Hunt #41, Dec 23rd, another great day

Looking east at the meet,the cold front and rain exiting east. Look how soggy the ground is!! There was water laying everywhere.

... we had heavy rain overnight. At 5am, the temp was 67 F .But the cold front was blowing through from the west at that time and two hours later, the temp had droppped to 47!  The winds died down somewhat by the time 12couple of hounds  moved off at 8:00am.

Today was Bobby's day to hunt Wye Island. But we had made the decision yesterday to hunt close to home instead. And WOW!  Am I glad we did!  You dont get runs at Wye Island like we had today....

 The first fox really doesnt count:  We cast the hounds into a woods behind Larrimores chicken houses and this first red fox was roused at 8:18 am. I viewed him FLYING along the side of one of the chicken houses. He made a turn to the north and headed right for a large den in the side of a ditch bank.  That fox didnt stay up for more than 3 minutes!


The hole(s) where the first fox went in.  I counted 4, but I was in too big a hurry to get hounds away from there to look too closely!

 Hounds were  called back from the hole and we headed over to the red barn woods. The next pilot was much more willing. He was found in the woods near the dry cow lot, about a mile from where we had denned the first red. This fox crossed High Stump road, ran into the state land, down the ditch behind Wyatt's c hicken houses,then across about a half  mile of open grass as he made a diagonal line from Wyatt's to the  Jarred   woods.  I have him crossing over some of the field on the  beginning of  this video. 
 He jumped a ditch in this small covert, and I missed getting him as he miscalculated the jump and did a belly flop in the water-it was hilarious.  But I did get the hounds and a pretty spectacular deer jumping the ditch going the opposite direction.  You'll see the hounds check at the ditch, and they needed a little help getting straight.  But you'll hear Curtis  encouraging my Lark- she recovered the line back in the woods.

Then, all hell broke loose, which you will also hear, lol!  When we all headed to the highway, 3 foxes were viewed coming from three different sides of the covert..  The next fox on the video is theone Bobby and I turned back from the highway. He was not the hunted fox. The hunted fox went away to the east, although Im pretty certain the hounds switched onto a different fox in that covert, because for the rest of the chase, the fox ran a much different pattern, in entirely new country. Regardless, this fox showed great sport by running the woods behind Tommy's house for over an hour.  I was in the woods and got the fox  on camera as he ran right past me, with the hounds less than 200 feet behind him. They were running the fox by sight  then! 
(sorry that piece isnt in focus).  Another half hour passed with the hounds still  pushing their pilot up and down the big  woods behind Tommy's until finally, Chalrie tired of that and was viewed away as he headed straight for the Marshy Hope "canal".  Hounds had to be stopped there, or else they would have been well on their way to the town of Greenwood.

I left alot out- there were so many foxes viewed, but not hunted. And I witnessed alot of great hound work , and some crafty moves by the hunted foxes.

Watch for that deer leaping the ditch in the background- it's pretty cool!

Can anyone help me figur eout why the camera doesnt focus sometiomes, but at other times it does??? I've had so many great photo opps ruined because the camera wont focus. :-(