Deception: It was 32F degrees at 6am, winds dead calm. But the 'ole weatheman said it wasnt gonna get out of the 30's today,and he didnt lie. By the time we began the hunt at 8:30am, the temps had dropped another couple degrees, to hover right around 29. 4 1/2 hrs later, when we finished, the temperature was still just 39degreesF and paired with a stiff N/NW wind, it felt colder.
It was, in all honesty, a crazy day. Freddy's dog Cody jumped the first red fox, although we later realized that Part Time had smelled the trail out along the road as we began the draw. Part Time never spoke, but he was out on the far side of the road "investigatin'" by himself. We called him back to us , but 10 minutes later when the pack opened and began to run , they went right to where Party had been sniffin' around.
After that, it got really, really nuts. Lots of foxes, lots of splits. Jeff came down from NJ with his hounds , arriving after our hounds were already running fox # 1. Jeffs hounds have not be out but a few times this season, as Jeff is recovering from a knee injury. We had a total of 19 couple . But I cant say for certain that they ever got together on one fox all day! All I cared about was where mine were, and with whom they were running. May sound a bit selfish, but I did more than my fair share of picking up other peoples hounds today. (Everyone looks out for the other guys' hounds as a rule. ) We had some beautiful runs in the open, and the foxes covered all corners of the country.
I came home, kenneled the hounds and loaded Rap for a test ride in the Redden woods. He felt good!
Hunting tomorrow morning, it will be even colder! But a weekday hunt- so NOT so crazy! Should be Tommy, Curtis, Bobby and my hounds- the regular pack of 12-14 couple.
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