was far out but then they are right on top of us,” the eldest Matte says. “We let ‘em get too close.”
“I saw about 500 of them fly near the blind the other day when we were working on it, and they didn’t even stop for a look,” Frey said. “They were heading to a pond north of the town. I had never seen that many teal at one time before in my life.”
By 9 a.m. the activity has pretty much died down, and the last birds are collected. A final accounting puts the harvest at 22.
“I never seemed to be facing the right way,” Lejeune says, laughing. “I didn’t want to fall over.”
“Yeah, you were way out there in Evangeline Parish,” Frey said, laughing. “Maybe if you had been facing the right way, we’d have our limit.”