..48 F degrees at 7:15am , with an east wind off the ocean. Warm temperatures yesterday warmed the ground,and by last evening the fog had already begun to settle in. By the time I pulled out the drive this morning , it was pea soup with visibility less than a 1/4 mile in places.
Shirley and her Morgan,General,were along for the hunt today. I did not take my hounds- Marilyn will only jump into my hound truck or Bobby's, and he wouldn't be hunting today. I didn't want to risk any problems with the other guys loading her if for some reason I wasn't right with them, so I felt it was safest for them to stay in kennels. They will go tomorrow.
The upside of that: I was only needing to take one rig- the horse trailer. When Shirley hunts with me, we put both horses in my horse trailer, and she drives my hound truck. With the price of fuel nowadays, that gets to be an expensive proposition. So today, only one truck was on the road. Tomorrow, when I hunt Mel, it will again just be one truck: the horse trailer with Mel up front and my hounds in the back.
We had Curtis' 3 cple and Tommy's 3 1/2 couple to make a whopping total of 13 hounds. Hustler, Curtis' littermate to my Marney and Marilyn, is credited with the find at around 10:10 am. It seemed as if the fox waited for the fog to lift to take a morning run, as the find was made just as the sun burnt off the fog. Tommy was drawing an adjacent, down wind covert and once Curtis' hounds took the fox's line across the open and into the woods where Tommy's hounds were, half of his harked. The other three took off on another fox and Tommy got thrown out of our chase because he had to go break them.
Shirley and I had a great view of
the 5 couple emerging from the covert to follow the line across a road. This pilot took those 5 cple of hounds on a good tour of the countryside, running in the open often. At just about the hour mark, with Tommy now back with us, and the fox passing over a dirt lane , they decided to break them. (I overheard some comment made about having to run with fresh hounds tomorrow, lol!)
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| Rap, against a foggy backdrop |
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| Shirley and General |
Today was Mel's turn:
It was another very foggy morning at my farm as I pulled out the drive with Mel and my hounds at 6:30 am. Our meet was at 7:30 this morning, instead of 8am. It was a carbon-copy of yesterday's conditions with an east wind and a temp of 47 degrees, but I drove out of the fog after 20 minutes. It was only along the coast this morning, so not an issue during the hunt.
Hounds were put into the first covert at 7:35, and opened briefly . The chase didnt last long,and by 8:10, another draw was commencing. I wasnt with the hound trucks when the guys loaded the hounds after the first short run, and Marney didn't load. I spent the next 1/2 hour hunting her down. She followed Mel and me about 1/2 mile towards the woods where the next cast was in progress. At 8:40, a co-operative red got on the move and as soon as Marney , Mel and I got within earshot ( east wind again today-what a pain), Marney harked to the pack. All right, all on - 11 1/2 cple.
This fox ran through woods that completely encircle 3 large wheat fields. He didnt want to show himself much, and I only got two views of him. But he ran through those woods ringing the fields at least 4 times.
A couple of times he threatened to breakaway to the southwest, but never did. At around 10 am, I was informed via the radio that my Marilyn (!!!) was on top, and Sara (no surprise there, as I'm treating her for Lyme's again) was on the bottom. The hounds were stopped at 10:20 when Charles finally decided to head out of the country to the west. It was getting warm very quickly, and by the time I arrived back at my trailer it was 11am.
Forgot to reformat the helmet cam's memory card ,so didnt use it., and had little time to mess with the Nikon today. (Mel takes a bit more ridin' than Rap!)
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