Wow, it was game day for you all!! What a terrific pack of hounds!!!
Thank you for sharing. 
the memories
I remember one like that; just reading of yours brings it all back.
3 big loops up hill and down dale until the horses were done in.
for the fourth loop we waited in the center listening,
and then the hounds were done in too.
the huntsman called them to her and we walked back to the trailers with the lasting memory of a great day.
What a wonderful tale!! It’s at the end of a day like this you find yourself still smiling and you wake up the next day with the same grin on your face. Good for you. Keep the tales coming! Your country sounds beautiful and hunting in Va while those of us in the mid and eastern parts of the country are covered in snow, we can still enjoy a good days hunting.
OK. You got it! 
Look for another tale this coming Wednesday – temps are forecast for clear, calm, low 50’s, and the ground is soft and moist from recent rains, PERFECT scenting conditions! Our huntsman is hoping for another “screamer” of a day. So are we!! 
another hunting story!
So Saturday I attended and car followed the joint meet hosted by Old Dominion Hounds and attended by Casanova, Blue Ridge, Loudoun hunt & other hunt members. It was a special fund raising event hunt to raise money to fight the local electric power company who’s trying to put high power towers thru hunt country and condemn easement land thru land in conservation status etc. It’s a huge concern locally. Anyway, everyone who attended was asked to pay a special cap fee and a local landowner held a fabulous breakfast with a silent auction held with a lot of upscale items to raise money. It was a big success! I heard > $24,000 raised. Many of the affected landowners came to watch.
There were 106 riders. Monster Meet!! Good weather & footing. ODH hunted their fabulous american pack and a good time was had by all. It was something to see & hear & experience. Lots of comraderie. I helped people tack up and pass out stirrup cups. I had the good fortune of riding with X-Rab in her 4WD truck and we got caught a couple of times in the traffic jam out on the gravel road. (she rocks doing this btw! Hubby was hunting her horse!) There had to be 15 cars trying to follow on that one road. Lotsa commotion! In those cars? I counted 5 local/former huntsmen & staff. And of course, it never fails that if you park on one side of a coop; you can bet THAT’S the one they’ll need to jump on a run!
Yours truly got possessed by demons and ran out to a knoll off the road for a better vantage point. Hiking sometimes DOES pay off! I got to see the hounds find/open but run a heel line then once redirected; re-found and go forward loosely. Once again that astute huntsman/staff realized they were on the wrong side of a wire fence and lifted them quickly and with great vigor! Put them into the bottom and they found and all spoke loudly (and with great vigor! ) at the same time Clare (huntsmans wife & whip) lifted her cap further up the bottom. I viewed the brown fox slinking thru the 2 ft tall weeds but finally decided he better hoof it. He jumped a stone wall, crossed the gravel road about 75 yrs behind the traffic jam, jump up a bank/stone wall under a fence and across a cow pasture with his afterburners on. I'm guessing he's been hunted before!! :winkgrin: My view was fantastic and lasted about 5 minutes! And I was all alone out there! 2 other women who'd hiked out had given up and gone back. Just me!! whoooo hoooo! Most of the car followers viewed from where they were!
So I got to see the field go forward....60+ first flighters going "with great vigor" and jump the coop next to where we'd been parked a few minutes earlier! Only 1 refusal. And he gave that coop a good whacking when he took it finally. And then the hilltoppers came up and Wateryglen realizes there's a gate next to the coop that could stand to be opened for them so she runs alongside them to do the gate! But it has locks on it and can't be opended. OH and did I tell you ALL of this action occurred right under existing power lines? The HT's had to go down the fence line and find another gate to get out. So that many riders over one coop takes some time to happen so the hounds got way ahead and ran parellel to the road and could be heard in the woods nearby. Everyone collected on the far hills. It was visually fabulous with those beautiful Blue Ridge mountains in the near distance.
We went in at 2+half hours so I don’t know how long they stayed out. I’d say half the field came in at that point too. I’d love to know how the rest of the day went. Anybody? I didn’t go to the breakfast; I’d had my view and was satisfied!! :yes::yes: So nice to see hunting friends and touch base. I do LOVE carfollowing in territories like that meet. And X-Rab is the ultimate hostess too. What fun!
Great hunt reports!
Here is mine. I hunted Beagles, Foxhounds, and Bassets this weekend. I’m tired today!
I took my beagles out Saturday 3 1/2 couple. Three whips, no field. They worked really hard but it was warm and breezy and we found nothing. Since the local foxhunt has left our territory I think that the coyotes have eaten all my rabbits. Well, we had fun and had good exercise.
Sunday morning I went out with Bridlespur Hounds. Took my more experienced hunter. He’s a bottemless pit of energy and it was a good thing because we hunted hard for nearly three hours. I viewed three coyotes. In spite of the cold weather we had a large field (for us) and it was tremendous. You can see photos and a more detailed writeup here. We have instituted a Junior field this year. Our new country has a creek that runs through it an 60 ft bluffs along the creek. There is nothing cooler than being down in the bottoms and to watch the hounds streaming along the top of the bluff.
http://www.pbase.com/lesliegra/hunting080113
After foxhunting I whippped for the Three Creek Bassets at 3PM. We had five couple of Bassets. We were out about 2 hours and viewed 3 rabbits. The normal huntsman was out of town so one of the usual whips hunted the hounds. I was invited to whip. After whippign for them two weekends in a row I’m starting to learn the names of the bassets, or at least of the troublemakers. I got lots of exercise and it was fun to watch them work. Quite a contrast between the bassets and the beagles.
