Eagle Journal

Hello everyone,

Today marks the first day I hunted both birds on the same day. During this heat wave we are in I will hunt Widow rather than soar her because by the time I get to the ranch after hunting JH it’s way to hot. So I’ll hunt them both in the cool mornings ..

JH:

I have found out in the past that JH will not sit in the truck and wait for his turn to fly. The moment he hears my whistle he goes nuts. So, even though ladies should go first everywhere else in the world, here they don’t.

This is JH’s second day hunting and I expect he’ll be a little muscle sore today — that would not be unusual. I drove past the small hay field and found that it was mowed but I could see 3 or 4 jacks feeding on the mowed hay. I pulled over and parked, got out the telemetry, and opened up the back of the truck to wire up JH who started to talk, telling me, I’m sure, to hurry up! The second JH made a sound, the jacks in the hay field started to run out of the field, went under the fence, and into the dry pole field. I was hurrying, believe me. With JH on my fist I ran, yes, ran, down the tracks and went into the pole field where I saw the jacks enter. Five feet into the field a jack flushed, JH exploded off the fist and caught the rabbit with ease! As I walked up on him JH was not all that happy to see me and started to drag his rabbit off. I bent down and offered him some quail which he tried to eat while standing on his rabbit. So I increased the bribe/reward and he stepped up on my fist, wing whipped me and stabbed me in the arm! For the next 10 minutes JH was either slapping me with his wings or trying to bite me in the face ..such a charming bird! He’s not always like this. It’s just that this early in his season he has forgotten what a great guy I am.

He settled down as we continued to hunt. Another jack was up and running towards a fence and JH was closing fast. The jack made it under the fence and JH banked sharply, coming within inches of the sharp barbed wire (gulp), and returned to the glove. I could see by his flights that he was sore but he still wanted to hunt. JH had 4 more long slips, 100 yards or more, and was fading fast so I fed him up. It’s Widow’s turn.

Widow:

I saved the large hay field for her and started on the bank. There have not been as many jack rabbits hiding on the side of the railroad tracks and I can’t blame them. So I have been throwing rocks and gravel as I walk along the bank to help flush the stubborn ones. I was most of the way down the length of the bank when I threw a handful of rocks into the weeds and a jack flushed, running down along the bottom of the weeds in the plowed up part. Widow came off the fist strong and was really cranking on this rabbit. She was driving hard, went in with both feet extended, and just missed the jack rabbit! That was a nice flight.

All jazzed up, I went out into the hay field and began to work the field. I eventually ended up near the pole where JH caught the jack the other day and, sure enough, a jack was up and running just like before. Widow got a horrible launch and had to work hard for speed. But she got up and going and closed on the jack that was heading straight for the pole intending to use it as a distraction. Just as the jack got to the pole so did Widow and she had to go around the pole, causing a slight hesitation on her part, and the jack made a clean getaway. I hunted all the way back to the truck and did not get any other slips, so I fed her up.

Hope all is well,

Joe