Today was a very cold and windy day. Normally I like hunting when the temperature is between 35-45 but without the wind. Given we were hunting at Keelona and Trump Winery we were exposed to the wind. Unfortunately so was the scent and the hounds.
However, all was not lost. We came out of the meet and were hunting along the driveway between the paddocks. The third flight had gone back behind the house. The hounds started speaking along the fence line when all of a sudden we had a loud tally-ho from Liz I believe. It was a coyote and Matthew hustled the hounds over and a short run developed (yellow line) that kind of paralleled Carter Mountain Rd. It was reported that the coyote and taken an alternate route thorough a culvert pipe and was lost.
Just as that was ending, a fox was initially spotted again. I also think this was Liz again. The fox came down the hill through the paddocks and ran along the fence line toward the riding ring (orange line). The second flight got a great view of it. As they say, in life timing is everything. It took about 15 minutes for Matthew to gather the hounds and come over but by that time the scent was gone with the wind.
We continued hunting north parallel to Carter Mountain Rd crossing into the Trump Winery. Several times the hounds were put into coverts and began speaking but never really emerged. They would work and work and work but never could really follow the scent out of the covert. After a couple of times of this it seemed that their sound was getting frustrated at least to my untrained ears.
We continued up the Winery and were just below the ridge and in front of the Albemarle House and the event center. Another fox was spotted, again by Liz I believe. It went into the woods past the hotel. The hounds got on it and we had a short run from there to past the event center at the top of the vineyards. (red line).
For the day, the horses got in about 7.5 miles and the hounds were up around 11 or 12.
No comments:
Post a Comment