Soar Hawking the RT

[Weasel]

Well, I think we are talking about two different situations here, I am talking about when an RT is soaring on thermals 500-1000 foot in the air. They may have good eyesight, but will not loose that altitude for a possible meal. They will however slope soar as I see them do this quite often. This is when they are less than 100 ft in the air as it is oppurtunity they are after. If an RT is slope soaring off a hillside it is because they have no available perch to suit their hunt and the updrafts alow them to sit in on the wind from a good vantage just as a perch would. Soaring them in this fashion is completely different than open land thermal soaring as they are not actively hunting at the time they are 500 ft in the air. I think this is what the confusion is between our conversations.

[Yarak]

Just to help shed some light on this subject. RTs do hunt from the air. They use terrain and wind conditions to increase their catch rate. I have seen this technique used in several major cities against pigeons. I have also seen them west of Ft Worth where trees are scarce hunting huge open fields from the air. Altitude is a give away. If they are really up there they are not actively hunting. Anything below 150 ft and they are watching the ground closely within effective attack range.
Yarak

[Jay]

I had my bird hunting from a soar on two ocasions this past season. The first time I was in an industral park on a windy day and put out a bunnie. The rabbit ran through some light cover with the bird making 2 shots at it before it reached cover. Once the rabbit was in cover the bird just started soaring, drifting downwind then rowing back up above the cover. When I got there the bird was up 150-200ft I put the rabbit out and the bird just slamed it.

The second time happened just before febuary vacation. I was in a woodlot in hopes of getting some squirrels on a very windy day. As I walked along I noticed the bird did not follow my flying tree to tree as normal, instead it would jump up open the wings and soar well above the trees to follow. With no bushy tails moving I decided to move twords the edge where I knew their were bunnies. This area has 500acres of open land on one side and even more open marshes on the back side. As soon as I started working the cover a bunnie came out and the bird was after it, but not able to make a shot in the heavy cover. Once again as the rabbit made cover the bird started going up. This time he reached 600-700ft and way way down wind over the marsh. I reached into my vest and flashed a dead squirrel that I had, when I did this he came right back up wind. When I stopped to put the squirrel away a bunnie broke at my feet. The bird went into a vertiacl stoop. The bunnie was flushed downwind but soon ran back upwind, at this point the bird tossed up and came back down only to get himself stuck in a bush for 10min. After that I wasnt able to get anything elese going.

On these windy days I know the bird will soar to follow me, next season I hope to try working him almost as a longwing. By finding an area of marsh with ducks in it. Putting the bird in trees a good distance away and as I walk the bird will follow and with the right wind soar. So basicly I am going to try hunting ducks from a pitch with a RT next season. To enforce it, I plan on just getting to these open areas on windy days with a few baggies, as the bird goes up and waits "game" will be prodced.

[ccrobbins]

There were 2 reasons I asked about soaring. 1 was ducks. 2 was the fact that I have a lot of open fields with no perches at all. On windy days I can try and soar and on calm days it looks like the painting pole!

[Austin]

I have had a lot of luck with red tails in open areas from the glove on rabbits, espically if there are slight rolling hills and you catch the rabbit on the down side. As far as soaring I have seen them do that like everyone else said, on their own for short periods. The one thing you want to watch for when they are soaring is when they begin to make larger and more spread out rotations, they seem to get higher and higher as they spread out their territory, at that point it is very easy for them to get caught by an up- draft and you guessed it, away they go even if they don't want to.