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| That's Marilyn on the far left,with pink collar,throwiing tongue |
Today we had 15 1/2 couple enter into the Garden at 7:45am. The temp was 31F degrees,but no frost.The winds were to begin out of the W/NW,and then swing around to the W/SW later in the morning. At 8:01, hounds opened on a very obliging red that took them on a chase that lasted until 9:45am.. At that time, Charles relayed the pack to another red. This fresh fox broke away to the south and headed into new country, where he ran for 40 minutes before crossing a road and heading into the Clay woods - an area we didnt want the hounds to enter. We held the pack up, loaded them and went in search of another pilot .
For these first almost 2 1/2 hours, the pack worked like adream, staying packed up and all on the entire time.
Old Reno jumped the third fox at 10:40. This one ran our hounds behind some chicken houses where there must have been at least a couple more foxes having brunch. The pack split evenly- 8 couple running a fox that continued to head due south, crossing a paved road and going on into a huge, nasty briar bed. We usually try to break them at the road before they get to that briar bed. Bobby and I viewed the fox cross the road.( on video). EVERYONE got to us before the hounds made it to the road. Meanwhile, the other 7 1/2 couple were having a roaring good run around the state-owned ground. Nobody was following that bunch. I thought, "ok. we'll break these and go put them on that other bunch running good country". To me, that sounded like the practical thing to do. ...But no one else suggested it, and all watched as the hounds went over the road right in front of us and into a no-man's land that you cant even walk through on foot.. Wonderful. I heard, "Probably shouldda got them then...". from one of the Monday morning quarterbacks!
After at least two foxes were viewed on the edge of this "covert", the 8 couple came on the fox that was running a straight line across a fallow cornfield , going due south towards the "canal'. I had Marney and Marilyn running in this bunch. Sara and Lark were with the others. Bobby flew down the side of some pivot irrigation, then over the field and somehow got us positioned south of the pack . We got them stopped and loaded all of them ( there were some of everyone's there) - except Marney. She was there when we broke them, but as I was whipping off other hounds, she turned and went back into the briars. I spent the rest of the morning looking for her. ( She gets the shock collar next time, I have to borrow one from Jeff. Ggrrrr. )
The rest of the hounds were harked to the bunch running a couple of miles away. From what I could glean from the talk over the radio, they had a good chase on fox # 4.
It was somewhere around 12:30 when Curtis radioed to me that he saw Marney headed back towards the state owned land. I had been walking and calling her for over an hour. The last chase was over,and all the hounds were accounted for. I went home and had a nice hack on Rap to make sure he will be ok to hunt tomorrow. He felt great! Hunting at 8am tomorrow.
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