Sunday and Monday hunts ( hunts #50 and 51 for my hounds)

 An almost 4hr hunt on the old man on Sunday ..Mel held up well!.  We had 11 couple on the ground at 8:20 when Twister and  Roscoe got the line straight on a fox that most of the others were trailing back (heel).   All harked to the two ahead, and they settled into a nice chase that lasted until almost noon.  After making a long swing in the open headed west, Charles came back and then stayed in the woods  for the balance of the run.    I viewed two foxes that were not the pilot, but I never did get a view of our hunted fox today.

It was 35  degrees at the draw, and 52 degrees as i headed home at 12:45.  I quickly put the horse up, fed the hounds, and pulled the young horse out of the field for a ride.  What a nice horse he is- gotta love a horse that has a good "whoa"...


Monday  was "heart attack on the highway" for me. Hounds jumped the first fox at 8:35am, and this sucker flew through the covert, across Vorhees field, across the dirt road and on into Weber's branch . From there, he ran east through the  branch, going almost to Burrsville before turning back and running the branch again. But when he got behind Marvel's chicken houses, the damn fox turned and headed  right to the highway.

The wind was out of the NW, so standing on the highway put us upwind of hounds. In addition, Monday morning traffic seemed especially heavy, with many tractor trailers barreling along at a good 60 mph.   As soon as I realized where the fox was headed,  *I* headed right for the highway, as did Bobby. Curtis, Tommy and Olin went to Squirrely Hill to be down wind.

And even though I couldnt hear the pack ( and they were in full cry), all I had to do was watch the old white horse that lives in a paddock alongside the road. This is the exact place where Lark got killed last year. Just when the horses' head began to turn  to the east a bit, I  began to hear the hounds coming towards me. SH*T.  This was NOT good.  Bobby and I positioned our  hound trucks about 200 feet apart, dropped the tailgates, turnd on our flashers, and waited. Within seconds after getting ready, the damn fox popped out into the road right smack between the two trucks.   He stopped for an instant, turned as if to go back, but then turned again and kept on going over the highway. (This all happened in a second -he was flying!)

The pack was right on his brush- only a few seconds behind him.  We tried to hold up the hounds, but it was impossible for just the two of us  to break them when they were so hot on this foxs'  tail. It was safer to just let the pack go on.  Tommy and the others got to us, and we spread out along the roadside.  The chance that this fox would make a quick swing on that side of the road and then come right back over it again were very high. ... And less than 5 minutes later, that is exactly what he did.  He darted out into the road abut 100 feet from me  at the "beer joint". Tommy saw him, too, and within seconds we were all in place to stop traffic so that our hounds could get back across the road safely.  Disaster averted.  But , oh how  my nerves were rattled. The guys know how much I hate that spot, and when the pack followed the fox to a pond behind Marvels,  Tommy and Curtis broke them off the line   I  refused to leave the highway until they let me know that they had gotten the pack stopped.   "That fox needs shootin'" -  and we're all in agreement about that.  It was 10 am.

We headed to Johhny Boy's thicket where  we ran another fox  until just after 11am. This one kept taking the hounds through some very flooded woods, without running in the open at all.  They couldn't press this fox , and he must have gotten way ahead of them. At an especially long check -one of many- the hounds were called in.  Not the best of days, IMO, but still better than a blank one. Note to self : more dye needed to hide the newly-gained gray hairs....