Pony Field meets coyote / Gretchen Pelham photo

I was standing on the line with my helmet off, pointing into the woods after the coyote. The lead hound, Ariat (a black and tan Penn-Marydel), came up the little rise and opened when she hit the line true. The rest of the pack was with her and off they went. Only a few seconds later, huntsman Ryan Johnsey flew past us over the coop next to our gate.

I was leading what I dubbed the Pony Field at our cub hunt at Tennessee Valley Hunt’s Big Valley fixture. I had only two other members in my field, but all three of us were on ponies. One of the girls was a junior, and the other had turned eighteen only a few months earlier.

I decided to stay out of the woods and follow the lake’s edge since the coyote had been circling around the whole day. My junior asked, “Is the coyote circling because this is his home territory? Because if he was just passing through then he would have run straight out of country, right?” Wow. The girls have been listening to me jabber on about hunting!