I think the point is that the hawk won’t see the fishing line and will become entangled and scared off if it tries to attack. I have done it in the past too.
I used to worry about my ducks. We have Red tailed hawks and Cooper’s hawks in the area. Red-tailed hawks hunt by sitting still in a tree or in a post a waiting for prey to move. They don’t really hunt while flying over. They are big enough to kill a duck and are the ones the cartoons call “chicken hawks”. I have seen them near my house, had them fly over, but in three years of free ranging everyday, they have never killed one of my adult ducks. They have killed the neighbors chickens though. I do provide my ducks with a lot of bushes for cover.
Cooper’s hawks are a much smaller hawk with a long, striped tail. They hunt on the fly. They will come around a tree or building really fast and hit their prey. Because they are smaller their usual prey is small birds. I have come home to piles of sparrow feathers a few feet from the ducks from Cooper hawk lunches. I say all this to say that I know a desperate hawk could go after my ducks but in three years of daytime free ranging, they haven’t. I would rather my ducks have room to move about happily and run the risk.
Im thinking the next couple of days if you're home.
