Connor Poe whipped-in with Robyn Harter. / Middleburg PhotoLike most days at Nelson Gunnell’s Banbury Cross we expected a large field. But this was Junior Day—a day when the juniors take over the positions of staff and make all the calls. So the group that gathered for this nine o’clock meet was huge. I’m not sure, but I heard rumors there might have been eighty people out to hunt. We had fifteen couple of Penn-Marydels and Penn-Marydel crosses under open skies, with temperatures warming to sixty-eight degrees.
Don’t get me wrong; I like a large field. I want visitors and guest alike to see what one of the best packs in Virginia can do. But at some point it can get too large! We had a first field, second field, and a beginner field for children. We also had, besides the Field Masters, field stewards in the back to help along those who might fall out, to check gates and riders, and generally to keep order at the tail of the field.
At the start of the day, I sorted out which juniors would be riding with which whippers-in and picked which junior would be hunting the hounds with me. For this task I chose Alex Bazdar. This is her last year as a junior and the first time to really hunt hounds, although she has been a whipper-in for years. She would carry the horn and account for five foxes before this day was over!
(l-r) Hosts Nelson and Wendy Gunnell and Gregg Ryan, MFH / Middleburg PhotoMy next chore was to collar up hounds as we recently bought GPS collars to keep track of hounds in rough country. Then it was on to pack the saddle with two collar controls, horn, radio (a must in country that has lots of traffic and neighbors who insist we not go into their country), and other items essential for the hunt.
Release the hounds! As always when I open the trailer they pour out going in every direction!
The field was gathered in front of the main barn, announcements were made, and we were off. I handed my horn to Alex who began her attempts to blow it. Not bad for a first timer, much better than my first time! She did well in calling the hounds up and starting down the driveway to Carter’s Farm Lane. She used much more voice than I expected without me telling her to.
She also began to learn how much she didn’t know: the need to direct the whippers-in, call the hounds, and watch it all to keep it together. We hadn’t even gotten off the road, and I was already barking at the whippers-in. I couldn’t help myself! Alex decided we should trot up the road where we would put in to get everything in motion.
At the end of the Polo Pony Field we turned west, and headed into the Black Swamp. As we pushed into the woods I suggested we slow down and watch the hounds as they fanned out and started hunting, although we had to keep an eye on those young thrusters who were rushing forward. As usual, not a couple hundred yards into the brush they opened.
We moved for a trail to our right that would take us in that direction, and were away at a gallop. On the west end of the trail the pack had checked near a den but were not marking it. They then began to work and pick moving west, and picked up speed. I heard a call from someone on the radio saying the fox was heading for Sam Fred Road. Not sure who this was, I asked and found out it was Chuck Woodworth, our illustrious videographer who has managed to be in the right spot to capture all on film through the decade. I wasn’t sure it was the hunted fox as Chuck couldn’t already have been ahead of us, but as the pack pushed west out into the field south of Nelson’s Horse Field (Patch’s Field) at the far end I saw him, camera set on a tripod, filming it all.
The pack, now running in full cry, turned sharply north and angled across the field. Now running into the field next to Sam Fred Road, they lost. Casting about, two started towards the road but checked. That could have been from the whippers-in running to the road and disturbing the grass.
Next, they came around on the north side. Here they exploded and ran along the track parallel to the fence line. Running hard they got to the corner, checked and scrambled through the fence, heading east running along the fence between the cattle field and Patch’s Field, then into a small patch of woods and out into Eddie Ryan’s field. Here they checked again.
They continued to cast around to no avail. I asked Alex, Did the fox turn back or did he continue across the field? They seemed to find nothing more than the occasional scent patch here and there, not enough to run with, only enough to speak on. Now the loose horses kept in that field were getting worked up, running around and becoming dangerous to the hounds. So I made the decision to call the hounds out of that field and continue on forward in the direction they had been going. None too soon either, as a gray horse came by and rolled Flirt, much to my dismay and useless cursing at the horse. Flirt was up, continued on and seemed simply surprised by the whole affair. The pack crossed the driveway into the next field, heads down, but with very little speaking. A hundred yards into that field they all went to a den in the ground there. It wasn’t a real strong last run to the earth, but they marked it pretty well.
