Reborn in the 1980s: I made my fortune hunting wild game in Changbai Mountain

Hearing Li Guangkun say that, Yue Feng felt a little relieved.

He paused for a second to think before continuing, "Our film crew is shooting a documentary about falconry culture, and this is already the second season! The first season was filmed at my house!"
Our village is right next to mountains, and we have more medium to large-sized mountain livestock than you do here! In terms of practical experience, we might be better at falconry over there!
The main reason we came here is to experience the culture passed down from our ancestors! Practical hunting is secondary..."

What Yue Feng said was true. His own gyrfalcon could even handle tigers and leopards, and catching deer was a piece of cake for him. It was several levels better than ordinary eagles hunting rabbits and pheasants.

However, at this point, Li Guangkun, who was naturally a bit strong-willed, became somewhat unconvinced.

"Comrade Yuefeng, I won't interrupt you when we're talking about other things, but when it comes to training and releasing eagles, I'm really not convinced!"
Can you tell me, in what ways are your falconry skills better than ours?
Our local custom for falconry is to catch the falcons in the mountains and release them on flat ground! Rabbits, pheasants, and waterbirds from the meadows surrounding the wetlands are all our hunting targets!

Take that purple hawk I keep in my yard, for example. A single hawk can catch ten or so pheasants and four or five rabbits in a good day! It can do both aerial and ground work, and rarely comes away empty-handed!

Upon hearing Li Guangkun's words, Xiao Weimin, who was also sitting next to him, immediately grinned.

"Director Xiao, what are you laughing at?" Li Guangkun noticed the change in the other party's mood and asked again.

You can tell from the other person's reaction that Li Guangkun's personality is indeed quite interesting.

He's quite polite, but he's extremely confident in his own "professional" abilities, even to the point of being arrogant.

Yue Feng didn't interrupt, and Xiao Weimin said with a smile, "Xiao Feng just said that his falconry skills are better. I think we should exchange information with him!"

"Please speak!"

"In your area, hunting with eagles might yield pheasants, rabbits, or waterfowl at best! Can you guess what our film crew caught with eagles when we went to Xiaofeng's hometown and followed the hunting team into the mountains?"

"It's just an eagle, what can it catch? At most, it can only catch foxes!" Li Guangkun said with considerable certainty.

The upper limit for a medium-sized bird of prey like the goshawk is indeed that of a fox, and only small individuals with poor physical condition.

But Yue Feng wasn't using a goshawk! He was using a genuine top-tier falcon, a mutated black gyrfalcon.

"Haha, Xiaofeng isn't using a big eagle! The one featured in our first season documentary is a gyrfalcon, a black gyrfalcon! It's the gyrfalcon that you villagers in Eagle Village talk about!"
As for the prey, we caught red hounds and deer! No guns were used, just the combined efforts of the hawks and hounds!

"what?"

Upon hearing this, Li Guangkun, who had been waiting for an answer just a second ago, suddenly widened his eyes and his gaze towards Yue Feng changed.

The black gyrfalcon is a mythical creature rarely recorded even in books. As for jackals and deer, they far exceed the hunting limits of eagles. In Li Guangkun's eyes, these are large prey that even eagle handlers wouldn't dare to dream of.

"Haha, just lucky! It's not that exaggerated! Eagle Village is far from the mountains, so there aren't any favorable conditions!"

Yue Feng grinned, subtly putting on an air of superiority, secretly pleased with himself.

"Where did you get that black gyrfalcon? That thing has a long wingspan; it can't even fly in the forest!"

Li Guangkun knew that Director Xiao wouldn't lie to him, but he still couldn't quite understand it.

Yue Feng stated truthfully, "I encountered that black falcon by chance one winter when I went hunting in the mountains! It would hear the hunter's gunshot and then secretly fly over to eat the entrails of its prey in the trees as an offering! Later, I caught it with a snare! It took me two hunting seasons to train it and have it go hunting in the mountains with the hunting team!"

"That's not right either! It can't maneuver properly in the forest! Only eagles can move freely in the forest, the gyrfalcon's wingspan is too long!" Li Guangkun was still clinging to his preconceived notions.

Yue Feng continued to explain, "No one requires it to take off in the forest! I use a 'hunting' method! The eagle follows the hunters in the sky, and it will only come down to work when the terrain and scene are suitable."

While there are many trees in the mountains and forests, there are also open areas, such as meadows, cleared forests, or river valleys. Eagles can be very useful in these situations!

"So, your eagle can follow you all the way up in the sky?"

