Festive_Felicitations
Well-Known Member
Get comfy cause its another long 'un! 
A slightly belated report but the other weekend the SHC held its closing meet on a lovely property in the Southern Highlands.
The weather could not have been more different from last time I went out and was what in my mind is 'proper' hunting weather, i.e. very cold and wet
A much larger field this time, +/- 20, again only 4.5 couple of hounds who hunted really well, and again a lovely stirrup cup of mulled wine. The meet was on the top of a hill with a lovely view of the country we were going to hunt and all the rain falling on it...
The country this time was much more open and 'english' in that it consisted of rolling green fields, lines of trees as windbreaks, again lots of wire but many fences had jumps built into them ( )
First 'covert' was a marshy creek but found nothing. Moved on to a small rocky hill covered in long grass. The field was sent round the bottom while the huntsman hunted across the hill. Here hounds found and killed their first fox in what has to be one of the shortest runs on record - all of 25m I believe.
We then moved on to the next creekline in the base of a shallow valley where hounds found again and set off very confidently and quickly. Becasue of fence lines it now gets a bit confusing (imho). The huntsman ended up on the northen side of the valley with a fence between him and the hounds, the field and 1 whipper-in were up on the southern side (gave us a lovely view of them working and their 'field' of cows and calves!) again with a fence in the way. Another whipper-in did managed to get in the fenced off bit with them but was then handicapped by the gorse ( ).
Hounds hunted a for 2-3km straight up the creek before turning north and were reunited with the staff while the field (now split in two) all chickened out at a fence consisting of a single rail at 1m jumped out of a bog and took the gate which turned out to be the long route and when we eventually found the huntsman again the fox had gone to ground in a wombat hole.
I'm not sure if it was all one fox or if they found a second but either way its was a lovely long run with the hounds working very tightly.
By this point my legs were damp and I was freezing! The cherry brandy in the hip flask was very much appreciated!
After this started to head home slowly checking out several other coverts but not finding anymore foxes.
NB All pictures thanks to 'Barry' the wonderful friend of Jo (owner of the hipflask) who braved the cold to take pics. Thank you.
Heading home, huntsman in front.
You can just see the drizzel in this one!
Field: L to R - gentleman on a very nice Andulsian cross, field master, whipper in, 'Jo' & me!
My day - I was very impressed to find that my el-cheapo sythetic jacket is actually fairly water proof and not a sponge! So my upper half was only cold not damp at the end of the day.
Beau impressed me again by not blinking when pointed at a boggy marsh and asked to cross it had some lovely long gallops (with no breaks ).
Most of the jumping was in the second 1/2 of the day and while he coped with the galloping and stopping in a group very sensibly adding jumping to the mix meant he came home more wound up than when he left.
As he was positively shaking with excitment, abeit on a loosish rein, between fences I'm not sure if it is a good thing or not that this was the last meet of the year!
Either way I am totally hooked, very sad that there is no more till next year so will be living vicariously through you lot this summer!
A slightly belated report but the other weekend the SHC held its closing meet on a lovely property in the Southern Highlands.
The weather could not have been more different from last time I went out and was what in my mind is 'proper' hunting weather, i.e. very cold and wet
A much larger field this time, +/- 20, again only 4.5 couple of hounds who hunted really well, and again a lovely stirrup cup of mulled wine. The meet was on the top of a hill with a lovely view of the country we were going to hunt and all the rain falling on it...
The country this time was much more open and 'english' in that it consisted of rolling green fields, lines of trees as windbreaks, again lots of wire but many fences had jumps built into them (
)First 'covert' was a marshy creek but found nothing. Moved on to a small rocky hill covered in long grass. The field was sent round the bottom while the huntsman hunted across the hill. Here hounds found and killed their first fox in what has to be one of the shortest runs on record - all of 25m I believe.
We then moved on to the next creekline in the base of a shallow valley where hounds found again and set off very confidently and quickly. Becasue of fence lines it now gets a bit confusing (imho). The huntsman ended up on the northen side of the valley with a fence between him and the hounds, the field and 1 whipper-in were up on the southern side (gave us a lovely view of them working and their 'field' of cows and calves!) again with a fence in the way. Another whipper-in did managed to get in the fenced off bit with them but was then handicapped by the gorse (
).Hounds hunted a for 2-3km straight up the creek before turning north and were reunited with the staff while the field (now split in two) all chickened out at a fence consisting of a single rail at 1m jumped out of a bog and took the gate which turned out to be the long route and when we eventually found the huntsman again the fox had gone to ground in a wombat hole.
I'm not sure if it was all one fox or if they found a second but either way its was a lovely long run with the hounds working very tightly.
By this point my legs were damp and I was freezing! The cherry brandy in the hip flask was very much appreciated!
After this started to head home slowly checking out several other coverts but not finding anymore foxes.
NB All pictures thanks to 'Barry' the wonderful friend of Jo (owner of the hipflask) who braved the cold to take pics. Thank you.
Heading home, huntsman in front.
You can just see the drizzel in this one!
Field: L to R - gentleman on a very nice Andulsian cross, field master, whipper in, 'Jo' & me!
My day - I was very impressed to find that my el-cheapo sythetic jacket is actually fairly water proof and not a sponge! So my upper half was only cold not damp at the end of the day.
Beau impressed me again by not blinking when pointed at a boggy marsh and asked to cross it
had some lovely long gallops (with no breaks ).Most of the jumping was in the second 1/2 of the day and while he coped with the galloping and stopping in a group very sensibly adding jumping to the mix meant he came home more wound up than when he left.
As he was positively shaking with excitment, abeit on a loosish rein, between fences I'm not sure if it is a good thing or not that this was the last meet of the year!
Either way I am totally hooked, very sad that there is no more till next year so will be living vicariously through you lot this summer!
