Zach Matthews
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
That’s awesome Justin.
Yarborough, from what I can tell duck hunting is just not worth it in Georgia. I am not willing to go to those extremes, much as I would forgo combat fishing for Erie steelhead.
Zach
Mike, these are actually a thing:
http://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/62-1556-01.pdf
I think they’re mostly used in the cryo industry. If you could somehow score a cooler made out of them it would probably hold ice for well over a week.
Zach
The results are in! But you’ll have to read them in the magazine. 🙂
I will say, these cooler guys are pretty competitive. One company asked me to confirm that the interior of the competition’s coolers was normal, because apparently at times some companies have been known to release special coolers with expensive vacuum panels for these tests; those panels are not in consumer coolers (and none of the people involved in this competition were ever said to have done this before–my contact just wanted me to confirm everything was kosher). But apparently the technology to cheat exists, which I find interesting.
Adam, Mark –
Y’all will need to see the final article for a full explanation. I suspect the difference between brands has more to do with actual volume versus labeled volume (and in one case the provider only made a smaller cooler than what we were looking for). And yes, of course the article is about a lot more than mere ice retention. My takeaway from my ice test has been that ice retention is essentially equivalent and what matters most is features and quality versus price.
Zach
By the way, having conducted this test I am now extremely skeptical of anyone who claims their cooler will retain ice for “7-10 days.” Based on what I am seeing I think there are likely some pretty extreme measures being taken to achieve those results, such as freezing the cooler in a walk-in freezer prior to loading it to the gills with sub-zero ice. These products are all much more similar than different, and I am expecting my test to end on or before Day 5 based on the curve I’ve got going right now. My test is based on two 20 lb. bags of ice (which is the most you can get in these coolers without using loose ice) and no “sacrificial bags.” I think that’s more consistent with how people actually use these.
Attachments:
Hey Buzz –
I saw that they did; in truth there are about 20 of these companies out there right now. We reached out to several who we thought were applicable and ultimately went with the four who got back in touch with us.
Zach
Hey Duncan –
The Coleman Xtreme isn’t really in the same class here. The Rubbermaid is just for a comparison to an “ordinary cooler.” All of these test coolers have at least 1.5″ of insulation and are rotomolded; those are our two baseline criteria for a premium cooler.
I am finding different things I like best about each of these coolers. They are all definitely in the A range, with the pluses and minuses varying by category. Some have a better standing surface. Some have a better interior configuration. Some have better accessories, or better handles, or more intelligent latches. It’s been interesting for sure.
Zach
Steve –
It is definitely mostly habitat loss. There are plenty of wild quail doing just fine right now in managed plantations in fire-ant country. They just use the old school brushy management practices instead of clean-fencerow row cropping like we have nowadays. I do think there’s some element of truth to the avian virus possibility, though. The Georgia quail numbers are a pretty smooth downward curve, but a lot of Arkansas hunters I’ve talked to specifically say 1981 or 1982 were the crash years, and those guys were very close to the land.
Zach
Those are cool. Maybe a little bit overkill. I’ve been drooling over the Little Rock, Arkansas-based Park Hill Collection. They have some very interesting stuff, like leather shotgun cases for $82 (which is a steal) and also some stuff that would be awesome for fly tying (although I am sure the furniture is Restoration Hardware-level expensive).
That’s cool Mark. LOOOONG haul for me. Is there such a thing as legit wild pheasant hunting (like we used to have for quail and like they still have on private farms) or is it all beating fields in a line?
Randy –
I am no expert on this, but my understanding is the shad kill happens when air temps routinely stay below freezing and drop into the 20s at night or below. Bull Shoals is probably going to be your best bet, but you will obviously need a boat that can handle generation in that tailwater. It’s definitely a two man job.
Zach
Oh and while I’m giving away ideas for free, I would also really like to see someone release a set of quilted down cold weather drawers for inside wader wear, a la the Patagonia Nanopuff line of jackets. I even have a great idea for the stirrups: make them so they attach on one side with a velcro tab, and then hide a second velcro tab up in the leg so the stirrup can be detached and tucked out of sight. Then do a small sliding elastic enclosure around the bottom cuff, so that when the pants are in “wader mode” they can be tightened and stirruped, and when they are in “pants mode” they can be opened up at the cuff so you can wear them out in public. I could see these doing well on the ski market.
