30 minute hunt.

the wife was ill and today was going to be hit or miss. the weather gave us a break in higher than normal temperatures (30F) so i seized the opportunity to get out for a short while.

We where working along a tree line that we had already flushed one rabbit. Fresh rabbit sign was everywhere. The sign was all on fresh snow and it was amazing what was about. The first rabbit tried sneaking behind us but Jez was on it and the rabbit didn't get 10 feet. Because my wife was sick and we have three rowdy kids i decided to head home. We had been in the field exactly 15 minutes.

The second rabbit we flushed in front of us on the walk back it decided to run between to young spruce trees. Jez rolled it and hung on. the rabbit hadn't got 20 feet. 2 rabbits in 30 minutes.

This makes 20 and 21. My target was to reach 20. This is a young bird and i wasn't sure of the rabbit numbers in my area. Where we lived before this many rabbits would never have been in our wildest dreams. The variety of items this bird will go after just amazes me. In a few weeks i plan to fly him on Pheasant at the OFA winter meet that's being held in Fariview Oklahoma. I'm hoping the weather will warm up a little as we will be camping. I'm actually quite excited about going as this will be my first OFA meet.

and that would be 19

So early Saturday we had sleet and drizzle. The result was ground that resembled an ICE rink on the roads. The air temps where high so I went hawking anyway. Jez flies best at 30+

We had some good chases; the brush was thick and his timing a little of from not flying for a week. It was interesting being in the middle of this field and hearing all the emergency vehicles running there sirens for people that had been driving too fast and now needed assistance but at the same time the peace from the field my hawk flying overhead seemed a little surreal.

 

Sunday I met up with Ryan Van Zants, Daniel Murray and a couple of their friends that were visiting from Canada. Duck is currently closed till mid Feb so they wanted to see some rabbit chases.  Jez ended up catching 2 rabbits (both by the head) and having some amazing flights on some other rabbits. I was hoping for a couple of bird flights but Jez seemed totally dialed into rabbits on the day. (Sorry No Pictures) So that drings his tally up to 19 Rabbits.

Monday I wanted to get a hunt in before the weather came in. We were expecting 6 inches of snow (which hasn’t materialized) nothing much was moving unless it was in deep brush. Jez tried but couldn’t quite connect we did catch a vole as a conciliation prize. The snow Tuesday should make spotting rabbits well. Hopefully we will get out again this week.

a 30 minute hunt.

So since Sunday my tribe have been dropping like flies due to the Flu (finally diagnosed by a Dr yesterday) Temperatures raging between 100 and 106.8. So in the madness of it all i managed to squeeze in 30 minutes.

I went to a site that i have been before on a number of occasions. Recently 2 other falconers where spotted on the property , it was put down to falconers passing through and i never got an answer to who it was. But i noticed today No Trespass - Private Property signs were put up. So some what irritated by that as this is the ideal spot for short hunts. 3 blocks away from my home. To me it doesn't take much to ask , hey is someone already hunting there and how can i get permission. Common courtesy and respect for fellow falconers. Some falconers put great emphasis on Ethics but it seems others adopt them when it suits them.as i said its irritating.

I need to contact the land owner and make sure its still ok for me to go there but for now i backed out and decided to go else where.

So i headed of to my regular spot. I decided to go to a different part of the field, one i hadn't been to for a while. I had him at 650g the highest i have ever flown him, the first thing he did was chase after a Redtail and i was expecting a telemetry chase but after catching up with the last sport i saw him i let out a blast of the whistle and he came out of the tree's. I'm trying to get Jez to pitch high into tree's at the moment so we headed to some that covered some brush. We spotted some rabbits and he took chase. i saw him crash brush but didn't hear a sound and on catching up with him he had it firmly by the head. I dispatched it and the trade of was excellent.

Because of the kids i thought it wise to head home and call it a day, we walked past some briers and i felt the push off from the t-perch. just as i looked round there was a squeal and number 2 was in the bag.

Back on Track....and not so on track

So the last month has been interesting with the weather, new foster kids, sick dogs, new puppy and the holiday season all to boot. We have caught things just not rabbits in that time. Today was the first day in a while that the temps where above 30F so i arranged to meet with Kent Carbaugh and going hunting in a spot that's local. Kent flew his birds first and both caught decent sized rabbits. Then we took mine out ( the plan eventually is for us to fly both sets of birds together).  We where hitting some pretty dense brush and moving them about and had some good chases and some completely ignored chases. Eventually i was about to call it a day when we flushed a rabbit heading back. Jez gave good chase over a good distance and went for the grab and missed. I saw where the rabbit hid and picked Jez up for the re flush. The rabbit tried to bolt back to where he had originally came from. Jez grabbed it by the butt and being closed i ran over and secured it.  It always amazes me how a bird can tackle another animal twice its body weight.

