We headed over to Sheepwash to see the Stevenstone Hunt celebrate the birthday of a hunt member in a damp shed. Stephen James left the meet into an adjacent field and took the hounds straight to a nearby woodland at Upcott Barton and dismounted.
It wasn’t long before hounds had picked up on a line but were just as quickly rated off by nearby sabs, though terrierman Ben Vincent encouraged them back onto it and the hounds headed north into Upcott Wood.
Some time passed before we found huntsman and hounds heading towards Sheepwash. With James perched on the back of a quadbike and no field to be seen, the convoy headed into Sheepwash where we found the field at the pub with James’ horse in tow.
Seemingly frustrated by this, James’ continued without his horse, putting the hounds into some woodland near a sewage works, where they picked up on a line and shot off in full cry north, eventually ending up into Upcott Wood again.
Hounds tore through the large plantation, passed a nearby dog agility training session, and down to Higher Gortleigh where they lost the scent.
James (still hunting on foot) took the hounds north through the valley all the way to Woodhead, where he remounted and headed back to the meet, where they stopped briefly for a quick sausage roll or two before heading out again.
Having clearly not learnt his lesson from the last time he hunted the area, James decided it would be a good idea to put the hounds into the various woodlands and plantations of Swardicott, Waydown, and Newcourt. The last time he attempted to hunt these woods James lost most of the hounds. To everyone’s shock, the exact same thing happened again!
After some grumpy mumbling and with sabs on his tail, he soon gave up and headed back to the meet. James then got into his pickup truck and alongside some of the quadbikes set off to try to find the remaining hounds.
Given that two days before this, a farm adjacent to these woodlands lost several heavily pregnant ewes to a dog attack, it was clearly not wise/respectful to send a pack of uncontrollable hounds to tear through the surrounding woodland.
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