When to cancel Ñ and when to go hunting
The so-called ‘Beast from the East’ has meant many hunting days have been lost in the past couple of weeks. Frank Houghton Brown explains how weather affects hunting and discusses when it is safe to go and when it is prudent to call things off
IN the hunting Bible,
The Lonsdale Library,
Sir Charles Frederick MFH writes: “Among the least enviable of the prerogatives appertaining to the MFH is that of deciding whether or not hounds shall hunt when the weather conditions are doubtful. He will probably send his hounds to the meet in any case, provided the state of the roads permits it.”
It is said that you should never cancel for the wet because if you do, you set a precedent and people will expect you to cancel again. The correct arrangement in extremely wet conditions is for the mounted field to stay on roads and tracks, even if that means watching proceedings from afar or galloping a long way round to stay in touch. There are, however, times in extreme floods, when bridges are closed and houses flooded, that hunting may just be impossible.
I remember the Bicester hounds running away from Grendon Wood towards
Spring Hill, where the prison is situated. There was a huge area of floodwater and the only visible sign of a hunting bridge was the very tops of the fence posts. The huntsman and field waded through the waters and had crossed the bridge before the young second whipper-in, Johnny Kennelly, who went on to be huntsman of the Atherstone hounds, came galloping out of the covert, bringing on some tail hounds.
The field waved at him, trying to direct him to the bridge, but he thought the gestures were friendly and kept galloping into the floodwater until his horse reached the ditch and he suddenly disappeared, completely submerged in the water course that he couldn’t see.
WIND AND FOG
HIGH winds are not ideal for hunting and Peter Beckford wrote: “Take not your hounds out on a very windy day.” The hounds can’t hear each other or their huntsman and the field can’t hear anything. Having said this, it isn’t usually a reason to cancel hunting but it does make things extremely difficult.
Fog is another issue, but again it is no reason not to go to the meet and wait for an hour or so. The late Major Michael Howard was master and huntsman of the Spooners and West Dartmoor and would recall many days when they went hunting, only for the fog to close in and make it impossible to see. He would return to the kennels when all else failed and the hounds would follow when they had finished their hunt.
It was quite a foggy day when Col. Nick Crossley hunted the Derwent hounds in the late
1970s and his close friend and former master and huntsman of the Meynell, Dermot Kelly,
came to visit him as a hunting correspondent. They drew the first covert and promptly lost touch with half of the hounds who had hunted away into the mist. “The Black Colonel”, as Crossley was called for his sometimes dismal and gloomy outlook, trotted around with his nine or 10 couple, looking for the missing half of his pack, before asking Dermot what he should do.
“You still have half the hounds and it’s obviously a very good scenting day,” replied the correspondent. “What’s wrong with the hounds you’ve got? You should go and find another fox and the others will hear you and come back.”
“That would be fine,” Crossley pointed out, “but the hunters have all gone and these are just the onlookers.”
HOUNDS COME FIRST IN ICY CONDITIONS
FROST or snow is another thing completely and the master in charge needs to test the ground first thing in the morning before making a decision. A decision really needs to be made by 8am or 8.45am at the latest, so that everyone can make plans. Of course, at this early hour the ground conditions are far worse than they will be at 11am when the meet would be taking place.
A good rule of thumb is that the first frost, however hard, is not enough to change the time of the meet. I always used to be of the view that as long as it’s OK for the hounds and they wouldn’t damage their feet on the sharp frozen ground, then it was up to each individual whether they thought it fit to ride a horse or not. Certainly, hound welfare takes priority and in Northumberland we had to be very careful in hard frosts, because foxes would cross the thin ice on the many reservoirs, whereas hounds are much heavier and would break through and drown.
Hunting on foot is always an alternative but, unless there is thick snow, it’s a poor alternative unless the hounds have been confined to kennels for some time. It’s much easier to take a horse and then if conditions are unsafe, get off it, than to go on foot and wish you had taken one. There is no need to gallop around like a maniac, but with foxhounds, hunting is an equestrian sport and even just walking and trotting on a horse is an easier way to go hunting.
I have heard it said in the north that the only time to hunt on one’s feet is when the snow is too thick to open the gates, and I have much sympathy with that view. I turned up with the hounds to hunt on foot in one of my early years as a huntsman and a local farmer came on his horse. When hounds ran, I felt a complete twerp as he trotted after the hounds and
I was labouring behind, red-faced and furious.