Exercising Jessie with the Kite.

 I have been trying to get Jessie some exercise when I can, but one thing or another always seem to get in the way. The Duck hunters that have the bird hunting rights on the Ranch were down this weekend, so Jessie and I stayed home, and waited until the birds had a chance to settle down.

The weather has been so nice that the wind has not been strong enough to fly the Kite, so every thing has conspired against us this year. Yesterday we did get a flight at some Mallards at the Ranch.  Jessie snagged a Mallard Drake over the water, but had to drop him to keep from going in the water herself.

Today I installed an automatic gate opener on the entrance to the place, and what with one thing or another spent most of the day working on it. The weather is changing a bit, and the wind began to blow by the time I finished. I decided that I would fly Jessie on the kite, and work on her muscle condition. Quite frankly I was too pooped to trudge through the Sage to do anything more.

I ran the lure on the kite up to 350 feet, she is too out of condition to do more. I talked Karen into running the video camera for the flight.

https://vimeo.com/79535232  password- owyheeflyer

The lure line is rigged with a fishing trolling release that is on a 8 foot line leading to a lure. The lure is garnished with the rear end of a Starling as a reward. The other end is tied to a small carabiner that is secured to the main kite line. That way when the hawk pulls the lure free from the quick release, it is able to slide down the line to the ground.

This method gives the hawk more exercise than it would actually get from just flying in circles waiting to chase what ever you flush, as well as teaching it that higher in the sky is better. If you take a hawk out, turn it loose and let it amuse itself by flying around you are teaching them to wander. That is not good! This is all business, the bird is in the right place for hunting, and the exercise can be as demanding as the bird can stand.

Lure training with the kite is something that is normally done at the start of the year to condition the hawk. Hunting is crappy right now and Jessie if not exercised and flown just becomes cranky in the extreme. This at least allows us to pretend we are doing something worth while.

Coyote update

 This is the condition of the horse when I first visited the area, at 3 PM of the 9th. The easy part had been consumed, and the only part left is that part lying on the ground.

 Since I am hunting the Coyotes with the intent of selling the hides, not eradicating the gene pool, There is a lot of work to do, and since the spot that the bullet hit this Coyote,caused a lot of damage, I worked until 9:30 PM repairing the damage. I went back the next morning at daybreak and killed a really big male. Since he had seen me approach, he ran a ways before he made the mistake of looking back, I didn't go near the carcass. I could see however that the ribs had been chewed off. Again it took most of the day to get his processing all done. Plus it is about a half mile one way to get to the ambush site, and a 35 lb male Coyote is a chore to pack. I felt the need for a rest. I also mistakenly thought that taking out five other Coyotes on the ranch might have reduced the population a bit.

 This is what I found when I went back on the 10th. As you can see they have dragged the carcass several feet around, ate all the meat that had been lying on the ground plus all the hide. Quite frankly I was more than a bit surprised. That horse had to weigh between 8 and 900 lbs. Figure a Coyote can hold about 10 lbs at a sitting, maybe 15 lbs a day. That is math that I am not qualified to do.

After I shot this one on the morning of the 11th, and carried it back home. I left it cooling for a couple of hours, while I had breakfast and stalled a bit. When I did go out to skin it, to my pleasure I found it a bit easier to process. Plus it was not quite as fat as the others had been, so the fleshing process was a bit easier. Karen and Sharron from next door were going into town, so I was left with most of the rest of the day to myself. Lets see, TV, or hunting? So I went back over there. I was pretty sure that there would not be enough left to draw a Coyote back in there after another day.

When I arrived at my ambush point, I was surprised to find another Coyote chewing on the bones, and added her to my bag. Being a female she was not quite as heavy as the males that I had taken. When I go in to hunt, I carry a fold up seat, electronic Varmint call, coats, and camo "gille suit". Its all bulky and a bit heavy too, especially if you are carrying a Coyote over your shoulder. I decided to carry her out, come back and sit on the carcass for the rest of the evening. I left every thing there and hiked the half mile back to the truck.

