Clear and cold. -7F at 7am.
The cord was set up last night, so there are no batteries to change today. At 9:30 there were 9 ravens feeding. I think we'll try and get a shot.
When we finally got all geared up and back out to shot the net, it was 10:30 and there were only 4 birds on the bait. We decided to wait until later in hopes of more birds.
At 1:30, there were 7-8 ravens feeding on the bait and two coyotes kept walking but backing off at the last second. The coyotes seemed to pull the ravens in. Derek dropped me off at the end of the detonator cord and went back down the road to signal me when the birds were in position. While sitting on the side of the road, two ravens flew over just to the north, so I laid as flat as a could against the snow bank and luckily, they didn't see me. After what seemed like forever (probably only 2-3 minutes), Derek gave me the go ahead and I pressed the button...
Nothing.
I had been falsely banking on the fact that the batteries in the detonator would warm up and be fine. Apparently they need a little more juice for the current to travel through 500 ft of frozen wire. At least the birds weren't spooked, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.
After dark, I went out to the bait and chased off 4 coyotes that were threatening to shut my operation down by eating all my bait. After checking on the net launcher and re-burying the strings that hold the back end of the net down because the snow on top hardens so much, I put out a little "anti-coyote scent" and went home.
1 comment:
This is cool. It is neat to see that you can out smart the birds sometimes. I guess all the science classes paid off. =)
Seems like someone needs to develop a launcher that doesn't freeze.
I will keep reading, the updates are cool!
T
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