Between the big events of Boxing Day and New Year’s the hunt is still out on their regular schedule of wildlife crime, and we are still there to stop them. On Saturday we went to visit huntswoman Jessica Harrison and the Stevenstone Hunt at Hoarestone near Stibb Cross.
The day started with a pretty pathethic attempt to lay a trail around Veilstone woods. Not that laying a trail is even possible. Not that a single rag on the end of a stick would actually work if it was. The trail was laid around Veilstone Wood, one of the few woods in the area the hunt stayed away from all day.
They spent most of the day in Thorne Wood, between Holwell Farm and Hembury Castle, staying in the valleys to avoid the absolutely howling wind. Even a competent hunt master would have struggled to control hounds today and of course Jessica immediately had her pack split. Even so, sabs saw hounds get onto at least 3 foxes in the wood, but with timely intervention, rating and covering their scent, we are sure all 3 got away.
The rest of the day was spent with the hunt losing and finding hounds. Sabs kept better track of her hounds than she did, regularly finding groups of 2 and 3 hounds completely lost, miles from the huntswoman. In awful conditions, most of the riders lasted only a couple of hours. Midway through the day a couple of the teenage yobs who smashed our Land Rover’s back window on Christmas Eve came to say hello. They mostly succeeded in blocking the road for the hunt support. The few stragglers left packed up around 3.30, with hounds still missing.
We often get intel on other hunts while we are out sabbing and Saturday was no exception, with info coming in that the Mid Devon were hunting around Belstone. That the day ended with us finding the body of a dead hound on the verge of the A30.
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