Nov. 22 - Near Miss

Rebel weighed in at a whopping 42 ounces today.  The duck leg last night was a little more than either of us thought.  I had to be in Georgetown to pick something up anyway, so we headed down to Justin’s place to try a few wood duck slips.  Rebel was gamey out of the mews and ready to go.  He is taking to the giant hood much better as he is now associating it with travel to hunting.

I slipped the bullet jesses on Rebel and walked him most of the way to the slip, as I just wasn’t sure how he was going to follow given his high weight.  I put him up in a tree and slowly made my way up to the pond.  He wouldn’t follow…  I was so bummed.  I pointed, I whispered…  Nothing.   If a man dog cusses his bird in whispers in a forest, and there is no one there to hear it, did he really make a sound?  Apparently the answer is yes, because the friggin’ wood ducks flushed and headed for less argumentative grounds.

Well as it turns out, Rebel was stuck on a squirrel that I had missed sitting in the tree right over my head.  He dove twice for the beast, but it ultimately scampered into a knothole and safety.  Rebel gave up and winged over towards the pond but still out of position.  I moved up to the next slew for another flush but the birds were a little more leery this time.  Once again they flushed early with Rebel out of position, and once again, Rebel peeled off on a squirrel.  He flew hard on this squirrel.  He stayed after it even when I wanted to get to the next flush before we had to leave.  He actually had two in the tree and he must have dove ten times on these lucky bastards.  On the last pass, he hit the squirrel trying to escape and knocked it to the ground not a foot from me!  I tried to reach out and step on him, but no luck.  He scampered away through the pine straw and must have found a hole to duck into.

I had to get back so I started out.  Rebel had other plans initially, but he followed reluctantly.  When I got back to the truck, I called him to the lure and he once again struck it out of the air with high drama.  It did make a very sweet ending. 

Not sure I will ever really understand this bird’s weight.  There is no way that he should be flying at 42 ounces, much less hunting this hard and following.  Just bizarre…