We spent an hour with Eggesford’s new huntsman, Harry Cook (former whip at the Tiverton Staghounds), at their Ellmead cubbing meet on Saturday. By 9.30am they were all packed up and having breakfast back at the farm.

Still reeling from their convictions this week, the hunt whipped out a pretend trail as soon as they spotted our drone in the air. They do this every few years when they’re feeling a bit bruised and vulnerable.

While the trail was dragged one way in the valley, sabs spotted a fox running the other direction.
Guess which one the hounds chose to follow… Fortunately sabs were there to ensure the fox got away.

After another half hour of chasing hounds up and down the valley, sabs found them marking to ground at a badger sett on the side the hunt aren’t supposed to be on…

Having failed to sustain the pretence of trail hunting for even an hour, Harry called it quits at this point.

Continue reading “Eggesford Hunt, Ellmead, 26.09.26” →

With Mendip Hunt Sabs we showed up to introduce ourselves to new huntsman Harry Cook at Eggesford’s cubbing meet this evening on the edge of Riddlecombe.

Within minutes of leaving the meet, sabs found hunt support holding-up a small copse next to Coldharbour farm. This is the exact area where we caught them relentlessly chasing a fox back in March (more on that soon). As soon as sabs were in the field with them, the hunt ran off to the north and headed back to the meet to stuff their faces with sausage rolls before going home nice and early.

Continue reading “Eggesford Hunt, Riddlecombe, 15.09.26” →

We sabbed Eggesford’s cub hunting meet at their kennels. As the main season approaches, Eggesford and all hunts are ramping up their days, now on horseback and hunting for longer.

A fairly small group left the kennels at around 8.30. Alongside huntsman Jason Marles were ancient hunt groupie Helen Dunn, troglodyte terrierman Tom Bounsall and several children. Really great parenting from the Eggesford supporters – Tom can show your 8 year old a dead fox and your 8 year old can teach him how to read.

They hunted around Labdon, Crossgate, Gosse’s farm and Kennydown farm for most of the morning. We kept track of them with our drone and foot teams. Near Gosse’s Farm a fox broke from a maize field and ran right in front of Marles and sabs. They were one of a few seen to safety throughout the morning. From Marles’ little quips he seems to think if he can’t see us we aren’t there. Maybe the children can teach Marles about object permanence.

Marles’ weirdly high pitched voice harmonises beautifully with his new whip Jade’s. We were “treated” to a bit of rural opera in North Down Plantation as they gathered some of the pack and went home, leaving several hounds to find their own way back.

Continue reading “Eggesford Hunt, 27.09.25” →

With thanks again to Helen Dunn, we were able to sab another of Eggesford’s cubbing meets at Chulmleigh Beacon. The hunt set off towards Parsonage Cross to begin drawing thick hedges and woodland around Parsonage Farm.

Two foxes were marked to ground in the first hour. Terrierboy Tom Bounsall didn’t notice either of these marks, as he was too busy trying to impress the young blonde on the back of his quad by trying to run sabs over on the road. He also wasn’t aware of the fox who was later marked to ground in the valley by Horridge Moor. Having earlier threatened to “end” one of our sabs who merely said good morning to him, Bounsall tried to aggressively block one of our foot teams from accessing a footpath. To our surprise, he was told to pack it in by a female riders who was chaperoning a group of young kids on horses.

Having lost many of their older members over the last season, Eggesford are making an effort to groom the younger generation. When they’re not being brought along on ponies to witness animal cruelty, they’re riding around in Hugh Trerise’s Land Rover looking bored stiff. Hugh Trerise and Helen Dunn no longer ride to hounds and have now taken up the sport of road-blocking. In turn, they’re becoming regular features in the Operation Snap hall of fame!

Continue reading “Eggesford, Chulmleigh Beacon, 20.09.25” →

With thanks to hunt member Helen Dunn, we were able to sab Eggesford’s early morning cubbing meet at Honeychurch!

The hunt had parked on the side of the road north of Rowtry for a 7am meet. Foot sabs caught up with them west of Honeychurch where riders had surrounded a small copse, ‘holding-up’ in typical cubbing fashion to prevent foxes escaping.

When sabs approached, one young rider shouted “oh no, the sabs are here”, the rest quickly dispersed and huntsman Jason Marles pulled hounds out of the copse and headed north. A short while later, our eye in the sky witnessed a fox darting from this copse in the opposite direction. It’s highly likely this fox would have been killed if the hunt had been allowed to remain there for a few minutes longer.

For the next hour our two foot teams kept an eye on the hunt as they continued to draw dense field boundaries between Honeychurch and Cliston. Hounds ended up scattered all over the place, with one being seen on the road at Exbourne, where a local resident told our driver that she’d just had to chase the hound out of her garden.

Eventually everyone headed back to the meet for a few alcoholic beverages before getting in their vehicles and driving home. While we were waiting we met several locals who thanked us for being there and complained about the traffic chaos the hunt with their vehicles.

Gallery

On Saturday the Eggesford fox killers met just outside of Okehampton, at the hunt chairman Hugh Trerise’s farm, Ellmead.

Three foxes were seen to safety today. Our runners successfully intercepted the hounds from chasing foxes on two occasions. Both times sabs sat quietly as the foxes passed them, before masking their scent line with citronella. Then as the hounds in cry darted towards sabs, sabs managed to rate the hounds off the line, sending the hounds back in the opposite direction, and allowing time for the foxes to leave the area. Another fox was seen later on bolting by our drone team. Our foot teams travelled 20km at this cubbing meet.

Our drone team was keeping a close eye on the hunt. After hearing the hounds intermittently speaking in the valley, they noticed the terrier boys on quad bikes had been summoned there. This location has a known sett, and fearing a mark the team quickly made their way down to check. What sabs found was a young cow completely stuck in thick mud, unable to move.

Continue reading “Eggesford Hunt, Ellmead near Okehampton, 12.10.24” →

A small team of us went out yesterday morning to check up on the Eggesford Hunt, who were meeting at Westacott on the edge of Riddlecombe. With it being a mounted cubbing meet, we didn’t expect them to go far, and indeed they stayed almost exclusively on the Middletons’ land between Dolton Beacon and Riddlecombe.

Within minutes of leaving the meet, hounds had marked a fox to ground in a large badger sett that is well-known to us from years of sabbing the hunt here. The sett bears the scars of repeated digouts over the years. Because we knew it was almost a certainty that a fox would go to ground there, we positioned ourselves well to witness exactly that and to pull the hounds off the sett when it happened.

Minutes after the hunt moved on from the first sett, the fox bolted and ran off. Unfortunately we knew this was likely only the first of multiple laps of these woods. Sure enough, a short while later what we assume was probably the same fox came darting back across the field in direction of the sett, with hounds in pursuit. Huntsman Jason Marles congratulated his hounds for putting the fox to ground again and allowed them to remain on top of the sett, scratching and digging at several holes for long enough that they did considerable damage to the sett entrances.

Continue reading “Eggesford Hunt, Westacott, 03.10.24” →