Log Day 27

Had the pleasure of Gary's company for our session last night. I was hoping for a stellar performance from my bird, and a nice bunny to end on, but this was not in the cards for us yesterday. We headed out to "the great expanse" around 4:30 PM, and met up with Jonathan. Like always, it had been raining all day yesterday, and we went flying during one of the brief lapses in rain. We where hoping that, since another storm was moving in, that the rabbits may be out foraging for a little bit of grub during this break in the weather, but this was just not the case. We flew Jonathan's bird first, and the session lasted for about 45 min or so. We started off the day at the "usual" spot that we hit, and didn't manage to see any bunnies. His bird seemed very focused, and was following along pretty well. After a bit, we decided to go back across the gravel road to the other side, and I managed to kick up a rabbit out of one of the briar patchs that ran along the road. The bird was in a bad position, and didn't even see the rabbit moving. Little more brush beating, and then we ended his session on the rabbit lure. His bird had great lure response, and traded off well. Next, it was my turn to fly. After a short scare involving me locking my keys in the car (don't ask), we finally got my bird beeped up, and we headed off toward a dif section of the field, that we had yet to fly. This section was a little bit more "heavily wooded" and we kicked up a rabbit it short order. It bailed for the dense section of cedars, and the bird didn't even chase it...just sorta flew over and landed on top of the trees. I kicked around in the cedars, and I guess managed to flush it out the back end, and Gary started yelling HO. Again, it headed toward a really thick section, and Dee Dee didn't even try for it. Got into a dry spell after that, and didn't kick up any rabbits for a good minute. Got one more flush later, but she was out of position, and we decided to hit one more briar patch before calling it a day. Kicked around in that for a while, and Gary moved one rabbit, but again...she didn't fly for it. We ended the session on the rabbit lure. One thing that I have noticed, is that as we are getting more successful (i.e. catching rabbits), her fist response is waning dramatically. She was doing ALRIGHT after the first rabbit, but there was a dramatic difference between Sunday's rabbit, and the session yesterday. She didn't seem interested in flying in for the easy tid bits, and her response to the fist was FAR from instant. I discussed this with Gary, and he thought that it had to do with the fact that we have now changed the "game" that we are playing, and this tends to be a common occurance in RTs. Initially, we where just flying through the trees for tidbits and what not, but now that she knows we are out hunting, she would much rather get a nice warm bunny, then waste her time flying down to me. This sorta makes sense, but is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. We are going to do an indoor session tonight, and I'm going to introduce her to the pole perch (in preperation for Woodward and killing some jacks this weekend!). I will probably begin the session outside, and do a lot of calls to the fist in an attempt to strenghthen back up her response to that, and then end the session on a bunch of jump ups/downs from the pole. We shall see if this has any effect on our hunt tommorow.