Zach
You know Steve it never even occurred to me to think about a guide. I’m from Arkansas and I always travel over there for Thanksgiving, so it’s certainly feasible for me to stop in Stuttgart for a day or two. Do you mind me asking what the cost of the guide is? Do they hunt public land or private property?
Zach
Jeff there’s a place here in Atlanta (not sure where you are) down in the Virginia Highlands that has their entire collection of axes, including a couple that I swear are Viking battle axes re-named for some non-warlike purpose. It’s a wood working shop across the street from the Highland Tap.
Zach
So, I hunted Allatoona WMA. I have spent a good chunk of the last couple years scouting up the Etowah River near Shoal Creek – there’s a lot of land there, although like any public WMA it’s not especially great hunting. At least it is far from roads, though, and I’ve taken both deer and turkey off it.
I had scouted that area for the duck opener during deer season, seeing several mallards and wood ducks on a forest pond fed by a creek that trickles through a swampy area frequented by smaller does. I made a mental note that I’d like to duck hunt the pond, even if I just puddle jumped some.
As duck opener drew closer, I started realizing this was going to be more of a chore than I thought. First, I caught wind of several other people wanting to hunt that area. Then, the Corps dropped Allatoona lake WAY down, exposing the river channel and leaving both Knox Bridge and, ultimately, the City Park ramps high and dry. That meant a long motor up from Little River Marina.
But I was still determined to do it. I had word from friends that I’d need to be early, so I got up at 3:30AM and got to Little River Marina by 4:15AM. It was already a cluster. Saw a few guys I knew there, loaded up my dog and gear (Gretchen was just along to theoretically fetch in floaters on the pond), and I headed out.
Most of the boats were big water boats with huge decoy spreads so I was reasonably hopeful that I’d still have the pond to myself. After an hour and a half slog up-lake through muddy channels that even the Gheenoe bottomed out in (several required poling to get back to deep water, because the water itself was totally opaque and I had no other way to find the channel, I finally reached my pull out spot.
I beached my boat on a *different* creek mouth 300 yards from the pond (this will be important later), and walked into the forest.
Sure enough there were already people spread all over the pond. Two separate blinds, probably each with 20+ decoys spread out. Keep in mind the most ducks I had seen at once on that pond never topped 20 at any time. Those guys tried to shine me off with their lights but it was still an hour before flight time, and I wanted to know how they had beat me. “Well we camped out here,” one of them said. Ok, said I. Good luck. Camping in the WMA is illegal, as I knew, but evidently duck hunting in Georgia is so exciting that people are willing to break the law to do it.
I went back to my boat, built a small reed blind and got set up. I did have a few shots – all very fast flying birds that were cutting the corner of the creek intersection and flying right over my head. One merganser landed near my spread of 6 decoys but didn’t come close. I shot at several ducks, including a couple that I knew were probably too high, ultimately not knocking any down. I don’t set up to be a great duck hunter by any means but that was very, very tough shooting. On my way out I saw enough duck hunters lining the Etowah to make it look like the approaches to Fallujah. I spoke with one group and joked that if I’d been a better shot I would have filled my limit. (I was obviously speaking hyperbolically but I probably could have killed 4 or so if I had truly been a dead eye and had a full choke).
I get back home thoroughly convinced that Georgia duck hunting is not worth the effort, and one of my friends links me to a post over on a local board. Those guys from the farm pond were blaming me for “scaring off all their ducks.” They claimed I had set up 100 yards away and somehow cornered the market. Obviously, none of the ducks I was shooting at were headed for that pond. And NO duck in its right mind would have set down anywhere near anything unusual that day. There were enough people out there with decoy spreads to give all fifteen ducks who might have used that pond that morning a PhD in spotting humans. All in all it was a pretty pathetic display by all concerned, if I’m honest. I came away thinking Georgia duck hunters are a lot like Georgia stocked trout fishermen. And while *I* certainly don’t know any more about it than anyone else around here, I feel like there’s a 100% chance that an experienced duck hunter from, say, the Arkansas or Louisiana areas, would just look at all of us and shake his head in dismay. The general lack of stealthiness and overuse of the resource–and I totally include myself in this–just did not exactly reek of a high level of competency.
At least I learned my lesson. Bottom line: don’t go duck hunting in Georgia. 🙂
Zach
