Yesterday

Well not much to post. Baron's growing, ears are rising, he still pees like a fire truck. Haru has been a bit over the top excitable since Baron arrived, reacting to every sound and always wanting to play, but she's calmed down since hunting season started.

So yesterday, the weather report was rain, but we headed out to the mountains anyway. Weekday, so didn't see another hunter all day. Last Sunday we found a lot of pheasant in an area I hunt a lot, so took some bird shot. Headed to the spot, within 5 minutes flushed a male pheasant (females are protected), one shot and done. A bit too easy. I'm not a big fan of bird hunting. Pretty much all birds are in some sort of trouble here in Japan, habitat destruction and all that. I'd much rather go after the ever increasing pigs.

I plucked and bled the pheasant right off, but didn't finish off the gutting. Got lazy, and wanted to head to a new spot and see what the area was like. In hindsight I shoulda known better. Checked the new area, it's where the last deer and boar in Chiba prefecture holed up in the 60's and 70's and now I know why. Unclimbable vertical rock faces, and the spots you can get up are covered in slippery moss and mud. The whole area is covered in these little plateaus, you get up to the top and it's virtually flat. I guess it's relatively easy to hunt if you've got a few people. Just cover all the escape routes and send a few dogs in. Nasty and dangerous getting up there though. Was there for a couple hours and headed back to more familiar territory.

I figure on opening day the pigs were bothered by so many people in the mountains, there were a lot of tracks, a lot of movement. Hard to tell where they were now. Didn't find anything fresh till the very end of the day, and I was tired, and the rain was pouring. Didn't sleep for more than an hour the night before since our cats were going nuts.

Haru is growing by leaps and bounds in the mountains. Whereas she used to stay directly in front of me (or behind in thick underbrush) she now runs circular patterns around me. When she finds something interesting she'll go check it out and then come back to check on me. She seems to be growing in confidence and doesn't freak out looking for me the moment she can't hear me crashing through the underbrush. All this running around means she's covering more ground. She does nearly double what I do. I did 10km and she did around 19km according to the GPS. I try and let her have a few days off between hunts to rest and heal as she's still young. I was worried she might be doing too much, but even after the 19 she was raring to get out of the car and run.

Baron is interesting to watch. I think I'm gonna have my hands full with this tyke. He's confident, very stubborn, and has an extremely high prey drive. One whiff of the pheasant and he was struggling to get at it. He's quite vocal as well, making noises for just about everything. Going to have to make sure I keep him in check as he grows. I exchange a lot of mail with 'Nolly', the hunter that gave him to me, and he's been warning me to nip the little things in the bud. Kishu males can be pretty testy.

Well no pics or video today. I returned my sister-in-law's Nikon, and my mobile was out of battery so no shot of the pheasant. I brought it home, and though I was originally taking it for Thanksgiving dinner, decided to cook it yesterday. Mashed potatoes, whole pheasant baked in cream of mushroom with bacon strips. Was pretty good, but the not gutting it right away left it with an ever so slight gamey tang. Only chewed into one bit of bird shot, managed to get the rest out. I took video of the pheasant, but have no interest in posting a boring shot of a dead bird. Just took the shot to record size, date, and place I took it.