great stories
Love reading these reports from "The Wax". We had a Miami lease for over 30 years off Bayou Blue just west of the lake. For the first 25 years, it was wonderful. Very hard hunting due to the tides, hyacinths and siltation, but if we made the effort, we could normally limit out on most hunts. All quality birds, i.e. mallards, pintails and greys. At first, the limit was 10 birds/hunter, but within a couple of years, it dropped to 100 points with mallard hens being worth 90 points. (you oldtimers know what I'm talking about.) Then we had back to back terrible years, first with a drought (don't remember the year) which resulted in salt water intrusion into the lake killing all the grass and interrupting the flight paths, then the very next year, we had a hurricane (don't remember which one it was) that did the same thing with salt water being pushed up into the marsh killing all the freshwater/brackish vegetation. We never recovered and ended up the last few years just hunting for marsh deer which wasn't too bad. I finally got too damn old to fight the mud and gave it up. I have vivid memories of running down the Calumet Cut aka the Wax Lake Outlet in the fog and hoping like hell I wouldn't run into a barge or crew boat. We tried the delta a few times, but the run from our camp was like running a gauntlet of low water and hyacinths and God help you if you fell off a step, you would be stranded till the tide came back in. Ah yes, the good old days. Best left to youngsters nowadays. Good hunting guys.
|