I let him feed up on it for a change as i want to get him really turned on to rabbits. ( i also have a plan to use a dog dummy wrapped in fur for days we don't have good chases and i will drag it behind).

On the Finlay walk back he was still chasing rats even though he had a full crop. you just got to love these birds.

 

Next few days are going to be interesting weather systems again so hopefully we can get out.

 

 

 

Bella is coming along nicely i have her pointing a Quail wing on a fishing rod. and shes almost has "Sit" down. House training seems to be working and generally shes a pretty sweet dog.

 

Remington on the other has some behaviour problems we think is due to the medicine he is on. The medicine he is on has been solving the electrolyte issues to the healthy range (30) but there seems to be some stress trigger that we are now encountering. We are going to try a few different things to give him a chance. We are looking at maybe changing his medicine to a different type. Not quite ready to make that final decision.  

First Kill of the Season

We had to go to the VA in Dallas today and i wasn't even sure i would

get out to hunt but we made it back in time. The weather was a bit warmer than yesterday and he was a few grams heavier than i would have liked.

I have this field that is basically the spill off from a truck salvage yard. In the center of the field is a large stock pond that has managed to keep some of its water. The owners are long time friends of my wife.The lad next door who is 12 wanted to come with me and my wife. For my wife to come on a hunt is something pretty special. As has been previously written she came into falconry kicking and screaming but has totally fallen in love with it the only part she cant cope with is the dispatching. We started to flush the field with lots of large grasshoppers flying everywhere. Within a few minutes of entering the we kicked up our first bunny of the day, Shiloh actually didn't see it but saw another and chased after that. We started to flush towards some brier bushes and some other broken down truck beds. All of a sudden there was a wing over a crash of brush and briers and one very excited hawk. I dispatched the rabbit and let Shiloh break in and eat. We traded off OK for the lure and headed home. One very nice rabbit in the bag. I did have an issue with Shiloh wanting to carry the rabbit off and the picture shows him completely covering the rabbit and not letting anyone near it. But i think once we get a few more in the bag it will be a different story. 

The boy next door had a great day, my wife was more excited about the hunt than she let on. So it was the end of a prett y perfect day as we got some great news that my wife doesn't have cancer as previously diagnosed and really the day couldn't have been any better than it was.

First Rabbit

This is a first in so many ways.

We headed out to the airport. I knew a field i had hunted before but the only problem with it is its waste deep in briar's for much of the field. You have to crash through them there are that many. The idea was we might fly willow a bit, catch maybe a rat but get her ready for the weekend. Cope out i know but anything was worth a try. Well that was the theory.

My son in law Luke came with me and we pulled up next to the field. and soon he was cussing me because of all the briar's , I guess i didn't use it much last year because of the pain you experienced when you entered and when you left it.

First slip resulted in a confused hawk. She came down in a classic tear drop, i spotted a rabbit hole but with nothing in it we quickly moved on. Second slip resulted in a wing over that was just amazing.

She was soon on the rabbit and telling me about her achievement. She has not said a word in 8 weeks and now she was screaming. I dispatched the rabbit quickly and fed her up. Trade off was crap, something we will have to work on but there was no way in hell she was going to let her rabbit go. We headed home, she ate 100 grams of rabbit tonight, i put her outside hopefully she will be at weight for tomorrow i have another spot to check out.

Sorry no pictures as i forgot my mobile phone.

oh yeah, on the way home i got stopped by the cops, in my excitement i forgot to put my lights on, the cop laughed and i went on my way.

All i can say is way to go Willow !

Awesome Weekend

This weekend we headed down to Celina to see a gry/peregrine cross fly. We watched in awe as this bird circled around gaining height and then it was stopping so fast you could hear the wind of it's wings. It hit a pigeon so hard that the air was full of feathers and there was an audible thud.

The bird was stunning , ill remember a camera next year and Jay the current handler has done a brilliant job training it and getting it to the stage he has. Next season the plan is to hit ducks and hit them very very hard.

We then went south towards Dallas. In McKinney, Frisco and Dallas there are a number of flood fields that have been surrounded with housing and construction. This has forced rabbits into isolated pockets. There is no predication , no coyotes hence lots of Rabbits. We had bunnies bouncing out left right and center. Steve's bird smash was full on and all about them. We ended up bringing some home in the game bag. Smash would have continued hunting but we where all worn out after about 2hours of falling over one rabbit after another.

On our way down to these fields we saw so many red-tails it was unbelievable , nearly every other telephone post had one if not a pair of redtails. Redtails were soring hunting and resting.

In some ways i was very jelous of steve and his hawks. The flights where spectacular and rewarding but i couldnt help but feel , when is it going to be my turn ! The fall can not come soon enough.