Eggesford’s Jason Marles was busy polishing his head for opening meet, so we decided to sab the Stevenstone at Five Lane End in Little Torrington.
When we arrived we heard hounds in cry in Langtree Common and quickly found them marking a fox to ground, with hunt support lined up along the road eager to see them dig it out and kill it. However with sabs guarding the mark the huntsman gathered his pack and headed west to Watertown through the almost impenetrable gorse and conifer plantation along the valley.
Hounds went into cry again in the elephant grass near Langtree Moor but sabs were able to rate them off the line and a fox was seen running safely south. The hounds continued west into more elephant grass, which is so incredibly dense they mostly just scattered and got lost, occasionally whelping when they were slashed by the surprisingly vicious grass. The cohesion of the pack was not helped by the huntsman, who can’t decide if he wants to call the hounds back or hunt them on, so just alternates between the two while making irate Welsh noises. The hounds seem to have learned to ignore him.
The kind of country that they hunted – brambles you could only crawl under on your belly, gorse bushes three feet over your head and elephant grass you need a machete to get through, really makes it clear what a joke ‘trail hunting’ is. Of course, absolutely nobody believes this lie and anyone who ever did should be forced to come out with us and march through 400 yards of elephant grass.
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