WORK DAYS!!

Yes its that time....Here are the official workdays... 10-17, 10-24, 10-31( i know it's halloween, but the ducks
don't know so come if you can for as long as you can), 11-7, 11-14.

Its work, but work that I always look forward to because it means the smell of fall is in the air and duck season is almost here.

Seasoned TRIV members will know what's up but for you new guys, a little about the agenda for Saturday 10/17/09 is in order. Lets meet at the Three Rivers main clubhouse at 8AM, if you're late we'll be at the North Shop, call me (901-351-5893) if you need directions. Our focus will be on Pit cleaning, ricing the pit gates, and getting the large decoy poly bags to the pit. There will be a crew at the North Shop cutting and bundling the rice straw, a crew or two on pit cleaning and ricing the pit-gates , and another crew on decoy delivery.

-We will have at least one set of gas powered hedge trimmers (cuts through rice straw like butter, one guy on trimmers can make a mountain of it in an hour or so), but if you have some gas hedge trimmers please bring them (and please respond with a post that you are bringing them).

-The pit cleaning involves fun, nasty, manly, work (usually a 3 man crew)...dainty hollywood types will struggle in this role (Bradley Wilford will be at the main TRIV clubhouse washing windows, doing dishes and stuff like that). Helpful tools are pickle (5 gallon) buckets, landscape rakes, snow shovels, square head shovels, four-wheelers, gloves, etc. I have a brand new Honda powered 2" pump that empties most of the pit in about 10-15 minutes, but if anyone has a pump like this shout out with a blog response and plan on bringing it, the more the merrier. The absolute best tool for getting the rest of the water out (the pump leaves a couple inches of water) is a 'scoop' made from a gallon or 2 gallon plastic container (like an anti-freeze container), so keep your eyes out for and snag some to bring on saturday. We have really perfected this aspect of pit-cleaning the last couple years and the seasoned members can tell you how much easier it is the next year to clean without all the mud, silt, etc., in the bottom of the pit. Bring some hand sanitizer, it will make you feel much better about eating pizza for lunch at High Noon at the TRIV clubhouse....TRUST me.

We will need several trailers for transporting each Poly Bag of decoys to the pits, so if you have a trailer bring it (If you have a trailer and can bring it respond with a blog post so I can get an idea of our resources). The poly bags are LARGE and each hold approx 120 decoys apiece. The goal for saturday will be simply to get one bag and transport it out to each pit, we will put the dekes out at a later work day. Your average 4 wheeler trailer can hold one, maybe two poly bags to give you an idea of the size involved, several trips will be in order here.

The crew ricing the pit gates will need 4 wheelers for quick transport to the pits. Bring plenty of bungi cords to secure your bags of rice bundles on your 4 wheelers, they are quite bulky. Again, 5 gallon buckets are handy here for holding tools and such. Please bring a pair of wire cutters, 'side-cutters', or 'dikes' (or whatever your colloquialism is for this vital tool).....these are very important for cutting the tails off the zip-ties that we use to secure the rice bundles to the pit gates. God cursed me with being an anal-retentive detail guy, but damn if it doesn't harm my duck hunting soul every time I go out to a pit and see over a hundred 12 inch long white or black zip tie tails standing straight up and waving in the wind).

I think I mentioned most of the things that will be helpful to bring, but don't forget waders (just in case), knee-high boots, gloves, snacks, stocked cooler (no stores for miles), etc. Veterans of past work days please chime in if you think of something useful to bring I failed to mention.

Looking forward to seeing everybody saturday and getting alot done!

Grover

Email (dlzigjr@mac.com) or call (901-351-5893) if you have any questions!