This afternoon we received several tipoffs that the Silverton Hunt had been spotted in the Thorverton area. We can’t always act on last-minute intel but fortunately today we had a team who were able to mobilise at short notice. It’s always worth dropping us a message whenever you see the hunt!

The first signs of the hunt when we arrived in the area were a horse trailer parked on the edge of the village and a lone hound running along a road near Castle Wood. Paw and hoof prints gave away which direction the hunt had gone. Teams searching the area on foot, by road and by drone soon came across a few suspicious characters on quadbikes between Stone and Traymill Farm. The terrier boys immediately got on their walkie-talkies to inform huntsman Chris Matterface that sabs had arrived to spoil their fun. Moments later we heard his horn and voice calls down the road from us and hounds came streaming back up towards him out of the valley.

In what has become a bit of a theme with hunts we’ve sabbed in recent weeks, sabs showing up was all it took for them to pack up. Huntsman, hounds, terrier men and about a dozen riders then very slowly made their way back to Raddon Court to box up nice and early. En route we came across some locals who expressed their disgust at the hunt but also some imbecilic hunt supporters who thought it would be a great idea to deliberately block the road with a pony.

A hilly and wet day with the Silverton today.

They met at Perry Lodge, north of the Fursdon Estate near Bickleigh, and spent quite a while at the meet before setting off. In part this was to allow the makeshift “trail-layer” to film himself laying his smokescreen across a field out the back of the meet. When hounds came through that exact field a few minutes later, they completely ignored the “trail”. When we enquired what the scent was made of we were told it was a trade secret. Clearly whatever had been put on the end of the rag (if anything at all) was not something the hounds were used to paying any attention to!

Nobody’s fooled by the trail-laying facade, including the hunt follower whose response to our allegations of illegal hunting was “well foxes have to be controlled somehow”.

Two hunts in one day!

Today we took a full landy of sabs to the Silverton meet, in a field at Three Foot Stool Cross between Tedburn St Mary and Dunsford. After standing around in the sun for over an hour, huntsman Chris Matterface set off to the west with hounds and field riders in tow. The next hour was spent doing a loop to the south-west of the meet and hounds weren’t cast out once, so the Silverton ended up doing zero hunting today. Result!

We left our landy and a small foot team to follow the Silverton on their jolly hack, while the rest of us headed off north to find the Eggesford, who were hunting in the vicinity of Black Dog. We came across them in the valley south of Wood Farm. Hounds ran off to the north in full cry and chased a fox to ground in a badger sett well-known to us. This was the sett ex-terrier boy Nathan Bowes was caught at a few years ago, digging-out a fox that had been hunted to ground. He received a caution for that incident. True to form, Jason blew the horn call for “gone to ground”, so we quickly deployed sabs to head to the sett and prevent a digout.

Yesterday we went to see what the Silverton Hunt were up to at their meet at Home Farm on the Perridge Estate near Longdown. We found the hunt in fields at Higher Cotley. When we arrived, the riders left huntsman and hounds and went on a fun ride towards South Wood.

After a short while, everyone headed back to the meet and the hounds were boxed up. Probably our shortest sab of the season and the least amount of effort required to pack them up.

If you like what we do, please support our fuel and equipment fund (link in the comments). With just a few more weeks remaining of the hunting season please continue to send us tip-offs about your local hunts and let us know if you see them out and about.

Silverton Hunt met at Creedy Barton near Newton St Cyres on Saturday, owned by Hunt Master and mortgage adviser Angie Prouse, who once again treated us to her best banshee impression.

The hunt left the meet in direction of Wyke Cross, drawing a couple of kale fields between the roads and the railway line on the way. They then spent an hour mostly riding around fields between Higher Rewe and Furze, doing very little active hunting.

The whole thing was very lacklustre and hunt support who had come along for the day looked decidedly bored, resorting to abusive language, childish hand-signals and kicking mud at sabs to vent their frustration. Most of this lot are grown adults but you wouldn’t know if all you had to go on was their behaviour around sabs!