Day 77

She weighed in in the 1060's this morning (hadn't cast yet) around 6:00 AM. Put in some hours at work, and then ducked out for an early lunch break around 11:00 AM or so. Went to a new spot that I hadn't checked out yet (but have been wanting to), and walked around for a good couple of hours. When I pulled up, there where 5 or 6 crows on the side of the little road I was about to drive down, so I pulled her out, got her beeped up, and jumped back in the car. It was about as perfect of a slip as one could find, and I started pulling toward them......when they all took off! Dang it! Not sure what spooked them, but I hadn't even gotten half way there when they busted. Said oh well, parked the car, and started walking through the woods. There where squirrel nests everywhere, but I just couldn't manage to find any. After walkin around forever and not finding squirrels (though she did manage to catch and scarf down a little mouse in short order), I decided it was time to head back to car. As I was approching the tree line, she took off from her perch and pumped really hard toward a tree. She landed, and started looking straight down. I knew that look, and went over to where she was. A tree had fallen over at the base of the one she was in, and I started beating around on that. Made a full circle around the tree before I finally got the squirrel to move, and she made an amazing cork screw flight on it, but ended up missing. This squirrel wasn't playing around, and bailed immediately for the ground. She tried to slam it, missed, remounted....missed again....remounted...missed again....and then remounted for a third time, and I was certain she grabbed it. Somehow, she missed though, and stayed on the ground. I was moving as quickly as I could, but the squirrel got too far out in front of me, and I lost track of it, and it dissappeared into the brush. Beat around for a cool minute, but didn't get a reflush, so we called it a day. As I got back to the car, I saw the crows where back. Though the slip wasn't as good as the first one, it wasn't too bad, so I flew her on them, and she got pretty darn close to catching one, but ultimately missed. I was talkin to Mark last night, and he pointed out one of those Duh things that I should have realized...but didn't. From now on, when car hawking, i need to put a piece of tape on her bell. No wonder everything keeps busting quickly...there isn't any surprise when there is a jingling bell coming at them! Stupid apprentice!!!! I will be putting some electrical tape in my hawking bag this evening.