A little hope in sight?

 I had just about convinced myself that this year was going to be a bust as have the last 7 years. I will admit that I have been more than a little down in spirits. Yes, everyone has been trying to push me to avoiding getting old as well as acting like it. They have had limited success. After all the reason that I moved here in the first place was to be able to hunt my Hawks, not to mention to get away from civilization and the resultant nut jobs that the rest of you have to put up with. I have spent more than a year trying to get back to my reality and joy of life and its been tough. I have been to all of my old hunting spots and there still isn't much to hunt. Its not supposed to be that way. My only course of action for the last 7 years is to throw food to a Hawk that would like to supply her own food. Welfare isn't all that much fun.

The scarcity of Rabbits combined with the cost of gasoline during the Biden years was one of the reasons that I bought a Tesla. Gasoline is down a bit, but nowhere near enough. Currently Regular is $3.50 a gallon. Once they installed a Tesla Super Charger in Jordan Valley, I was able to make a Tesla work. That allows me to get our groceries in Idaho, then put enough charge back in the Tesla to make it back home. It takes about 5 minutes to add 20 % to the battery so that I can go home and plug it into a home charger. The cost of a Super Charger in JV is .29 cents a KW. At home it cost .11 cents a KW.

The other reason that I bought one is that this car will allow us to live remotely and stay out of the "old Welder's Nursing home". I can and have got in the car, Told it to take me to Costco in Nampa Idaho, and it does so only requiring me to pay attention. That will go away in the future, and once it does I will be able to sleep while it does so.

So far all of my prime hunting spots have required anywhere from 2 to 4 miles to find just a couple of Rabbits for her to chase. While walks of 3 and 4 miles a trip are good for me, not so much for the Hawk. Many more of what used to be good hunting grounds just do not have anything at all to offer.

Today as a last resort I went South towards Nev. to see if there was anything there. I have never really hunted there, mostly because its about 40 miles away. The weather is a bit different due to the terrain. The ice storm that wouldn't quit might have possibly had enough of a reduction of the Ice that killed all the Rabbits here. I will admit that I was just about ready to call it quits for another year.

The spot is called Oregon Canyon. I had hunted there a long time ago just to see what was there. At the time there were Rabbits everywhere, so there was little reason to go there again. I drove back in a good dirt road till I arrived at what appeared to be some good heavy Sage. I stopped the car, let the dog out, and got Hope on my Tee perch and started. I only got a few feet into the Sage and my heart sank. The ground was basically dry lake bottom that would be mud during the wet season. Not normally where I would expect to find Jacks. I decided to try it for a while and then move further down the road if it didn't work out. About 20 steps into the Sage, Hope took off after a Jack that I hadn't seen. It avoided her through two stoops, before she lost it. I called her back, and began picking my way through the cluttered Sage with renewed hope. No more than 20 or 30 steps and a Jack flushed within 20 yards of us. She caught him. Leah was right there before the dust settled. I yelled at her to whoa, and she did. She was right there at the edge of the dust storm, but she didn't interfere. I would have liked to have the time to record all of this, but I was way too busy. You've seen dead Jack Rabbits before. Hope again had him by the head and he was all wrapped up nicely so that the more he pulled the tighter and more immobile he was. I didn't want her to take a beating while I fussed around with vanity shots.

I was blown away. One flush could be a coincidence, but two that close has to mean that there might be enough Rabbits there to hunt, and the area is big enough that I don't have to hunt the same area more than once a week.

Now back to the Tesla. One of my friends stated after finding out that I had bought the Tesla. "Can you imagine seeing Larry driving a Tesla". AS though I am some kind of a Cave man who is so primitive that he could not imagine such a scenario. Well in fact I do have more of the Neanderthall genes than 87 % of the population. They say that they died out due to infertility, not stupidity.

The trip was 80 miles. In the Honda passport it would have cost me $12.60 to go there, after I drove another 55 miles to replace the fuel. In the Tesla it cost me $3.60, and I can replenish that at home.

Yes there are adaptations required to own and run an EV, but it will get better as time goes by. Even a Caveman can figure that out.

Oh, by the way if you should decide to test drive a Tesla, drop my name as having recommended you, it would benefit both of us.

Busy weekend

 One of the new people that attended and contributed to the overall success of our fly-in, came for this last weekend. Ed Phillips, besides wanting to fly around the area, likes to hunt, especially Coyotes. His wife had a prior commitment, so he came to do some hunting. Hope had not been able to connect the day before and was still down to weight, so we took her out in a spot that I had not hunted before. I was seeing a few Jacks in the field next to me, so I felt that we could find a few Jacks there that had not been hunted.

We drove to the end of the runway to begin our hunt. I was explaining to Ed how to hunt Jacks and how if we could get a close 'slip' Hope would almost always catch the Jack. If they had a longer distance to plan, they would almost always get away. Most people have no idea how well adapted Jacks are to survival. If  you remember on my last post I spent a bit of time with the proposition that most of the catches by a Hawk are because the Jack has a physical factor that interferes with their ability to evade capture. 

I have learned that one of the techniques that they use with good results is to just hide until you pass on by them. So I walk a bit then stop. That will make them think that you have seen them so they flush. If they are close enough the Raptor has an improved chance of catching them. Hope's reaction time is excellent and anything within 30 yards is at the very least going to lose some hair if not its life.

That very thing did happen within a few minutes of entering the field. A half grown Jack busted from cover, and Hope had him before he got to the first large Sage bush. My impression that it was a Brush Bunny. The one question that I did not have the answer to, was how Leah was going to react to a screaming Rabbit in Hopes grasp. 

  I guess I needn't have worried, neither Hope or Leah seemed to think that it was a problem. In this case there was nothing wrong with the Jack other than the fact that it was young. I was a very happy falconer. It was also the first young Jack that I had held in my hand in years.

Our next days program was to call a few Coyotes in to the rifles. We went over to the Ranch and set up in a good spot. On the way we saw and were seen by five or more Coyotes in the fields as we drove to our set. We walked back in to a lake to call. Apparently we were seen as the Coyotes began howling. We started calling and what I would call a second year Coyote came to within about 300 yards of the call and paid the price for it.

The next day, we again drove down to where we had caught the young Jack just as we got into the field. I felt that we hadn't really walked through any of the real area at all. We put in 3.7 miles and only got two or three long slips at Rabbits during the two or three hours that we hunted it. Now I am back to the previous doubts that I am going to find enough rabbits to hunt.