Veterans Day

Jessie finally got back down to weight, or at least close to what she should be. She is actually still an ounce heavier that she was when she last caught a duck. She of course has been trying to seduce me into flying her again. Been there done that! Not this time. Better that she wait.

The forecast for today was wind later in the day and 20 percent chance of rain. I just about waited too long. Peg was down to weight, but Jess was a bit high, so I wanted to wait as long as I could to go out. Around noon we loaded up and headed to Arock to give it a try. For what ever reason they were running water from Jordan Creek into the pond where we were last successful. It was as full of water as could be and there were no ducks on it, so I decided to fly Peg first.

She really tried hard and was close several times, but did not manage to connect. It of course started sprinkling rain before we even got out of the truck. Karen stayed in the truck, but Peg and I went on and gave it our best. Unfortunately it wasn't good enough. Perhaps tomorrow.

The rain by this time was a bit harder and Karen and I had a discussion as to how Jess handled rain. I know most Peregrines don't pay much attention to rain, but Jess is a bit different don't you know. :-) I decided that I would at least give her a chance to make me mad, so I checked a pond that I had flown her on before, but we had never caught any thing there for one reason or the other. Mostly because Jessie screwed it up by being too low or out of position.

The pond is a bit tough to get into a good position for a flush due to the way that it is fenced. The rancher builds a damn good tight fence that is hard to get across. I refuse to step on the barb wire to climb across, so I found a rock Jack that I could climb, to get to the other side. Karen handed me Jess and I made my way below the dam to get into position. I turned Jess loose at the fence below the dam and got on my belly and crawled back under the fence to wait for her to get her pitch. She seemed to be flying just fine in the rain, but I didn't want her to get too wet, so I jumped up and gave it my best scary scream. Ducks rose like a cloud off the pond. There was even a Snow Goose there. Jessie cut through the flock taking a Gadwall out of it and taking it to the ground below the dam. I helped her kill it and after she had a chance to pluck for a while I pulled off a wing with the attached half breast and picked her up to finish her meal. It has been a while, so she eagerly ate her meal. I was very pleased that she allowed me to pick her up, as this was a fresh arrival from the north and had more fat on him than a butter ball turkey. There was enough fat on it to give her a treat, but at least she didn't make a meal of just fat. She was lucky last time that she didn't get Sour Crop. It took her the better part of two days to get that last meal put over. I think this time she will be ready to hunt with just one day inactive.