I had a nice quite evening sitting there looking at the landscape, but saw nothing else. Eventually my butt got numb enough to cause me to go home, and go to work on the last victim.

The weather has been unusually warm during the day. Mornings are 20 degrees, but afternoons have been in the high 50's. The interesting part is that the horse never got that "rotten" smell. It never had a chance to spoil.

If you remember this spring the Savage rifle in 22-250 cal that I had bought to varmint hunt with, blew up after about 80 shots. They eventually sent me another one after a lot of hassle. I had just about decided to steer clear of Savage, but the rifle that I wanted cost twice as much, was a lot heavier and much too pretty for what I had in mind for it. So I decided to keep the gun that they sent me and take my chances. So far the gun is working well and shoots like it should. My longest shot to date was 325 paces.

I have always hand loaded my own ammo. The first one blew up with a reduced load that should have never caused any damage. I found a load that does well with the bullet that I have chosen. I ended up with a load of 38.4 grains of Hodgden H380 behind a 40 grain Hornady VMax bullet.  Since my shooting eye has had laser surgery to repair a leak in my pupil, my vision in my right eye is not all that it should be, so I do my sighting in at 50 yards. I decided to check it at 200 yards since a minor variation at that distance becomes much larger the further from the end of the barrel. I shot a four shot group at 200 yards and ended up with a group of one inch 1/16. Not all that many years ago, a rifle that would shoot a one inch group at 100 yards was the industry standard. If the gun holds together I will be a happy camper.

Nov 10th

The Rut is still building, and this is the latest visitor. As you can see, he is the biggest one so far. This one has six ladies with him.

He is not that much wider than the others, but he is much taller, and more massive. He is still not close to the biggest one around, but he will do in a pinch.

Who says size doesn't matter. Look how much bigger he is than the Doe's around him. The other bucks were pretty close to the same size as the Doe's. This guy is pretty close to mature.

We have been flying Jessie on the Kite, when there is enough wind to get it up in the air. She has done better than I would have thought she would do. Boredom will make you do things that no one would believe.

Of course now we have a warm front coming in, and it is dead calm, which is a bit weird for this time of the year and area. I have been keeping Jessie at a "full Attention" weight. In other words she is very glad to see me, rather than her normal "screw you" attitude. So I have been waiting until the last minute to feed her, and she is unhappy about that.

Yesterday morning I decided to take my Varmint call over to the "lake" that starts Crooked Creek to see if I could find a Coyote to add to my collection, and check for Ducks while I was at it. I got up well before daylight and arrived at the lake at first light. Unfortunately there was nothing there other than Geese. I would just as soon not put her up over Geese, you never know whether she will get a wild feather up her butt and take another one.

I sat there in temps in the teens for more than 40 minutes with my call and got no response at all. I could not understand that at all. I know that several Coyotes hang out in that area.

When I got back home it was obvious that the wind wasn't going to blow that day either. I decided that I would roll out the plane and go see where the Ducks were sitting, so that we could go out and hunt for a change.

https://vimeo.com/79004790    password is - owyheeflyer

I did find some Ducks in a spot that we could catch one if she really wanted to, but I also found why the Coyotes were not available. They were feasting on one of the old "retirees" of the horse herd. I saw two of them on it as I flew by.

Karen wasn't feeling well enough to go hawking and Tammi was not at home, so I grabbed my rifle, threw Jessie and Yogi a Starling apiece, and headed out. I parked at the spot that was closest to the rimrock where the horse and hopefully Coyotes were. It was still a half mile walk through the Sage. I kept my eye out for any Rabbits that I might find, and am very sad to say, I didn't see one.

As I got close, I used an end of the rimrock to hide my approach. I peeked over the end and could see two Coyotes working the carcass. One was behind a chunk of Sage and the other was facing me working on the shoulder of the horse. I thought OK, I will just shoot it in the top of the back. I don't think I will do that again. I was sewing until 9:30 PM trying to put the hide back together again.

Of course she never knew what hit her, and she dropped right where she was standing.

