Friday, November 25, 2011

Black Friday hunt- woohoo!!

Blue Bird skies and light winds out of the SW, with a slight frost as  10 cple were put into the covert at 7:25 am.  At 7:35, hounds struck a fox along the big ditch behind Larrimore's chicken houses and gave our pack a hard run for the next 2  hours. He crossed Cattail Branch Road, to the east of the chicken houses and made a swing through a small covert on the other side.  While the fox and the hounds were in that covert, 3 more foxes were viewed away from the same woods!  I viewed two: one ran south in the open, cutting diagonally across a cutover corn filed, crossing Cattail Branch Rd  1/2mile down from where the hunted fox went over.  This fox gave Rap and me  a beautiful view as he then ran the open wheat fields  all the way to Wyatt's chicken houses.

 I had the helmet cam on, and here's the video, but , as you can see, you cant see the fox.

<iframe width="960" height="380" src="http://contour.com/stories/one-of-the-foxes-iveiwedawaybut-the-camera-didnt-pick-it-up/embed?map=true&width=960px&height=380px" frameborder="0"></iframe>


The second fox that I viewed popped out very close to the one that went away, but he doubled right back into the woods. Its a small covert, probably  about 5acres, and our hunted fox ran it aound then crossed back over to Larrimores side.  Bobby and Freddy viewed  yet another fox, not the hunted one,  come out of that same small wood.
Heres video from the Nikon,the only time I had a chance to pull it out.But  at least you can see the hounds, and you can hear the hound music.  I viewed and heard fox and hounds pretty much like this all morning ,yet the helmet cam doesnt pick up either audio or visuals:


Here's video during the middle of the chase:

<iframe width="960" height="380" src="http://contour.com/stories/black-friday-hunt/embed?map=true&width=960px&height=380px" frameborder="0"></iframe>

For the next two hours, Charlie led our pack on a beautiful run from Larrimores to the 80 acres, crossing Hendricks field at least 4 times, giving everyone a great view of him, and the hounds on his line.Bobby stayed on the highway to the north ,where he had the best vantage point and was downwind. Freddy stayed at the 80 acres and the power line cutover, while I stayed on the south  ( upwind) side. All of us viewed the fox and the pack several times. We had the country surrounded except for the west side.  One time Charlie threatened to go that direction, and came very close to Parker Road,but he turned back and didnt run that way again. During this time, yet another fox,not being chased, was viewed running back and forth across Hendricks field.

At about 9:10am,  our fox decided he'd had enough of running in the open and made a beeline for the highway ..Bobby was with the pack when they crossed over., but when the fox turned towards country we didnt want to get into, he and Freddy  held them up. ALL ON!! even Sara,bless her heart, and RENO, the bitch who I recently weaned ( she was last, but she was there!)

I am learning the limitations of the helmet cam, and hope that I can  eventually get better vids. But it is obvious after todays hunt, that it will never do what I hoped, and that is to get the fox as he makes a great run in the open. Like today.But perhaps the running commentary, and the occasional sound of the pack in full cry will warrantposting to the blog. ( More for my benefit, so I can recall the hunts as I look back).

Since we are hunting tomorrow, Sunday and Monday,  we called it a day. The footing along the fields edges was very soggy and deep.  We've had a lot of heavy rain recently , and I havent seen the fields this wet in a long time.  I'll leave Rap home tomorrow, and probably Sunday ( different fixtures), and then hunt him again on Monday.Rest up hounds!!!

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