As that run was wrapping up, junior Alex James, riding with John Anderson this day, viewed a fox crossing Sam Fred Road. We headed west to pick up that line if we could. It had been some fifteen or twenty minutes, and hopefully that fox hadn’t been in a hurry to go anywhere. With traffic stopped, we crossed the road, jumped the stone wall and we were in the field. Not fifty yards on, hounds opened in the fence line. Turning north they crossed the field into the next wooded ravine and continued northwest.
Conditions were getting worse. Hounds checked and cast themselves.
Talking to Alex about when and when not to pick up hounds and move forward, we watched them work it out. The hounds were silent when a lone voice behind us opened. I started back to see who was speaking when several voices opened ahead in the wooded ravine. Now I was sure; they all started moving north down the ravine that heads to Quanbeck’s. We ran around the woods to get into viewing sight of the pack as they worked north, then turning west, they crossed right in front of us. Now we waited and watched to see which direction they would go. They pressed up the wooded hill, then turned and screamed away to the north.
Now we were playing catch up! Down across the run and up the hill, around the trees to the path north we ran. I knew Robyn Harter and her junior Connor Poe had already dropped into Quanbeck’s earlier, and I just hoped they were with hounds. The pack was in full cry running north. We were hot behind when we reached our territory boundary. The field stopped, and the staff sailed over the jump to pursue hounds.
Up onto Berryman’s Lane Robyn and Connor were already chasing them. Wendi Wilson Gunnell had already let me know she was going down Sam Fred Road north in case they turned back east. Alex and I were now on Berryman’s as well and running east towards Sam Fred where we could no longer hear them. I stopped long enough to check the GPS and thought it was wrong. It must have needed a new upload because it showed hounds to the north. This didn’t seem correct because I had just turned, and it needed to orient directions again. But about then Robyn said they were running parallel with Snickersville Turnpike back towards Goose Creek. Great, going in the only direction we had no staff! Just in time she said they turned south along the creek and were heading back into country.
We turned and ran back down Berryman’s Lane and up the hill above the creek and, sure enough, we began to hear the hounds coming closer. Passing us, they continued south into Quanbeck’s with us following. In the thick tangle of vines and woods we could see them on the hillside. They had gone quiet. We bushwhacked to get to them. Here only a couple of hounds were at the hole as the others were still speaking a little in the tangled brush on the line that ran to the hole. By now these hounds were tired! This time Alex had the honor of getting off her horse, handing the reins to me, and blowing to ground. I think she was getting a little lightheaded she was trying so hard.
While this massive run in and out of country had taken place and we were recovering at the hole, I received word that staff had viewed another fox farther south. They thought it was the hunted fox, so I asked, Did he look tired? Because surely any fox that was involved in that run would be a little tired. The answer was no. Regardless, we brought the hounds out of covert and started south to try to cross the line of the fox he saw.
Going into the woods and over the hill where the sighting was fifteen minutes before, they began to speak. This time moving south in the woods they lost, then backtracked, then one opened farther ahead. Alex rode up there to try to call hounds forward. As hounds moved forward into heavy brush they began to speak stronger, but I could hear a bit of a split. We were with the main pack, hemmed in on the trail, and a few hounds were ahead speaking strongly, moving southwest. Scent was difficult but old scent even more so.
We tried to pick them up and move on to what I thought were the leaders, even though the hounds we were with were now speaking loudly. When I arrived, Janice Litt, our famous Second Field Master, who is always in the right place at the right time, was standing in the field to my right and showed me where the leaders had lost. It made sense to me where this fox was heading. Now all we had to do was just get the pack together and forward on this line. It became apparent that this was not going to happen fast as the tail hounds did not want to leave covert, even though whippers-in were on the other side trying to push them up. I learned later from Nelson Gunnell that in fact they ended up on a den marking to ground, though no one told me until we had moved on. That was my mistake in trying to move the hounds on too fast, trying to make up for the fading scent. When they did come up, they worked and spoke a little and moved down the fence line to the west. This line eventually faded out but we were close enough to the Hog Lot to pick up and make a new cast there.
