If I’d read the post correctly I would have realized that - my mistake 
We have hunt colours as well - each hunt has their own “collar” and some hunts stipulate the colour jacket to be worn as well, whereas with others it just has to be dark - preferably black, with the hunt collar. However every member is allowed, actually encouraged, to have the hunt collar on their jacket.
Thanks for the clarification of the jackrabbit too, I’d often wondered what it was.
Reading some other threads, it seems as though you have a lot of rider participation in pre-season hound work - is that right? Over here most riders don’t get to see hounds until the opening hunt, except for the few who are friends of the huntsman and may accompany him and hounds to the odd informal, pre-season hunt.
Hi, Otterhound-I hunt in North Carolina. The pack I hunt with hunts gray and red fox, coyote, and the occasional bobcat. In recent years, the coyote have become more common, unfortunately. They are fun to chase, but they will take the hounds out of the country, and staff picks them up for days afterward. The hounds are mostly cross bred, and very fast.
Our hunt starts cubbing the 3rd week in July (really!), we hunt until the early March. Our huntsman encourages lots of member participation with the pack-we are all invited to walk out on non-hunting days, and he loves to have a big crowd at the hound shows.
In our hunt, only staff wears red coats.
Thanks for joining up-can’t wait to hear about hunting in NZ!
Lesson junkie - that’s one VERY long season! Your huntsman certainly earns his money! We open on the 3rd weekend of March and hunt through til the 3rd weekend in July. Then our horses are turned out for a month or two, and hounds are on holiday until (in our case) the beginning of November when we start road work with them. My partner does this on a bicycle, as he did in Ireland, and I bring up the rear on a horse. I’m not quite keen enough to get on a bike! Road work goes for a couple of months, til the end of December, and is used to start “legging up” hounds but more so to educate new entrants - they are coupled up to an older hound so they learn about packing up etc. They’ll go on the road 5 or 6 days a week at this stage. Straight after the New Year “he” starts hunting them on foot, 2 or 3 days a week. More often than not he’ll be out on his own with hounds and will hunt for 3 - 5 hours, depending on conditions. Towards the end of February we’ll start taking our horses out with hounds, and then sometimes I might invite a friend or two, who hunt with us normally, to come with us, but most members don’t get to ride with hounds until our opening hunt. Funnily enough, there doesn’t ever seem to be much interest from anyone to go out with “him” hunting on foot 
UIt’s really interesting finding out “how the other half lives”! Your hunting seems to differ quite a bit from ours
Otterhound-our membership has a huge turnout for mounted hound walks. It’s become so popular that the masters use it to generate a little off season income. Non members pay a few bucks just to ride out, and they learn that all hunting isn’t like the videos from Ireland! The huntsman takes every opportunity to take the pack to community functions like parades and horse shows, so fox hunting continues to be part of our county tradition.
Our country is in the Blue Ridge foothills. Some if it is very steep, with a couple of large, deep creeks snaking and looping all through it. Cover can be very tight-all the advantage is to the game.
We also have tons (TONS) of deer. I think it is remarkable how the hounds ignore them. The pack is really well bred and trained-we are beyond lucky with our staff.
Hello and Welcome!
It isn’t that they are awarded colors less often than men- it’s that women don’t wear a scarlet coat when awarded colors, by tradition. Exceptions being if there are female staff and master decrees that ‘all’ staff shall wear scarlet. Many female MFHs also elect to wear scarlet, but not all- as MFH they get to make the calls on attire!
Well, now, that depends. The Waldingfield Beagles of Virginia hunt cottontail on foot at home. When they travel west they hunt jackrabbit, with staff on horseback. They have no trouble being told not to hunt the one on a given day! And may I say when jackrabbit is the quarry, being on horseback rather than on foot is very much my preference!
FYI because scent in the west is so fleeting and difficult, Lynn Lloyd at Red Rock will let her hounds go after the jackrabbits, because that will often run them into a waiting coyote and then they’ll switch. Unconventional but it works for her.
[QUOTE=Beverley;5311153]
because scent in the west is so fleeting and difficult, Lynn Lloyd at Red Rock will let her hounds go after the jackrabbits, because that will often run them into a waiting coyote and then they’ll switch. Unconventional but it works for her.[/QUOTE] Well that’s something new to me! But as you said, if it works well …
Our hounds will hunt only hare despite the proliferation of rabbits in NZ - they are taught right from the start that hare is the only acceptable quarry. When we were in Aussie the pack “himself” took over, which was a foxhound pack, had been allowed to hunt whatever crossed their paths - and the most common animal out there is the kangaroo. They run for miles, and fast! Over the years several hounds had been killed by roos, as is common with farm dogs. If cornered the roo will grab a dog with it’s front paws and rake it’s huge hind claws down the dog’s belly, effectively disembowelling it. Roos will also go into dams to try to escape and many a dog has been drowned by them when it’s gone in after the roo. But I digress … it was quite a job to stop the pack hunting anything and everything but by the 2nd season there they were fairly reliably hunting fox only. As time went by they got better and better as young hounds, who had never been allowed to hunt anything else, came on.
