And that was the extent of the helmet cam for the day. Right after that, the camera started beeping, and a red light ( not the battery indicator) started flashing. You can only reset the camera through your computer when that happens. Just another reason to ditch this piece of crap equipment. I got less than 5 minutes video at the very beginning of the morning. Useless!!
The Boxing Day hunt, IMO, was not one of our better days. It took a long while before the hounds found the first fox,and when they finally took off in hot pursuit,several hounds stayed back in the covert,tonguing the line of another fox. I was on Rap and stayed back with Tommy and Curtis to round those hounds up.Two of mine , Marilyn and Marney (this, her second time out after being up for 3 weeks), were in this bunch and I needed to get a physical hold on Marney and lead her out..After I broke that little bunch ( pistol needed-but some of them can be very hard-headed, including Marney!), I had to get off the horse and walk Marney out to the road where a hound truck waited to give this group a lift to where the big pack was running. Which was now a couple of miles away.
It was 9:45am when I got back on the horse. We had started at 8am. Tommy and Curtis were still trying to get a couple of hounds out of the covert where I had just brought out my own two. A fox was viewed away at Everlines, headed towards a canal. That was a couple miles east of us. Rap had started out fine, but after almost 2 hours , he was definitely feeling off again. And it hadnt been a hard 2 hours of riding. I couldnt in good conscience ask him to go on. The horse trailer was only 1/2mile from me, so I took him in and hopped a ride with Tommy to get around to where the main pack was still running. I dont remember how that first chase ended, By the time Tommy and I got to the others, they were about to draw the Jarroll woods
The short video here shows the fox that was found in the Jarrell Woods only minutes after Tommy and i got there. Charles popped out of the woods and sat down in the road in front of us for several seconds, then went back into the covert, crossed another road on the west side of it, then ran the open for a good while. When the fox got back into another large covert further west, ,the chase blew up. Freddy tried for another hour to find another fox, and the hounds did trail for theentire hour.But nothing much cameof it. Finally,at 1 :00, we called it a day.
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| Charles , as he sat down in the road for several seconds before ducking back into thewoods |
Now TUESDAY- 12/27, that's a whole different story!!!
Yesterday (Boxing Day) we had a NWwind ,blowing hard at 20mph, sustained, and higher gusts. It was sunny and in the 40's. Today, a low pressure system is approaching from the south that will evolve into a nor'easter later tonight. Ahead of the storm we had a slighlty lighter south wind, and the temp was 38 F during the draw at 8am. The rain and gale force wind was forecast to start by noon. It was cold and very damp for the first hour.
Our pack of 15 1/2 couple found a handsome looking fox at 8:07. This red took us on a great run for the next 2 1/2 hours, covering a large part of the country. A couple of times we thought that the pack might have switched pilots when his pattern changed ,but that was not the case.
In the above video, you see the hounds leaving the covert where they found this fox.I viewed the fox, but didnt get him on the vid. Then,you'll see a fox come back over the road. This was about 20minutes later. But this was NOT the hunted fox. A tractor trailer then goes by, and I thought it was going to turn our hunted fox, but it didnt. And then youll see hunted fox cross right where the other one did. The foxes crossed within minutes of each other.
There was a split at around 9:30, when this fox ran to the Garland Road bridge and got turned back by a car. There is a gut there where the creek runs under the road, and when the hounds overshot where the fox doubled,they all spilled out into the road. We didnt want them crossing Garland Rd and were about to load them when some hounds still back down in the gut opened. When the hounds in the road harked and got back into the gut, a second fox was roused and that's when things got really interesting.
8 1/2 couple were taken north, back towards the covert where fox # 1 was jumped . The other bunch went east, staying in Georges Little Branch. As Bobby, Tommy and I approached the water crossing ( the "overgoin',lol!) , Ginny tallyho'd fox #1 running on our side of the water. ( She was on the opposite side).
This fox must have crossed the branch right at the overgoin, as the hounds were running the branch up on Ginny's side. Bobby and I had his older dog, Rosco , and my Marney in the hound truck ( we had held them up only a few minutes before). The next video shows us turning them out onto the fox's line and harking the other hounds,( who were now checking at the water) , to them. Very good experience for Marney!
Less than 10minutes later, fox # 1 decided to break out of Georges big branch and run due north, crossing a road and running in the open . He made a bee line for Mutt Ruffs Woods. That was getting out of the hunt country on the north side, so everyone flew around to a dirt road bordering Ruffs Woods and we tried to break the pack. 5 people and two pistols couldnt get the job done!! Those hounds were HOT on that fox and there was no stopping them...
Now they were headed for the Bell Tract, and it was imperative that we not let them get there. We got very lucky when our handsome pilot broke covert viewed by both Ginny and I. I grabbed my pistol,- that had only 2 shots left- , and ran to where the fox popped out of the woods and ran the edge . I got the hounds stopped, but according to Ginny and Tommy, while I was doing it, ANOTHER fox popped out of the woods and ran right behind me, going the same direction as the hunted one. Too bad somebody else didnt have a camera rolling!
Now it was time to go catch up with the other 7 couple,who were still running fox # 2 in Georges little branch. They ran for another 15 minutes and then their fox went to ground behind Tower's shed. Bobby and I got to them and got them loaded. It was 10:30.
A great day with a very nice red fox ( fox #1). The fox in the video is fox # 1, as I never viewed the other one.
Update on Rap!!!Pretty certain he has only an abcess about to pop. Heat in the RF foot now, but we KNOW both front feet are clean from xrays taken. Hope the thing pops soon! when the electricity comes back on ( power out due to storm), I m gonna soak it.
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