Unfortunately we’re spoilt for choice of hunts to sab. With over twenty foxhunts in Devon it’s rare that we drive out to one hunt meet without passing another on the way. As we were making our way to the Silverton Hunt meet at Rhode Farm in Bradninch today, we also passed hound van, terrier men and riders heading to the Tiverton Hunt’s meet just a few miles up the road at East Butterleigh.
The Silverton meet was pretty poorly attended, with maybe a dozen riders, two quad bikes and not many support cars. Foot sabs took up positions on either side of a steep-sided valley south of the meet. Having spotted one of our teams, the masked terrier men promptly attached a ‘trail’ (a dry rag on a string) to the back of their quad bike and dragged it around the edge of the field we were in. Perhaps they’d done their homework and read up on the Hunting Act since we last sabbed them a few weeks ago? Or maybe not. You won’t be surprised to hear that hounds paid absolutely no attention to the ‘trail’ when they came into the field just two minutes later. The huntsman tried to continue the show by encouraging the pack onto the route of the prelaid ‘trail’ but hounds were far more interested in whatever scents they were picking up in the valley below.
Having given up on the ‘trail’, the hunt headed south and cast hounds out in a kale field – no sign of a trail having been laid here at any point by anyone, let alone a quad bike. Kale fields are dangerous for foxes as there is huge potential for hounds to ‘chop’ a fox, so sabs positioned near Coombe Wood started calling hounds in an effort to get the huntsman to move them on. Hounds were soon spread out on both sides of the valley. Once he’d called them back, the huntsman again cast his hounds out in a steep-sided field of gorse north of Coombe Wood, where hunt support had been waiting all along hoping to witness a chase. We weren’t about to let that happen, so sabs called hounds back out of the gorse towards them. The huntsman, fearing he’d once again lose his hounds, enlisted his whip to help him call them back and moved them on and out of the valley altogether.
Next they headed towards Tedbridge and North Down Farm, where sabs caught up with them in another brassica field. They went twice around the same set of fields. Whenever sabs got close, hounds were moved on. One of the terrier men, probably embarrassed by the failure of their trail-laying charade, began harassing sabs by throwing rocks at them from behind. Keen to teach us “the law”, the terrier men insisted that they were well within their rights to bolt and shoot a fox. That may be the case under certain circumstances, but certainly not when hounds have hunted the fox to ground! Out came the usual “terrier men are not part of the hunt” rubbish – from the terrier men that had earlier laid the ‘trail’ for this hunt! You couldn’t make it up….
Out of one valley and into another. While our Land Rover crew were being blocked on the road by quad bikes, riders and hunt support, the hounds began drawing coverts north of Greenslinch and Livingshayes. Once unblocked, sabs were picked up and moved back into position to keep an eye on the hounds, as temperatures were dropping and scent conditions were improving. One of our teams on the road spotted a large dark brown fox running through a farm yard, across a track and into the next field. Sabs covered the scent and prepared for the arrival of hounds. Luckily this fox had a decent head start and hounds only came to within a field of his location before heading back to the meet for an early finish at 3pm.
Unfortunately on our way back to the meet to check they were boxing up we discovered a dead fox had just been dumped on the road in front of us. Closer inspection revealed the fox had been dead for a little while, probably a couple of days, and had suspicious bite wounds on his neck and face. Many hunt terrier men will dig out foxes in advance of the hunt and either bag them to hunt on the day or kill them to throw to the pack to keep them interested. There’s no doubt that this was the work of the Silverton terrier men, whose antics had been escalating throughout the day. As they should know by now: this kind of behaviour only guarantees them a prompt return visit! The many locals that thanked us last time we sabbed the Silverton Hunt will be pleased!
With an hour of daylight left we decided to head up the road to check on the Tiverton Hunt. We caught up with them at around 15.30 as they were heading back to the meet to pack up.
Until next time!
Video
We’ve put together an eight-minute ‘day in the life’ video from footage taken on 2 December, giving an idea of what an average day’s sabbing is like. Particularly notable on this day was the terriermen’s repeated insistence that the hunt were following a trail, even though hounds took no interest in the ‘trail’ that had been laid directly in front of them and spent the rest of the day drawing dense brassica fields and gorse patches where no trail could have possibly been laid. The terriermen also boasted that if hounds were to mark a fox to ground in an earth, they would bolt and shoot it.