"Yes! If I want, it can stay in the air all morning without landing! When it rests, it comes down to feed me and rest for a while, then takes off again and can stay in the air until it gets dark and comes down the mountain!"

"Holy crap! That's amazing! I can't do that!"

When I was a child, I heard from the elders in my family that in my great-grandfather's generation, there were people who could train eagles. A well-trained golden eagle could stay on the ground all day long!

I never imagined you could do something so long ago that it's been lost!

The pride in Li Guangkun's heart vanished without a trace in an instant.

"Haha, take it one step at a time, it's just a little trick. Once you break through the barrier, you can do it too!" Yue Feng said politely.

"Can you teach me? I can become your apprentice!" Li Guangkun's breathing quickened instantly upon hearing Yue Feng's casual remark.

He genuinely doesn't know how, but he also genuinely wants to learn.

"It's not necessary to become an apprentice. If you want to learn, I can teach you right now!"

“Tell me, I want to learn!” Li Guangkun straightened his back, looking highly focused.

Yue Feng said, "If you want an eagle to stay in the air for a long time, you have to start by circling and flying!"
Long-legged eagles are basically not suited for this; short-legged eagles, such as peregrine falcons and saker falcons, are the best choice, as they have the talent and potential to succeed!

These falcons were first trained to recognize the lures. Once they recognized the lures, they were trained to swing the lures in a small disc, and then the lures were hidden to allow the falcons to get used to the large discs!

After mastering the basics, begin training the disc to fly and follow its owner's movements!
Once you can learn to follow the movement, you can gradually increase the distance! From the initial ten or twenty minutes, to half an hour, an hour, and several hours!
Later, once the eagles got used to cooperating with humans, they could stay in the sky circling and waiting for hours!

They are all experts who understand eagle training and the habits of birds of prey. As long as Yue Feng provides a training plan, there will be no major problems with the details.

After listening, Li Guangkun frowned slightly and thought for a few seconds: "The eagle doesn't seem to be suitable! This thing doesn't like to circle around!"

"Indeed, eagles are birds of prey with long legs and short wings. They excel at short-range bursts of pursuit and ambushes, while long-distance soaring flight is a characteristic of falcons!"

"Is there any other way?"

Yue Feng nodded and continued, "Yes, but the success rate is very low, and it depends heavily on the individual talent of the eagle!"

You can try training the three long-coat eagles!

This type of large eagle also has the habit of circling and hunting, but it relies more on air currents for its movement, making it much less adept than falcons! When it dives down to attack, it is highly dependent on terrain and conditions, and its dive speed is also low! Personally, I don't think it's very suitable!

"A long-coat eagle?"

Li Guangkun muttered these three words several times, carefully considering their feasibility in his heart.

Yue Feng and Xiao Weimin exchanged a glance, but Yue Feng did not immediately interrupt Xiao Weimin's thoughts.

After waiting for about ten seconds, Li Guangkun continued, "It still feels a bit lacking! Short-legged eagles swoop down and kick their prey with tiger paws, but big eagles don't know how to do that!"

"Indeed, I think that's the main reason why we didn't choose it for hunting!"
Eagles' fighting style makes them adept at hunting small to medium-sized prey with great efficiency, but they are helpless against large individuals!

Unlike falcons, their diving attacks, thanks to the physiological structure of their talons, allow them to challenge prey that are larger than themselves!
Overall, it has both advantages and disadvantages.

"Hey……"

Li Guangkun sighed, a look of dejection and disappointment flashing in his eyes.

Seeing how disappointed the other person was, Yue Feng felt a little empathetic.

Although the other party had a bad temper, Yue Feng greatly admired his character. They were both true eagle lovers at heart, and there was a certain mutual respect between them.

Yue Feng had a sudden inspiration and said, "Training eagles to hunt and follow might not be suitable, but there is another method that I think you can consider!"

"What method?"

"No hunting drills, no dive attacks or anything like that! Only following drills!"

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it, when a person is riding an eagle around the hunting ground, sometimes they have to carry a gun. Overall, it's very difficult for one person to switch between these tasks!"
"If you're holding an eagle, you can't use a gun! If you need a gun, you'll have to switch eagles!"

"That's true! We used to go to some mountainous areas near the spurs to hunt roe deer and such, and many times we would arrange for someone to follow us with an eagle!"

"When they see small or medium-sized prey, they release the hawks; when they encounter large prey, they use their homemade guns!"

Yue Feng nodded and continued, "At this point, you can start training the eagle to follow! It's similar to calling it from a distance. First, determine the command to call the eagle with the whistle. Once the eagle recognizes the command, you can gradually increase the distance and interval of the call!"

