On Friday 11th December we sabbed probably only the second-wettest Eggesford meet so far this season.
They’d been looking forward to a good day until we showed up, said one of the terriermen. Roads were blocked for roadworks but the hunt decided that, as with everything else, the road closure signs didn’t apply to them.
They spent the day hunting the long valleys between the Northlew Road and the edge of Northlew itself, trespassing on Forestry Commission land on multiple occasions. On the first loop, Jason cast hounds in at Ashbury Plantations and circumvented the woods to catch up with them again on the northern side, where a fox was flushed from the woods and hunted the length of the valley towards Hook Moor. On the second loop, Jason hunted hounds straight through Ashbury Plantations, with hounds again running in full cry. Hunts are banned from Forestry land since the leaked Hunting Office webinars a few weeks ago exposed trail-hunting for what it really is: an elaborate smokescreen to cover for illegal foxhunting. Forestry England – What do you plan to do about this illegal activity on your land?
Our two foot teams covered a lot of ground and dealt with a fair bit of aggro from hunt support and one particularly belligerent landowner who insisted that the public acccess woodland at South Moor Plantation was in fact his private kingdom. Hounds got stuck the wrong side of tall deer fencing on more than one occasion, enabling several foxes to get away. After those foxes were safely past us, we covered their scent with citronella and rated any hounds that followed. Plenty of deer were also seen running from hounds at this meet.
They packed up as it got dark.