A Suceesful Yet Unsuccessful Hunt

Due to high winds yesterday, I was skeptical to hunt Katana. Nevertheless, I dressed the lure with a smaller piece of meat in case she decided to soar, and headed out to the field. After turning on her transmitter :), I released her. She immediately caught the wind, missed the first perch she aimed for and landed across the field. Working over to her, I noticed she was paying very close attention to me, instead of self-hunting the other side of the field. I started out following her around the field, and then decided to go the other way. To my surprise, she followed. Not only closely, but she kept moving up as I worked the brush. After about 15 minutes, I kicked up a rabbit which she pursued, but ended up missing because she got tangled in the brush. She obviously realized that I produced the game for her because she then followed even closer, and was taking perches in front of me anticipating my next move. It was incredible! I called her to the fist from the top of the tree, and her response was instant. I was shocked! I had not seen fist response from her in quite a while in the field. We kept working the field, periodically calling her to the fist to re-enforce the behavior, and it was as though she was a different bird! She was in perfect position for the next rabbit I flushed and she took off. She flew out and hovered for a few seconds before folding her wings and diving into the brush. She obviously missed because instantly she came back up, continued flying and crashed again. She did this 4 times on the same flush before she lost the rabbit. Her persistence was astounding!She sat on a low tree branch for a minute and when I got close to her she took off - into a soar. I had been expecting this and my first inclination was to pull the lure to call her in. I watched her go up about 500 ft, and then decided to try to call her to the fist. Her fist response had been great all day, so why not? Circling over head, I blew the whistle and held up a tid bit. To my surprise, she started circling closer in, losing altitude with each rotation. As she got lower, she folded her wings and came barreling towards me in a tear drop position. I was in awe. When she was about 15 feet away, she spread her wings again, and landed on the fist. I pulled her from a 500 foot soar to the fist! Wow! We continued hunting for a total of 2 hours, yielding 6 good chases, and her response never faltered. When she tired and quit following, I called her across the field to the lure. Instant response, and she was amply rewarded for her efforts. Although we took no game, it was definitely the most successful flight we have had together. What an awesome day!