dirtwinger

My lurcher he's a bit of a character.

She was a rehab bird came to me with bad bumblefoot and all her primaries smashed to bits took me a year and a half to get her flying, all told she sat around and did nothing for over two years. However first time I flew her free she chased a hare that got up for a 1/4 mile before she gave up exhausted from lack of fitness.As soon as she got fit she started killing them often with headshots in less than 200yds off the fist. She was released back to the wild after a short season from Jan to March and killed 48 hares in that time she was a pretty badass falcon and I would have kept her if I had

My lurcher in action.

I have caught hundreds of hares with falcons and sighthounds as Articgun said there is more danger to the dogs if the falcon gets pissed off. The only time I have have had birds killed or injured it has been due to coyotes attacking the birds on kills when the dogs werent present.

Havent been on in ages heres a few pics from this season.

Where I hunt the worst thing i deal with apart from Cholla cactus (Big bushy spiky as hell) is goatheads which are horrible spiky seedpods. They can carpet the ground particularly where the ground has been disturbed and stick in the dogs pads and between their toes. while the dogs will run through them while coursing they do tend to grind the dogs to a halt while they are mooching around and you have to sometimes carry the dogs out of a patch and pick their feet clean. Next time I am out I will take some pics to show you all our nasty plants. No brambles or nettles here though but plenty to ma

It is fun but you have to know what you are doing, I get my falcons either captive bred or wild taken in the case of Prairie Falcons. However if you live in Oz you are screwed as falconry is Illegal.

Lots of good coursing dogs run and bred in New Mexico, but that would be Deming and Soccoro. Who where you out with, Dutch Salmon?

Spain

Heres a couple of pics from this last weekend, you can get a clear idea of just how thick the cover can be in some of the fields I run. This particular field has areas of very thick sagebrush and cholla cactus with relatively open stretches inbetween without the falcon you wouldnt catch many hares here. The one we did take was ran about a mile in a big loop through the thickest cover in this field ending back at the truck which was nice. The last part of the chase the falcon and dogs were coming back towards us and we thought they had lost the hare when the falcon suddenly dived down and grabb

My dogs just arent hard enough Wolfer, my merle lurcher will tangle with them and my saluki bitch flipped one end over end back before christmas but they wont seal the deal. I flew a 1lb 8oz female prairie falcon last season who hated coyotes and would actively hunt them and pound them in the head til they were bleeding. That did fire the dogs up a bit and we almost hadf a couple but never sealed the deal. My hunting buddy Greg did get a very fast coldblood stag bitch with the idea of having a coyote dog as part of the team but she didnt work out. She started getting aggressive with his dogs a

Was about to say the same thing - strikes me as overkill running two dogs and a bird on one hare, would much rather watch either dogs or falcon. The problem is that if you just fly a falcon the hare will just hide under bushes and refuse to run so it ends up being a rat hunt. With the dogs pushing the hare it has to run and you get a nice multistoop flight. As we are not running flat winter wheat fields but rolling broken ground with bushes arroyos all kinds of cover it is very easy for the dogs to be unsighted so the kill rate with just dogs is pretty low. The falcon can spot the hares a

Very similar markings to my lad all the best

I rode with English tack back in the Uk but over here I ride western.

Yes they do and importantly they keep it moving, hares tend to avoid the falcon by hiding in a bush and if really pushed they go down holes but the dogs keep it moving fast so the falcon can use its speed to hit the hare and take it down rather than a rat hunt around the bushes.