Puddy gets the hint

Wednesday when we last flew, Puddy was heavy and was not doing her job. Thursday I weighed Yogi and found that she was down enough to go hawking again. I decided that I would see if I could put some weight on her rather than fly her. I knew that we would not be able to hunt again until Sat. morning. So I took Yogi out and fed her a bunch of Rabbit and some of Jessie's Duck. Puddy got nothing at all.

This morning Yogi weighed in at 1039, Puddy at 835, Jessie at 830. After we got our chores done, we went over to Tami's to give Jessie a shot at the Mallards that have been feeding in the flooded field right in front of their house. After that we intended to try a new spot behind the Lake where I generally hunt Jessie.

The Ducks were still there and I turned Jessie loose behind Tami's. There were Ducks on the ditch behind the house, but I had almost every one in front to mark Jessie if I could not get there in time to see the flight. I will save you the suspense. That was a mistake, I hope to never make that one again. I should have flushed the ducks on the ditch. Jessie had taken a really nice pitch, and I decided to ignore a sure thing and flush all those Mallards.

The only problem with that is that the field was flooded, not that deep, but still wet. Now a Mallard is no pushover on the ground. Jessie once broke her leg hitting a Mallard Drake, so when she catches one, she grabs it rather than hitting it. The smaller Ducks she hits, so there is rarely a fight.

I finally realized what Jessie was seeing from the air, when she pulled up from her stoop and began trying to herd them off of the water. They were having none of it, splashing back in time and time again. She could never get one to a point that she could carry it to dry ground, and finally got tired enough to set down. I recalled her to the lure.

We took the girls out of the truck in an area that we had scouted last week. We had seen 9 Jacks along the road, the only problem was that the cover was primarily Greasewood. It was fairly small and there were gaps in it, so I thought to try it to see if it was viable to hunt. We walked for a bit and a Jack jumped in front of us, and Puddy burned it down in her old style, and Yogi helped.

 Puddy had grabbed it right in the butt, and was drug deeply into the Greasewood. It took both Tami and I to get her clear of the nasty stuff, and I was finally able to drag them free.

I gave them both a front leg, and although they went through the motions, neither really put all that much effort to catch another one. Both birds are OK, and we will most likely hunt here at the house tomorrow.