Alex Bazdar and Todd Kern hunt the hounds. / Middleburg PhotoGoing into the Hog Lot, Alex gathered the hounds and cast them southwest. We followed them in. There was a little picking but not much in the way of a line until we reached the northeast base of Ball Hill. Here Flora began to speak strongly and soon the whole pack was moving west. Over the rail jump and down into the woods along the Wakopin we went, hounds running hard southwest. Then a check, and a call came in of a view south out of Ball Hill and into the Colt Field. But the hounds had now turned back the way they came, and opposite to the Colt Field. Puzzling. Was it not the hunted fox? So back we went hoping that hounds weren’t running heel because of the poor scent.
As we rounded the hill the cry was getting stronger, not weaker, as they ran back into the Hog Lot. We ran up the hill and jumped the wall out into the Horse Field. Here at the top, we could see and hear hounds running east through the Hog Lot. Liz Williams reported that the fox had left covert and crossed the east field into the Hurdle Field. Danger, Will Robinson!
I had been informed earlier that the Hurdle Field had been sprayed the day before with an unknown substance. Fertilizer or weed killer, don’t know. Either way it’s unfriendly to hounds. I called for the whippers-in to stop them.
Now Gregg came up and asked if he should move the field to help stop them. By all means, yes! I was concerned what might happen to a hound with his nose on the ground with this spray. I moved farther west to a crest in the field and began to blow and holler for the hounds to come up. Alex had gone down to help stop the pack, and soon I saw her coming along the fence with many of the hounds following. The danger had been averted.
I was then informed that Danny Hazel and his junior had seen a fox at the stone wall at the corner of the Horse Field and Ball Hill. So I turned and took the hounds across to the line. Again they opened and across the horse paddock at the Sunnybank barn they went in full cry. Running around and over a jump we came into the Gallop Field near the hay barn. The pack was running across the field in full cry. Then they checked and cast about, then across another hundred yards and to a den. All on, all marking. Alex got off to blow to ground, and again I held horses for a change.
I’m not even sure what time it was by then—11:00, maybe 11:30. I just didn’t know. So we started hunting back toward the meet. We crossed Sam Fred Road at the Mount Airy meet driveway, where I was informed by car followers that a fox crossed and went into those woods about fifteen minutes before. Okay, so let’s just go over and see if he hung around or at least maybe we’ll cross his line. We went north along the road, then east through a strip of woods bordering the field, but found nothing to that point.
This was going to be a clockwise draw around Mount Airy. As we were coming down the old road near the abandoned house we could smell a little fox scent up high. Farther ahead, a hound opened, then all honored and away they went, running west towards Stoney’s house, with us running around to catch up. We reached the top of the hill in the woods. Silence. Then Robyn reported he’d gone to ground in that den. Actually it was Connor who found them. As we arrived, they were indeed marking a frequently used den except for a few who were going back down to smell up the fox scent on the line.
Connor was pushing them back up. Again, Alex was off blowing to ground! Sitting on my horse and holding horses isn’t too bad, I thought. I think this was the fifth fox though I’m not sure I can count the one we didn’t properly blow to ground.
Now we really are going home. Back the way we came, then east through the Mount Airy ravine I could smell the fox but it was up high so it must have been old. Moving on, the hounds started to speak and up the hill above the run they went to a den. Can’t really count this one, can I? They didn’t run it, and it was only fifty yards up the hill. So we called them back down to the run, let them water, and headed north for home. But we have to pass through the Black Swamp on the way where they would likely find again!
We did get a little interest in the Swamp but the whippers-in pulled them off, and we continued in, only stopping to water hounds in the pond at the Banbury Horse Field.
Wendi had already gone in to lay out one of her famous spreads and we weren’t far behind, looking for a cold drink and the awarding of colors.
Click any image below to start a slideshow. Photos courtesy of MIddleburg Photo
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Posted March 5, 2012