October Maine Hare Hunt

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Smoke'n Mack
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Location: Western PA
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October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by Smoke'n Mack »

Last week myself and 4 buddies got to spend the week in the North Woods of Maine chasing hare. We had a dozen hounds with us that held up to the punishment we put them through nicely. We arrived about noon on Sunday and even went and did some fun running for a couple of hours that afternoon with no guns. I think everyone had a fantastic time and the country up there sure makes it hard to come back to cube walls.

Madcatter put together a little video of some of our photo's as well as some of our hunting clips. For the most part I am behind the camera and our buddy Grady is on the commentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=870VVf2 ... e=youtu.be

Here are a few pics I had that I don't think made the video or that I just like.

These are a couple of dead moose that we got to see at the check station next to our cabin. I had never seen a moose prior to this trip and I ended up getting to see 2 dead ones, and 3 live ones. They are an impressive animal.

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And one with the lucky hunter. She was a resident of Maine and told us she had been waiting 30 years to draw her tag.

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Here is a picture during one of the morning hunts. John-PA scored the moose shed and the whole crew was banging away at grouse. 11 grouse made for an awesome dinner during the week.

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Here is a tailgate full after a hot afternoon hunt. For some reason Maine decided to give us 77 degree weather one afternoon, which really took a toll on the hounds, but they still got it done.

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John and I on a long walk chasing the hounds to the next cut. The hare had enough of circling and tried to line out to get rid of the dogs...didn't work.

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The madcatter poses with "the beast". It may or may not have had milk on it's face when he zeroed in on it.

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The view off of the cabin deck. Doesn't get much better.

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I got the first hare of the trip with the Contender!

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My hounds on Thursday afternoon. Wearing down, but still standing and ready to head back in.

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Shady Grove Beagles
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by Shady Grove Beagles »

Smoke n Mack
Glad you had a good time in Maine.
I'm on my way home from two weeks up north myself.Am here in Ohio trying to get my Rainy female bred.She came in the sixth day after I got up there and is now at the tail end of her cycle.Hope she takes!
Spent the first week in northern Vermont.Had high winds all week and some real heavy rains.Sat out two mornings in camp due to it storming and listened to some of our old coonhunts from 35 years ago that I had recorded.Got some good memorie's that's for sure.
Ended up hunting in the rain several times and actually had some outstanding runs as we stood in the woods getting soaked.Didn't kill many hare[our choice] but Dan got some super footage on the movie camera of the hare running within feet of us on several circles.
At almost 64 one never knows how many years we'll have to continue to enjoy these hounds.Maybe I'll be fortunate and 20 years from now I can sit back and enjoy these hunts again on DVD.
Spent the second week in northern Maine and you are right about the temps.It was really too warm running the dogs towards the end of the week.We hit 71 where we were and it was humid.Not exactly what you'd expect the middle of October that far north.
WE had some real good runs with several reaching the two hour mark [I'd made a promise to myself this year that I wouldn't kill any hare until the dogs had run them for at least an hour ].
We didn't kill a lot of hare in Maine [our choice ] but did take at least one everyday and 4 the last day we ran [in the pouring rain!! ].Hard not to love hunting the big woods of Maine even when the weather doesn't co-operate.Never saw another beagler but ran into a couple of bird hunters.Moose season was open but we stayed out of their way and they [moose hunters ] stayed out of ours.Didn't see any moose in the woods this year but saw a couple of nice bulls of the 500 hundred pound variety in the back of a couple of pick-ups.
Spent the last day hunting in New Hampshire with my buddy Bob [again in a cold and steady day of rain ].We turned out 5 dogs that all had been running everyday for the past week and were looking a bit on the rough side.Took awhile but we finally got a jump and had what might have been the best run of my trip.The dogs flat out pounded that hare for 1 1/2 hours virtually without a check.Bob and I never moved from where they jumped and we had the hare run by us 8 times during the run.About every 10 minutes here comes the hare with the dogs flying right behind him.
After an hour and a half and with the rain coming down even harder I told Bob,lets kill this guy so we can go home as I'm freezing.
That 8'th circle proved his undoing and we loaded up 5 hounds that were totally gassed.
Probably take a little while for these hounds to get back in their cottontail groove as they were really rocking and rolling on some of those hare
Home of a true hunting beagle that run to catch

rabbitatfarm
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by rabbitatfarm »

Nice lookin' string of hounds!!!
LP R Ch Quick Strike Go Go Boots
LP R Ch Quick Strike Big Red

HS Run
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by HS Run »

Nice pics and video....Looks like you guys had a great trip!

Smoke'n Mack
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by Smoke'n Mack »

Thanks Guys, it was a blast.

Shady Grove, good to hear you had a good time as well. The weather wasn't ideal but when you are 900 miles from home, you gotta hunt. One way or another, the beer was still cold at the end of the day!

sammiller03
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Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:30 pm
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by sammiller03 »

you just sent me into uncontrolled excitement. Im leaving in two days for a week of hare hunting and im worse than a kid on christmas, it cant get here soon enough and i know it will be over way to fast. thanks for the pics and video.


sam
Millers Old Line Kennel
Grantsville, Md.

tom young
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by tom young »

I'm going up there for two weeks can't wait I'm counting the hours down.

mjd
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by mjd »

Where did you guys stay in maine ?

msc4570
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by msc4570 »

I'm jealous. Those moose pics remind me of a trip I took to hunt to Newfoundland for moose in 2001. Great trip and great people there. They said they had a ton of hares there though few people ran beagles.

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S.R.Patch
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by S.R.Patch »

Monte, aren't you packed and ready to go yet?

mjd
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by mjd »

S.R.Patch wrote:Monte, aren't you packed and ready to go yet?
Not yet
Justin lost a finger at work and been busy with that
It would probably kill my dogs runnin a hare, last time they was out of the kennel was june or maybe may

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S.R.Patch
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by S.R.Patch »

Looks like your guy had a great trip, what a mix of game and a great experience. Was there a guide service you hooked up with or did ya go "free style"?


Monte,
Sorry to hear about the accident with the boy, hope he gets fixed up ok.
Got next week off. Steve's recouping from pneumonia. He an Marshal had an interest in going before that happened.
I got the truck full of gas if you hear of anyone interested in a road trip north, sure mis being with Bud.

Smoke'n Mack
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Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:13 pm
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by Smoke'n Mack »

msc4570 wrote:I'm jealous. Those moose pics remind me of a trip I took to hunt to Newfoundland for moose in 2001. Great trip and great people there. They said they had a ton of hares there though few people ran beagles.
The people up there think we are nuts for chasing rabbits, or even getting off of the road. Every time someone see's our dogs they think we are running bear. Which we may be sometimes, who knows, haha.

It was all DIY, luckily a few of the guys have been going up for several years so they have it all figured out and I get to just tag along.

2barrel
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Location: West Virginia

Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by 2barrel »

Enjoyed the pics and video.

Frank Pinker
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Re: October Maine Hare Hunt

Post by Frank Pinker »

Great video looks like you guys had a blast

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