More hoods

I've been hood making today, wanted a spare

Weighed 979 grams, fed her another 120grams of beef heart and had her in the weathering area all day. Hopefully this will sort things and i can bring her back down again. She starts talking every time i go into the weathering area and has got very social recently which i like.

Something not quite right

We have decided to put Zoie up for a few days, her mutes are still very very runny. She seems to be taking allot of water on board when she is in the weathering area, we also think this is then interfering with how much i feed her based on her weight. Until we can get to the bottom of it i think its best i don't hunt her. her weight 939 ( whether that's a true weight is another matter) so fed her 120 grams of beef heart, will do the same tomorrow to see what happens.

Lack of squirrels

This morning i awoke to an eruption of shit. We think its just the pigeon she has had is a bit rich so I've put her back on beef heart. mutes later on in the day where a little better but its something we are going to keep an eye on. We want to take her to the vet anyways and get her check over so that should happen in the next few days

We went out pretty much all day today. I thought that part of my problem was that i was hitting the woods where i live to late in the afternoon. Well i can truly honestly say there are no squirrels in that particular section of the woods. There are a number of nest but but apart from 2 squirrels all day we never saw anything else. there are nests by the thousands but they are truly empty having managed to strike a few off them with sticks . I never saw any running on the ground which in other areas i have. I also heard from one deer hunter that when they get board they take out the squirrels to practice on.

We did have two great flights though one was over 600 yard through the canopy again by the time i caught up she was on the ground looking for what ever she missed. After 3 hour of nothing else in the spot we moved onto another area.

The second was a proper hunt with me more involved i manged to kick up a squirrel and keep it moving for about 20 minutes. She slammed into some dense tree/brush/vines and it managed to get away. i kept working it but we lost it where ever it went. We kicked around for another couple of hours before calling it a day.

I then drove home with her on the stirring wheel to see if we saw anything on the way home but again nothing. I'm going to start checking out some other areas after tomorrow as i think we are both getting a little frustrated.

New Arrivals

Not much has happened the last two days, Zoie has been out in the weathering area. I have had to work late. Hoping to get her out tonight and we will head of squirrel hawking. I've been feeding her up a bit as her weight dropped a little and we are trying to get a balance. Last night she was at 960 (to heavy for hunting). She is getting more and more used to the weathering area and is now spending all day out in it. I'm still bringing her in at night but i feel safer about that anyway.

The weather looks good for hunting all this holiday week with the average temp around 65F until Sunday when there is a 40% chance of a Tropical Storm.

At the moment i am trying to find out as much as i can about squirrel habitat and there daily life cycle. For instance at the moment i notice come 3.00pm most squirrels are in there nests, now does this change as the winter moves on and they have to forage for more food, Zoie See's the odd stray when we go hunting after work but hasn't connected with one yet. So its all a learning game for both of us at the moment. My sponsor recently had a good conversation with the Corps Park Ranger in charge of where we go hunting and basically we can hunt anywhere even areas not strictly set aside for hunting. He is very fascinated by the sport and even wants to come along.

On another note my pigeons have started to lay eggs. Which I'm very delighted about. Two eggs where laid yesterday. so in about 19 days we should see a chick or two... I am hoping to get there coop sorted this weekend and get them all moved into it so they can start flying about more during the day time

Second Kill

Pictures courtesy of oknsakes.org

We have been hunting for squirrels and rabbits the last few days. She def seems to know what squirrel woods are and what nests are. So far we have been unable to connect. Wild Red-Tails where soring over ahead so all squirrels where holed up tight and good and i couldn't kick up a rabbit to save my life. We where in a little creek area and Zoie was up a tree and she flew away from me with purpose. i managed to get to her minutes later thinking initially it was a mouse only to my horror to find it was a snake. I broke the head with my t-perch (pushed the head into the ground) Not know what sort of snake at the time it was caution on my part. I traded her off to the lure and we headed home.

New Hood

Today the weather was against us and i had a few errands to do. One of those was to stop by Hobby Lobby and see what leather they had, I needed a new hood for the weekend. they had some 4-5oz tan leather. They had an 8x11 piece for $7.99 it was a little on the thick side but will do for now. The result is the following

It's basically an Anglo Indian but with a feather plume twist. Need to work on my piping a little but it is a good fit and will work until she has another pissy fit and destroys it. I finally worked out how braces work. I quite pleased as this is only the 4th hood i have ever made.

Tomorrow we are off out hunting, so i just fed her 40 grams of squirrel.