This is they way that I carry them. I am selling the hides, so I need them in as good a shape as I can manage.

 When I shot this one, the one with her took off over the rimrock. I saw him peeking over the Sage about 175 yards away trying to figure out what happened. I could not get steady enough to be sure of my shot, so I didn't shoot at him. As you can see from this picture, he again stopped to look and this time I was ready. The white spot on the other ridge is where he stopped, for good this time.

 This time I decided to shoot him in the shoulder to cut down on the sewing. I am using a 40 grain V Max bullet, that is traveling at 3800 fps. He never got out of his tracks. It blew up just under the skin, with no exit wound. Much better. The first one that I carried out last night only weighed 16 pounds, this guy tipped the scales at better than 35 lbs. I am pretty sure he was the boss dog in that area. The half mile this time was a bit of a chore.

 The sun was just coming up and I couldn't resist a picture of the Steen's

 This one is a panorama. Since it is the first one that I have done, I am not sure if you can get the full effect. If you right click on the picture and "Open it in a new tab" you can enlarge it enough to see it. It was very early, and the picture was taken with my phone, so that is all the excuses that I have for it.

I had intended to take Jessie for Ducks today, but the ranch has some Duck hunters there today, so I guess a nap is in order.

Not every thing has left.

Living in a Rock house, with walls about 18 inches thick makes it hard to monitor what goes on outside. The gate on the driveway is about 150 yards from the house, and we spend most of our time on the side of the house away from the driveway. It is impossible to hear a car drive in to the yard. We are about 1 & 3/4 of a mile from the road, and the house is not visible until you get committed coming over the hill from the pit. Various tourist, looking for a place to take a crap have a tendency to drive down our road, and there is no place to turn around until they get in the yard.

As you might  imagine in the spring and summer when it is comfortably warm, clothing is optional here, for the two of us. It is pretty hard to relax with the knowledge that the sight of my old wrinkled butt may cause some interesting stories among those who have a tendency to wander off the beaten path. So in the interest of privacy, and to keep the occasional starving Cow out of the yard unannounced, I put a couple of driveway alarms on the entrance.

Recently unexplained alarms at the gate have gone off at various times during the evening and night. When I have gone out to see what is causing the alarm, I have found nothing. No shiny eyes of Coyotes, Deer or anything at all. Finally getting tired of it, I put the trail cam on the post that the sensor is attached to. The above picture shows the culprits. I think Yogi and I will do a bit of hunting this evening.

It is also the time of the year when Deer pheromones began wafting through the air. The peak of the "Rut" for Deer is fast approaching. I put a picture on the last blog, of one of the local "boys" that normally live on the ranch below me on the creek. Some of the biggest Bucks that I have ever seen live there. These two guy's, although most hunters never kill anything bigger, are small fry. My guess is that they are about three years old, and a buck Deer doesn't reach maturity until about 7 or 8.

  This is the first one that hung around here for a while. Notice the two white spots on his neck. He is also a 3x3, and his horns are a little bit wider than his ears.

 This is the latest one.

 You can see the first flakes of the winter in the air.

Here is the latest one, and he is a 4x3. Only one white spot on his neck and his horns are no wider than his ears. The ears on a Mule Deer are about 18 inches wide. There are Deer further down the creek whose horns spread almost 30 inches wide. You nor I have the money to buy that tag from the rancher.

The recent rains and the bit of warm weather afterward sprouted the Cheat grass. The ranch below me needs all the natural feed he can get for his Cows, and he has dumped them out on this section of his ranch. The Cows mow it down as fast as it can grow, but this section is fenced off from them, and along with the tall Sage at the Creek, it is one of the better areas for a Doe that doesn't like crowds. There are generally about 30 or more Deer on his place feeding in the Alfalfa fields. The big boys will be fighting for the privilege of siring the next generation. Here, all they have to do is wait for the Doe that lives her to come into estrus.

Oct 30, 2013, pretty much of a bust!

I was unable to come up with a title for today's events, since the events of the day covers so much ground.

