The little male Harris that tried to do a runner on me bagged his first rabbit of the season one hour ago, all is forgiven, well chuffed!!!! Anyone else had any luck yet?
I have just re-entered my own male harris, but not without some heartache. He has allways hunted wide, and he still comes back when I call him, but he loves to fly.
I slip him to a tree about 15 feet away, he'll fly around it and go for the height in one 200 yards away :(
SIGH, a lot more manning and training than I anticipated to enter this guy for his second year.
His name is Fester, and he flies at 1lb 6 3/4, last year he bagged about 30 bunnies, the largest being almost 4LB's, a pigoen and a pheasant :)
I spent some of my "down time" while he moulted helping a freind, just returning to birds, to train his new Female. 1 week from first flight on the creance to bagging a bunny. unfortunatley nowthing else since, but when we start flying them as a cast we should have better luck.
Happy hunting all, and congratulations again Shaun.
I told of how my male Harris did a runner because I was rushing things, Well yesterday evening I let him go again for the 1st time (again), he went up into a tree looked around, and dived down on his 1st bunny of the season in under five minutes, I was pleased except that he had actually only got one foot to it and it was pulling him through a very thick hedge. I went in on my belly and saw that they were both caught around a tree stump and no one was going anywhere, and he would not be able to kill it there. In my short experience I did what I thought best and took the rabbit off him, but then had trouble coaxing him out of the undergrowth in a strop, well eventually he came out I threw the rabbit into the long grass away from the hedge, and he re-claimed it as his rightfull prize. He was latter well croped out, and content with the world.
If anyone would have donr things differently I'm very willing to listen & Learn. Cheers mark
fester, Bless his heart, had one foot on it's head, and one hanging onto the surrrounding undergrowth for dear life.
I tried to despatch the rabbit but couldn't get hold of it properly, and they were both disappearing from view into the brambles.
I grabbed one of the rabbits legs and then managed to drag it up, and dispatch it immediatley, leaving fester looking very disheveled but unharmed upside down under the brambles.
As soon as I dragged the robbit past his point of view he was up like a shot and on it.
Cheers Owen, Ive always intended not to rob Jazza when he kills, but nine times out of ten he kills in the thickest of hedges, and when he feels me comming in tries to go thurther in!!, dead or alive I try to bring the quarry out to where I can get some kind of leash on him for fear of him doing a runner (my pessimistic? nature). This season has been great so far with a rabbit early on, then a Crow and yesterday a pidgeon, so I,m well pleased with the little lad.
Jazza caught a crow? I live very close to a Rookery, and Fester in his first year, used to fl into the midst of it, Just of laughs I guess, can't see the attraction of being divebombed by Rooks myself but....
His first ever kill was a pigeon, but he has not managed one since.
