Catch and release!

Our storm is still with us and intensifying. So we left earlier than normal to try to catch something before the wind and rain got to us. It was just a bit above freezing when we started and I wanted to hurry and get something going so that I could quit before the winds and rain could start. I was covering a lot of ground and seeing very little. I kept pushing all the way to the top of the terrain that I usually hunt, about a 1/2 mile in total, without seeing very much at all.

Hope was getting desperate, and flew down and grabbed a empty Potato Chip bag, but someone had eaten all of them, so she eventually gave up on it.

I met Karen, following along in the car, telling her that we weren't finding much.  She stated that they were hiding. Duh! Why didn't I think of that? I slowed down to a crawl, and found three in a little over 100 yards. Hope even caught one of them but got scraped off on a Sage.

We snuck even slower, slipping and stopping about every 20 yards. I came up over a lava lump very quietly, and Hope flashed off the T perch down into a shallow crevice, plowing right into the back of a Bobcats head, driving him face first into the ground. I yelled as loud as I could, and she let him go, and went back onto one of the lips of the crevice about 4 feet away. I'm holding my breath, but the cat, (Looked like a yearling of about 20 lbs. They are mostly legs so he was about 2 feet tall.)  just took off like he was embarrassed, and disappeared under the fence. She had landed on one of the Lava formations next to a Bobcat there last year, and got away with that as well. After I got over my immediate adrenaline rush and fear that she was going to disappear over the hill in a Cats mouth, I began to laugh as the events began to replay in my mind. Thinking of the poor Cat seeing me loom up on the skyline, turning to run then getting slammed in the back of the head by 8 needles connected to a two pound bird going full blast. Its no wonder that he slunk off in as dignified a manner as he could muster.   

The wind started up and it began to rain, so I started back to the car. We came around the Lava formation where she had turned "Tunnel Rat" and dug a Jack out of last year. I wondered if she would remember the occasion. She certainly did and checked it out, just in case.

The rain and wind had increased enough that I decided to feed her. There will be better days. Then again she survived getting bashed into a big Sage and then grabbing a Bobcat. On second thought perhaps we had a better day than I thought.