Now that Deer season has closed, with Karen not seeing anything to shoot. Now granted, she didn't put in much effort, since we still had venison in the freezer. Now of course the heat is off, and they are all over the place.

 He is kind of a nice one, even though he is only a three x three. Of course the Rut starts sometime in the next week or so, and that is why he is so bold. When it only happens once a year, you want to be ready.

We have recovered from our trip to the OFA Meet, so I picked up Yogi to see if we on our own could find any Rabbits. I also thought to take my rifle along just in case I could call up a Coyote. Well that didn't happen, so after giving it a good 40 minutes, and only irritating a lady's Dog on a farm about a half mile away.

I went back to the truck, and moved a bit further back into the lava flow to see if there were any Jacks back there. Yogi and I put in about 2 hours walking all through the Sage, and managed to jump about 4 Jacks. They were busting more that a hundred yards ahead of us, so our chances were doomed to begin with.

Yogi got so desperate to find something that she began prospecting on her own.

 Of course I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was wasting her time.

https://vimeo.com/78205742    password- owyheeflyer

After writing this part of the day up, I loaded up Jessie to see if we could kill a Duck. The short answer is no, she still doesn't want to play. Sigh! It looks like its going to be an interesting year. :-/

2013 Fall Falconry meet, Madras,Oregon

Since I had agreed to give Puddy away, it was only fair that I make the effort to go to the meet to get her new owner off to a good start. Karen and I were "charter members" of the club. The list of those members is now a very small one at this date. Three I think are all that are left. I have not been an active participant in the last few years, feeling that it was time for the younger members to have the major offices of the club. It was not going the way that Karen thought was efficient, so she had been one of the directors, and was hosting the meets for the year. I had already winterized the fifth wheel, but I figured we could run it dry, and if it became necessary I could do it again when we got back. So we loaded it up, and prepared to make the trip.

Karen at least was happy, as this cuts down on her work load by quite a bit. Plus she seems to miss me? What can I say? Our neighbor kindly agreed to take care of the critters for us.

We loaded up and headed out Thursday morning. Karen needed to do some shopping for the dinner on Saturday, ( she has never learned to say no, but then again that is one of the things that I liked about her.) We drove on a hwy to the East of Bend Oregon and set up camp in a ATV park for the night. ( All terrain Vehicles) Karen went shopping, and I took a nap.

 We had set up the screen tent to protect the birds from anything other than a direct attack.

During the night we were serenaded by the local Coyotes. I thrashed myself several times for not bringing my Coyote hunting gear. As we drove out of the area where we had camped, there was a really nice Coyote lying dead by the intersection. Apparently someone ran the stop sign at the four way stop, and he was in the "cross walk". Looked like a head shot, so again, remorse for my lack of foresight. :-/

We got up the next morning and drove the rest of the way to Madras where the meet was being held this year. As the day progressed the members began trickling in. Richard Hoyer (Puddy's new owner) came, and we took off around three PM to see if we could find something to chase. We hit 7 different fields and the Rabbits appear to be as scarce here as they are at the house.

Since there were few actual practicing falconers in attendance, we had quite a following. There were plenty of people, too bad there were not any Rabbits.

I brought out Puddy for the first time, and gave Richard a Tee perch, so that she would know that he was the one that she was supposed to go to.

The girls did their best, and followed along.

We began to make a drive, but it soon became obvious to all of us, especially Yogi, that this was a dry hole. She soon lost interest and went to the other side of the Hwy and sat on a hill side.

I finally accepted that it was a waste and then called them back to the truck so that we could move to another spot.

 It was necessary to use the lure to recall Yogi, and she flew right over Marilyn Gregory of "Dream rider photos" to come to me. All of these pictures of the birds flying are supplied by her.

 Puddy, not missing a trick, grabbed the lure and the tidbit on it as soon as Yogi came to the fist.

Neither one of them wanted to go back to the boxes, as that is generally the end of a hunt.

We drove over the hill to another spot to try, but it was no better.