Ideally, the person walks ahead, and the eagle follows in a nearby tree, going wherever the person goes! It can also rest frequently, which is much more comfortable than being carried by a person!
However, this training method requires a high level of intelligence from the eagle; it has to be quite clever! If it's an eagle that's just been fed and has no feelings, it's a waste of time!

"Hey, now that you mention it, it makes sense!"
It's said that it's very difficult for eagles to develop a bond with their owners. There's an old saying that eagles eat red meat and poop white, and they can turn their backs on their owners without a second thought!
I have a different opinion.

This is true for the vast majority of common eagles, but I have also encountered eagles that belong to my family!

One year, I caught a small eagle. It landed after five and a half days. Although it was just an average catch, it was enough.

I raised it like that all winter, and when spring came and it got warm, it fattened up and I raised it for five days without setting it up. I got a five-foot eagle and then released it!

The next day, it flew back on its own, and when it saw me, it was still perched on the hawk perch, flapping its wings and begging for food!

Upon hearing Li Guangkun's words, Yue Feng immediately thought of the baby eagle his father had raised.

"The kind of eagle you're talking about, we call it a 'milk eagle' in our family. We still have a three-and-a-half-year-old chicken eagle in our family!"

It accompanies my dad to work at the forest farm every day. Once at work, it goes off to play in the woods by itself. When my dad gets off work, he whistles a few times, and the eagle comes back! Eagles with this kind of personality are rare, but they do exist!

If you can raise and train it well, training it to follow you into the mountains will be a breeze! What happened to your eagle? How did it fare?

"Later? Later I released it again, but it was picked up by Li Lao Er from the village entrance while he was out for a stroll. He didn't release it again, but instead tied it up again and made a cage. In the summer, he fed it dead cat meat for a few days, and the eagle died from the feed!"
Because of this, I got into a huge fight with him, and I almost lost my head. If it weren't for the commune secretary intervening, I would have been in jail!

Upon hearing Li Guangkun recount the past, Xiao Weimin took out his notebook with great interest and quickly began to jot it down.

"You know he picked up the eagle, why didn't you go and get it back?" Xiao Weimin asked curiously.

Li Guangkun glanced at Lao Xiao and said with some helplessness, "When we release hawks in the spring, we always remove all the bells and other small parts before releasing them!"

I know I released the hawk that Li Lao Er picked up, but there's no proof anymore!
Eagles don't have any markings. Catching an eagle in the spring is just considered breaking the rules. It's not worth getting into a conflict over this. If things escalate, I won't be in the right either!
But later, he made a cage for the eagle and ruined it, eventually killing it. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I drank some wine, grabbed my spear, and went to his house!

"Sigh, it is indeed a bit of a pity!" Yue Feng sighed helplessly after hearing this.

"It's all in the past, let's not talk about it! Who told that silly eagle to listen to his call and fall from the tree? It's all fate!"
"By the way, where you live, do you release your eagles into the wild in the spring?" Li Guangkun continued to ask.

Yue Feng nodded: "Ordinary eagles are captured in the fall, kept for the winter, and then released in the spring! But if it's a good eagle, it has to be kept in a cage!"
"I have several eagles at my breeding farm on the mountain that I've been raising for several years! Especially the black falcon and the little white spear, they've been with me for years, and their chicks have already bred several broods!"

"What? You've been raising and breeding your eagles?" Li Guangkun was even more surprised to hear this than when he heard about hunting deer with gyrfalcons.

The more knowledgeable an expert is about birds of prey, the more they know how impressive it is to successfully breed wild birds of prey. It's not just a matter of luck; it requires both skill and luck.

"Indeed! Maybe I was just lucky."

I think there's nothing wrong with the rule of catching eagles in autumn and releasing them in spring, and there's nothing wrong with keeping good eagles to make cages! It would be even better if they could breed in human hands!

If this continues, it will no longer affect the populations of wild birds of prey, allowing them to develop sustainably without causing damage!

"After this filming is finished, can I come visit you? Now that you mention it, I'm so curious!"
I know almost everyone who raises eagles within a radius of dozens of kilometers, and I've never heard of anyone raising their own eagles to breed and hatch eaglets!

"You're welcome anytime!" Yue Feng agreed without hesitation.

"Great! I'll see for myself what the legendary gyrfalcon looks like!"
By the way, I heard that you caught a gray spear with an owl in the mountains the other day, is that true?

Faced with this somewhat sensitive question, Yue Feng and Xiao Weimin were unusually silent for a few seconds. (End of Chapter)