Another day spent chasing Eggesford Hunt from one piece of land they’re not allowed on to another, with multiple foxes helped to safety by sabs.
They set off from the meet at Inwardleigh to the south-west, initially following a scent that ended in a large pile of tyres at Glebe Farm, before looping via fields east of The Old Rectory back into the original valley south-west of Inwardleigh. Hounds ended up scattered all over the place between Inwardleigh and Curworthy Farm.
Despite knowing that hounds were not allowed on a lot of this land, Jason allowed them to carry on terrorising wildlife while him and his fanboy Lloyd sat idle in the field, refusing to intervene. Our drone filmed hounds running riot all over Curworthy farm and several went off on the line of various deer in the surrounding valleys. The old “I’m having trouble controlling the hounds” excuse was rolled out when Jason was confronted by a frustrated landowner. However, his choir-boy voicecalls did eventually bring the hounds back to him and the hunt headed off to the north, along the road through Inwardleigh and then into the fields around Norleigh Mill Farm and Waterhouse, where they spent a few minutes hunting before sabs caught up with them.
The second half of the day was in the long wooded valley between Lower Westacott and Forestry England-owned Ashbury Plantations. Hounds marked a fox to ground at a badger sett within minutes. Terrierboys Jake Crabb and Tom Bounsall, who are never more than a stone’s throw from one another, jumped off their quad, masked up and then stood on the sett watching the hounds as they marked several sett entrances. The presence of foot sabs on the ground and the drone overhead averted a digout and the two remained idle for the rest of the day.
After taking hounds further north along the Hookmoor Brook valley, Jason started retracing his steps to the east via fields south of Norleigh Barton, from where hounds followed a line for a significant distance, initially all the way south to Millbrook and then back north via Lower Northwood towards Langabeare Moor.
Two of our sabs were perfectly positioned to get in front of the full pack and stop them in their tracks, turning hounds back onto the heel line of the fox – effectively following the scent back in the wrong direction. A while later, hounds picked up again at Langabeare Moor and went racing east towards the busy main road. Jason then spent an age gathering them back up. En route back to the meet, yet another landowner challenged him about why hounds had been on her land. “The hounds may have been, but we weren’t” – another classic excuse from this arrogant, entitled huntsman.
It’s not uncommon at this time of year to find two foxes close together, as it’s their breeding season. On two separate occasions over the course of the day, sabs had to rate hounds off the line of a pair of foxes running from the same area. Considerable effort was exerted by a Mendip sab, who joined us for the day, repeatedly rating hounds off the line of a pair who were being chased up and down the same valley and looked completely exhausted by the end of it. Despite Jason’s efforts throughout the day to put hounds back on the line when they checked, we believe all the foxes we saw were able to get away.
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