There is one drag pack in NZ who don’t hunt live - except for when hounds put up a deer then it’s on for young and old! I don’t really agree with that though as it tends to lead to an unruly pack of hounds with no clear guidelines.
Do you have any trouble with anti-hunting people over there? Luckily here in NZ many people grow up in farming communities where hunting and fishing are a way of life, so kids grow up keen on shooting and pig-hunting and it’s very well accepted. As far as I’m aware there have been no problems at all with people being anti hunting. However, Ireland has much the same hunting culture and there is already trouble brewing, so I guess we oughtn’t be too complacent.
Hunting here seems to be more low-key in a way, as hunts don’t go out into the community to shows etc like your’s do. Would be great to do that I think - there’s nothing quite like the sight of a pack of hounds parading! When we’re doing road work with our hounds we often get stopped by people in cars to take a photo, or ask about our hounds. It’s not something most people ever see.
What is a hunter pace? I see them mentioned quite frequently. And “2nd flight”? Hilltopping is self explanatory, I’m assuming that 1st flight are those who keep up front with the master, but 2nd flight’s got me beat.
A hunter pace is a cross country competitive event, sometimes in pairs and sometimes in teams of three or four- any where from 3 or 4 to a dozen or more miles across hunting country, trying to match an ‘optimal’ time to complete the course at a pace that would keep up with hounds running.
When I started hunting it was indeed pretty much ‘first flight’ and ‘hilltoppers.’ These days in the US some hunts have 3 or even 4 flights, jumping or not, faster or slower or slowest pace, to accommodate newcomers and ‘maturing’ foxhunters.
So do your 2nd flights, for example, stick in a group? Do they have a field master with them or do they kind of suit themselves?
I think your hunter pace events are similar to our hunter trials.
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Happy New Year everyone
Hope your 2011 is filled with love and laughter
Same to you-and the best of hunting!
To answer your prior question, yes, fields in the U.S. tend to be more ‘organized’ behind a field master than in other places. It’s primarily a function of country and respecting landowner’s wishes- someone needs to know where to go to be in a good position for viewing, without having a bunch of horses trample newly seeded fields or beans ready to harvest or a hayfield at the wrong time of year. One also need to consider pastures where livestock might be birthing calves or lambs, etc.
Out west things can be a little more wide open but on the other hand, if you don’t make sure you are following someone who knows the country you can get good and lost!
Our hounds hunted for the first time today, since closing hunt last year. “Himself” took them out on foot, in 27 degrees (we’re celcius, not farenheit (sp?) over here) for 3 1/2 hours. They hunted extremely well for the conditions and accounted for 3 hares, so that’s an encouraging start to our season! Had the first of our new entrants out too, and he hunted well with the rest of the pack.
[QUOTE…
Do you have any trouble with anti-hunting people over there? Luckily here in NZ many people grow up in farming communities where hunting and fishing are a way of life, so kids grow up keen on shooting and pig-hunting and it’s very well accepted. As far as I’m aware there have been no problems at all with people being anti hunting. However, Ireland has much the same hunting culture and there is already trouble brewing, so I guess we oughtn’t be too complacent.
Hunting here seems to be more low-key in a way, as hunts don’t go out into the community to shows etc likwork with our hounds we often get stopped by people in cars to take a photo, or ask about our hounds. see.[/QUOTE]
I get a lot of questions about it but in the west I think many people grow up with some hunters in her family. I’ve only met one seriously anti-hunting person.
At the Artillery Hunt, one year, we had a huge problem with the hounds rioting on elk. Not fun since elk hung out around the kennel, golf course and housing area. You can imagine the swear words when the hounds went off after the elk herd over the golf course one fine Sunday and wouldn’t turn?
We used to go down in the field and hack before letting the hounds out just to run off the elk every hunt morning!
I am also a new member here and i like horse riding too much.
and also i have learnt many books about horses
Video of Irish Hunt and “the drains” - wow!!!
This intrigued me, so I tried finding vids. I had no idea about these “DRAINS” in Ireland!! Wowzers, look at this video of a hunt going over/through the drain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isB5c416a3U&feature=related
Specifically - you won’t believe how this one man literally gets off and on his horse at 5:13 - 5:22!! And then there is some more hairy stuff going on at 6:43 - 7:07
All I can say is they are BRAVE!
Makes for really entertaining watching, doesn’t it? =) If you noticed, that was a double drain which is very common - meaning there is another drain the same on the take-off side. That’s where you really need a horse who waits and listens to you cos if they fly over the first drain they miss their footing as there is only a very narrow bank between the 2 drains for them to land on, re-organize themselves and take off again.
Double drain in Ireland - crazy
[QUOTE=otterhound63;5380014]
Makes for really entertaining watching, doesn’t it? =) If you noticed, that was a double drain which is very common - meaning there is another drain the same on the take-off side. That’s where you really need a horse who waits and listens to you cos if they fly over the first drain they miss their footing as there is only a very narrow bank between the 2 drains for them to land on, re-organize themselves and take off again.[/QUOTE]
I couldn’t quite tell if it was another drain the had jumped over, before they landed on that middle section, to then jump across another drain. I thought it looked like there was a ditch or something on the other side.
My goodness…amazing. From what little I know, I don’t think we have those here in the U.S.
