A Walk in the Big Slough Wilderness Area and the Year End Catfish Count...

After Cathy fried up wood duck breast, made gravy and served it over jasmine rice with some left over egg plant casserole on the side it was so good that she gave me permission to duck hunt all that I want to for the rest of the season which ends on Jan. 30th. I did not rise and exactly shine today but I made it over to the Big Slough Wilderness Area about noon or so figuring that there are going to be ducks on the slough somewhere. There were not.    

I did see a couple of deer driving in and once in the woods the owls were quite busy. I took a good long walk for a fat old guy in hip waders down the slough but never heard a wood duck, saw any flying or jumped any up. Previous trips to the slough there had been enouh ducks moving around to make it interesting.  

I did see one hooded merganser duck. His white head stuck out like a sore thumb in the dull brown winter woods.  A good duck if you are looking for a pretty specimen to mount but this duck is a meat eater, dining on small fish and crustaceans and I was able leisurely watch him go about diving duck business while I googled suitability for the table. Reportedly if cleaned quickly, soaked in salt water and cooked rare this duck is "not too terrible for the table." I let him pass.    

I think those deer I saw were someone's pets. I don't know anything about when deer season starts or ends but I do know that sometimes it helps to take a lawyer with you hunting. 

Here's that fried duck. I have people tell me they hate the taste of duck. Try it chicken fried. If it aint fried it aint food. Speaking of food the catfish count for 2023 is tallied and since it's a little low this year we counted bass, bream, rainbow trout, gaspergou and everything. Final count is 202 fish. I did not count skiing and tubing trips or all the canoe trips but it was about 14 pontoon boat or bank fishing trips that produced this catch.  Usually we manage between 300 and 500 but we traveled and camped a bit more dividing our time and I assure you 202 fish fed us very well.   

I think I have one small package of fillets that I plan on using for a courtbullion soup and a few small whole catfish that we will knaw down to the bones for an old school supper one night but the rest of those all got ate. If we do better than this in 2024 that will be very, very good.