We finally just gave up and went back to the fairgrounds.

Saturday morning, Karen and I furnished breakfast for all. The kitchen had every thing that we needed for a pancake breakfast.

 I cooked pancakes for a small donation to the club. We made $95. for an outlay of $16.00, not bad.

After breakfast, everyone loaded up for a Rabbit hunt (bunny) with the other Harris Hawks that others had brought. A couple of Bunnys were found hiding in irrigation pipes and that supplied the only "sport" in that arena. There was a small pond bordering the Golf Course, and I was offered the opportunity? to hunt it with Jessie. I went back to the fairgrounds to get her, and by the time that we were set up it was the middle of the day and the thermals were popping. Thermals and falcons, offer the same level of temptation that could compare to a topless bar and 16 year old boys.

I knew that she was hungry, but then again falcons don't necessarily hunt because they are hungry. They hunt because they want to kill something. It had been close to 5 days since she had flown. The sun was shinning, there was little to no wind, About 30 people for witnesses, what could go wrong?

Jessie stroked strongly into the blue sky, and the ducks were nervously muttering in the pond. Jessie climbed up to about 1000 feet or so, and I knew then that she wasn't going to play.She saw one of the offshoots of the Deschutes River Canyon, and it was like a magnet. She circled on the currents over it for about 30 or more minutes, finally going below my line of sight. I gathered up my stuff and with the two passengers that had come with me, went looking. She was of course on the other side of the Canyon where she apparently could not see me. We began driving into town to come back on to the the flat land farms on the other side. Of course when we got there, she had gone back either to the other side or down into the canyon. We went back there and finally called her up out of the Canyon. My hunting was done for the duration of the meet.

 Richard's birthday was on the 18th. and his many apprentices from past seasons bought him a telemetry receiver and transmitter. At 80 years old his hearing is going and the telemetry will enable him to find his hawks with a bit less looking.

We were cooking dinner that night, So Karen and I with help from a few others prepared a Mexican dinner.

 We fed about 60 people for about $95.00, and had plenty left over.

At the business meeting that followed, the progress of the club was discussed, and surprisingly to Karen and I, we were awarded a lifetime honorary membership to the club.

The next morning we again supplied breakfast, and then we all cleaned the place, and departed for our various homes.

Puddy is now living in Corvallis Oregon. I did my best to tell Richard of her quirks, plus and minus. She is very free with her feet, and I guess Richard is wearing a few band aids by now.

Jessie's hunting partner finally gets it right!

As you may remember on the 20th, my birthday, I managed to lose control of the dogs, and flushed a whole passel of Ducks from the ditch, thus guaranteeing that Jessie would not have a chance of eating Duck fat that night.

Since I was expecting a couple of packages from UPS, Karen stayed at home. I decided to leave the dogs behind as well. They really are not that much help on the ditches, so if I take them it is more for their enjoyment than for any help that they can provide. If I was smart enough to teach them to bracket the ducks for me, then leap into the middle of them, and scare the hell out of them, they would be more useful. However a dog on the bank is nothing compared to a Peregrine in the sky. Just in case you were wondering, I am not that smart or patient enough to even try.

This time I let her lose before I got to the ditch. I watched her and she kept her circles just up from the fence where they were the other day. I walked up and busted a bunch of Mallards off the ditch. Jessie came whistling down and smashed a Drake on the other side of the ditch. She flared up and landed on the Duck. I discovered why the Ducks like this part of the Creek better. It is much deeper than anywhere else. I was wearing my wading boots, that unroll up to my butt, but I still got a little wet.

 When I arrived on the other side, Jessie was holding it by the neck, and it was trying to wing whip her, so I helped her with it.

 Once we got it killed, I tied her to my glove and let her have her way with it.

 As you can see, she had a good time. However all she ate was fat. If she got any Duck down it was a mistake. I have a hard time understanding how she can do that, but what the heck.

UPS and FED X had arrived and Karen met us at the truck, hoping that we had been successful, It didn't take more than a quick look to see that we were both happy.