Sue, on her own.

I decided that we would hunt at the Ranch next door, since I only had Sue to hunt. Peggy is still digesting yesterday's Jack. This would give the kids a chance to go out hunting with us as well. Tami's sister Tonya, was here for a visit, so she and her oldest daughter, Esther, went with us to tromp through the Sage.

All Photo's courtesy of Roger Hankins.

Even though Sue had only had Bunny to eat, ( they are the "light, low fat" version of Rabbit) she still weighed 1000 grams when I picked her up this morning. I guess that I am going to have to get used to it.

We traveled the high ground, finding a few Jacks. Sue was chasing well, but they were flushing way out, and there were no apparent dumb bunnies in the bunch. Sue slammed into the ground after one old Jack and he leaped about 3 feet into the air to evade her. I would have loved to have gotten it on film. We couldn't decide if he did a somersault as well. I know that at one point his feet were higher than his head.

We had some chases but nothing that brought success. We decided to go down by the tree line to see if she could catch a Quail. She had been chasing "dicky" birds for quite some time, either due to boredom or optimism. We had a bit of a close call when we inadvertently flushed a Barn Owl out of the brush. She tried to catch it, but it had sense enough to stay away and hide in some brush .

We decided to go down by the creek to see if there were some Rabbits down there. On the way we ran into a Sharpshin that had been hunting by the tree line.

Almost right away we started flushing Jacks. The brush was high, (Grease Wood) and the slips were a lot closer. High brush is a mixed blessing. On the one hand it blocks the Hawk from the Rabbits view, but there is more for the Rabbit to hide in as well.

The third Jack that she chased, she missed him at a horse shoe bend in the creek. We were pretty sure that he was still in the bend, so I picked her up and we started toward the water. Roger was behind me and almost in the middle of the dry land. The Jack let me go by and then flushed out behind us. Roger was blocking him from the middle, forcing him to the edge of the creek for his escape. Sue was hot after him. He checked, hoping that Sue would overshoot, but she put the air brakes on, he chickened out and tried to run, but she powered up his butt and they went rolling over the bank to the creek.

I jumped down over the bank and pulled them out to dry land, finishing off the Jack for her.

I pulled off the trophy to give to Esther, and then when Sue got her adrenalin back under control, I picked her up to eat her reward.

It was a great hunt. We spent several hours walking the Sage, with Sue never giving up or losing her interest or enthusiasm. Tonya did get to see Sue grab a Bunny that was trying to get away from my bad breath, but she had not seen the conclusion to a good fair chase of a Jack Rabbit. Roger got to see two good chases right in front of him, and Best of all. Sue got all the Jack she could eat.