2 for 2!!!

As soon as she started eating on her first ducks head, Mark suggested I trade her off pretty quick.....apparently those ducks taste about as good as they smell, so not well i'm guessing :-). I took his advice, and when it was all said and done, she ended up getting about her normal ration of food. The next morning I glanced at her weight, and I thought maybe, just maybe, we are going to get to have another flight! I pushed that idea to the back of my mind though (didn't want to get too excited), and headed off to the Bartlesville area, for some early morning hawking. Good friends, and good times were on the agenda, and we definitely accomplished both of those things.....I even got to round it all out with a GOOD meal too, so I was sitting about as happy as a person could be. That's when the bird went back on the scale, and I darn near had a heart attack........it was time to go hunting :-) :-)!!!

715 grams, and though that's the highest she has been in a long time, I am now an addict, and just can't help myself. Got everybody loaded up in the Subi (dog, parker, bird, pigeons, etc), and it was down the highway we went. Glanced at a couple ponds on my way out of town, but it wasn't till I hit one of my training fields, that I pulled over to do some serious glassing. This field rocks, in that you can drive in from the backside which is a pretty tall hill, and you can look down on the whole field from there. There are two kill me ponds on one end, and a long skinny one on the other. I glassed both of the ponds, but didn't see a thing. Turned the radio back up, went bouncing down the two track through the field, and drove out the exit that goes RIGHT between the two kill me ponds (maybe, a cars length from the edge of the pond!) Right as I am exiting the field, I glance back at my rear view mirror, and I see a single, small, black duck, swimming away from the side. It had been tucked up against the bank that was nearest to where I was glassing from, and I just didn't see her I guess. Anyways, I'm not sure why, but it didn't bust, so I drove a little ways past, and pulled the car over. Got the bird beeped up, Parker took his sweet little time selecting the perfect duck flushing rocks (he apparently didn't realize that I was about to go crazy with excitement!), and we were finally ready to role.

She left the fist quite a bit quicker this time.......she didn't turn and start coming back either! I'm sitting there straining my eyes as she takes off to the east, and her silhouette kept coming in and out of view. I have played this game before, and any second I expected the stoop, and the cloud of black birds to come erupting into the air. I'm freakin out, so I pull my glove off, and just start waving it. You wanna know what stink in happened?!?!?!?! She started heading back my direction!!!! I couldn't believe it. She was climbing the whole way back too, and by the time she got back over the pond, she was at least 500 feet or so. She was a good two or three hundred yards upwind and pumping like crazy, so as soon as she hit the money spot, Parker and I went for the flush. The ring neck blasted off of the water, and cleared the edge almost instantly! The prairie just poured on the speed, and at the last minute, put this inverted angle to the stoop and just creamed the duck!!!!! It went straight to the ground, and I didn't see it move once :-). She did THE SLOWEST wing over I have ever seen......almost as if she knew that duck wasn't' going anywhere!!! Other than car hawking, this is the first time Parker and I have really "hit the field" if you will, and we ended up scoring a duck! That's probably the best part of the whole thing, and as you can imagine, that stupid grin has come back to my face. Next flush I hope to be at around 8 hundred, and then after that, the fun begins!!!!!!!!
-D-