Foxhunting: The Next Generation
Not really a hunting story - but I got a kick out of it so I thought I’d share.
I have been taking my niece hound walking, car topping and foot hunting since she was 3. Every time she visits, she wants to "go huntin’ ". She knows all the hound and staff commands, and the calls on the horn. She’s also become horse crazy, and takes regular riding lessons in anticipation of her first day out as a junior. She is eagerly anticipating spring break - which she spends with me.
She turned 7 the other day, and as part of her birthday gift I decided to purchase her a subscribing membership in the MFHA. I figured that way she could keep up with foxhunting news, and she’d love the pictures and stickers and stuff.
I got a call from my sister, telling me of Rachel’s reaction to getting her very own mail; from the MFHA no less.
Rachel opened the envelope, and extracted the letter thanking her for her support, her very own membership card, MFHA sticker, and even a lapel pin!
She got a huge grin on her face and said,
“Aunt Jessie is going to think I am SO cool!!”
And yes, I think the kid is pretty cool.
Thanks again everyone for sharing.
GTD
why wouldn’t a fox take cover sooner? i’m guessing your countryside is probably covered with ground hog holes. i wonder if you or other experienced fox hunters can explain why a fox would choose to run for that long rather than take cover?
A fox would rather lead hounds out of the fox’s own “back yard”, and even dump them in another fox’s territory, rather than immediately go to ground which will only show the hounds were the den is - something a fox is not inclined to want to do right off the bat. Foxes are very clever, and very attuned to their home turf - they will deliberately lead a pack out to the farthest stretch of the fox’s home territory, and then pull a number of tricks to throw the hounds off the scent. Once the hounds have been dumped, the fox will generally amble on back home, unconcerned, or just continue hunting for it’s dinner.
For a good example of this, read this story.
When the scenting is really good, however, and the hounds are working hard to hold the line, it isn’t uncommon for a fox to make one or two full circuits of it’s territory before deciding to just go to ground. The fox who is in his/her own territory always has the advantage – it knows all the hiding holes, which ones are best, and which ones don’t allow for any creature bigger than the fox to enter. Visiting foxes (dog foxes travel during mating season to look for a vixen) tend to head home back to their own territory and will run a straighter line than a local fox. The story above was a local fox (local to my area) “visiting” another territory about 4 miles away. He brought the hounds back to his home territory, dumped them in the woods (where they eventually found another fox to track), and then headed back to wherever he had been before – probably to the home territory of a pretty little vixen.:winkgrin:
Wateryglen Gets the Kudos
While I am willing to hunt with my truck, I know nothing about the hounds and fox and how they work. I depend on Waterglen to teach me what to do, where to go and how to understand the way the hounds work and the best place to see the hounds work and possibly see the fox. She is a great teacher.
A little known fact about Wateryglen is that she is good at Basset Tossing. The other day we were out hunting (wabbits) and the pack got all hung up behind some old sagging hog wire. A couple of hounds found a spot to get under it - but the rest were having kittens about the whole thing until Wateryglen and a whipper-in reached them. Up and over they went. Bassets everywhere!
now that’s an image that will make me laugh all day:)
[QUOTE=J Swan;2939155]
A little known fact about Wateryglen is that she is good at Basset Tossing. The other day we were out hunting (wabbits) and the pack got all hung up behind some old sagging hog wire. A couple of hounds found a spot to get under it - but the rest were having kittens about the whole thing until Wateryglen and a whipper-in reached them. Up and over they went. Bassets everywhere![/QUOTE]
bassets can’t be easy to toss either. rather long and hefty from my experience.
Wiggly, too. Especially since they were on a run and the wabbit was getting away! Horrors! The French hounds are skinnier; (I suspect they are that way from chain smoking Gaulois behind the kennel), but the rest couldn’t quite squeeze through the tiny holes under the fence.
Of course - we averted our eyes to avoid embarrassing the Bassets who are more… um… well… not so skinny. 
Someone has got to do a stick-art on this! Flying bassets! :lol::lol:
basset tossing it was!!
Aw come on - SOMEBODY here surely has had to “foxhound toss” at SOME point in their hunting experience haven’t they?!! Hounds stuck on one side of a wire fence and need “assistance” getting over or under it!!! :winkgrin: In this case; the bassets were all wound up from an interupted run on a fresh rabbit and running along the fence back & forth…it was like catching greased pigs. Me & the whip grabbing, calling them to us, stumbling in the briars, ripping clothes, losing hat, and yes they are heavy but I’ve done foxhounds and would really rather not!!! It wasn’t pretty but we got 'er done! I requested to the huntsman afterwards that all our hounds be equipped with handles in the future. I could design a harness with handles…hmmmm…and no we don’t use collars…THAT would be too simple!!
