130 (added wrong the first time!) Minute Run -Sunday, November 25th

a frame from the video

                                    (Date on the video is incorrect-this was 11/25/12)

...and I was careful not to erase any video this time, lol!  My camera battery threatened to die but it lasted long enough to get our fox running in the open.

It was cold!!! And still  windy - 29 F degrees at 6:45 as I passed the firehouse thermometer on my way to the meet. . Winds were to be steady out of the W/SW at 14mph, with gusts above 22mph.

Today was a Sunday deer hunt in Maryland, (wtf?? dont they have enough days already??) so we had to stay away and go back to the  foxhunter's clubhouse in Delaware again.  In the past, we have only hunted from the clubhouse but 3 or 4 times a season. However, the foxes we have chased here the past two days  have been so accomodating that we may have to come back more often....

15 1/2 couple put into the woods in the same area where we started yesterday @ 7:45am. . It took longer to find a fox - 5 minutes instead of 3, lol. The pack was in full cry @ 7:50am.  (NOTE: We do NOT  drop foxes or feed foxes here- no cheating is necessary .  We have too  good of a fox population here to need to resort to those practices, and the many commercial chicken houses keep them well fed.)

Can't say if this was the same fox we chased yesterday or not-but the pattern today's quarry followed was very similar to the one of yesterday. So- read yesterday's hunt report, it will save me a lot of typing, lol! And I also  cant say for certain if we had a tag-team switch again, but I tend to think so, as hounds had one of their two  checks in the exact same spot as yesterday and again, after that check, the fox changed his pattern and wound circles in the cut-over pines.  Charles crossed Foxhunter's Rd many times again before he decided to stay in those pines.  During one crossing, an old lady in a car would not stop as we tried to wave  her down, and she was right on the foxs' line as hounds flew into the road.  I thought for sure we were about to lose the front hounds. And she did just miss hitting Patty, Tommy's bitch.  What a sick feeling that was.  But, all got across the road alive, and the old biddy smiled and waved as she drove off. I guess she just didnt have a clue as to why we were waving and shouting at her to stop!

               The fox crossed  here several times- 3 or 4, and it was here that the lady almost ran over Patty. But this video was a later crossing.

One fallow cornfield   was recently  fertilized with chicken manure, and you will see on the video how the pack had trouble working the line in the open across it.  Charles had done a very strange zig-zagging  manuever in the middle of this field , to boot ( I didnt view him as I was watching the covert on the north side) , but Freddy viewed his antics. The foxs' plan worked, and you can see Bobby having to help  get the pack straight.

But when Charles crossed the field near the Doc's, earlier in the chase ,  you will see hounds had no trouble running him there -no chicken manure in that field!

At about 9:20, something happened in the back of that manure-covered field to cause the pack to split. 6 couple were tonguing in the back of the field, while the others had gone on into the cutover pines.  We held those 6 cple up and at 10:10 broke the others in the pines.

All the new entry did super, but Reilly will be staying up in kennels tomorrow, as she came out of the pines on 3 legs. Sara can stay home and keep her company.

6:35 am. "Red sky at morning...."