On Saturday we paid a visit to the Lamerton Hunt, who met at Hedge Cross, near Lydford. They started the day in Eastcottdown Plantation and then hunted through Forestry Commission woodland towards Burley Down.
Forestry England recently banned trail-hunts, after the Hunt Saboteurs Association’s leaked footage of Hunting Office webinars exposed trail-hunting as a smokescreen for the continued illegal hunting of foxes. However, just like the Hunting Act hasn’t stopped them hunting foxes, bans from landowners won’t stop them either if there’s no enforcement from those landowners.
We strategically positioned foot teams around Burley Wood and deployed the drone to keep an eye on the pack. It wasn’t long before they came north out of the valley in full cry towards some of our sabs.
Sabs rated hounds off the fox’s line and sent them back down into the valley. When another foot team asked huntsman David Lewis about the whereabouts of his trail-laying rag, he lost his temper. Riders tried to rein him in but he continued shouting and swearing at sabs and then threatened that he might as well go home.
After a while, Lewis calmed himself down and returned via Galford Down to Eastacottwood Plantation and Lew Wood, where he would spent the rest of the afternoon drawing the densely-wooded slopes back and forth. Hounds occasionally found a line but sabs were well-positioned to keep a good eye on them.
Several foxes were seen during this time, including one very tired-looking one, and sabs sprayed to cover their scent. The last hour was spent with Lewis gathering straggling hounds, including one who sadly had a bad limp.
They eventually packed up at Holdstrong with just under an hour of daylight left.