Quite the busy week

It's been longer than I would've liked since I last wrote and while there's been a lot of great hawking, there's been quite a while (for me at least) without. I just returned from a business trip to Tokyo where I was for three days and a day before that I was bused up to Kobe for another work related venture. That's four days of the season that I'll never have back, how heartless can this cruel thing called work be!!
But before that pesky little detour from the season I was on quite a roll. Friday's are always a half day for me at work. When the lunch bell rings I'm out the door and on my way hawking before the chiming fades away. I usually skip lunch I'm so excited to be out. Last Friday (11/25) I loaded Spark up and headed out to Kishigawa where the clubhouse for the Kansai Hawking Club is located. Since our head count is still at nil I had to pick up some more quail before doing any real hawking and it killed me to pass by some rather large flocks of pigeons feeding in the rice fields that I passed by. After stocking up on quail Spark and I headed out to the surrounding paddies to see if any more pigeons were around. We found a couple of big flocks but they bumped before Spark had a real chance so we ended the day with a baggie pigeon and cropped her up.
The next day a friend of mine with a grey gos and I headed up to Nara to chase some ducks. It was by far the best day of the season yet! Since Spark had eaten quite her fill of pigeon the day before, she was left at home and I took out the male Harris. The Harris isn't really mine persay, I get to fly it in return for helping out with some English work that the guy who owns him is trying to do. It really is a weekend bird which is unfortunate since I know that with that flying schedule I'll never be able to see the bird's true potential, but it sure is fun to fly when I do get out with it. Nara was a blast and with just the two of us there were plenty of opportunities. The Harris was spot on as far as weight goes and had numerous shots at ducks. Three times I thought that it for sure had one but they just managed to avoid the pot. The gos had a few great chases, and while we came home empty handed we had huge smiles on our faces and are looking forward to the coming weekend when we'll head up there again. We were inches from catching some last week so I should have some great stories and hopefully a duck or two in the freezer by Saturday night. Can't wait!