Run to catch

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Well last couple of days of the season and I got to go over to middle Tn. and take a hunt with good friend Peter Burns - Puckett Creek Kennel in Murfressboro. This hunt has been an annual thing for the past nine years since I moved over here to east Tn.
Pete has some real good private land spots and we returned to one that we'd hunted several years ago.
It didn't disappoint as the running was outstanding with us taking some and missing several others.
We ran 3 of Pete's hounds - all males and my 4 girls. All of these dogs are related .
I'm going to try and post a pic and see if it posts. I've noticed that since they up-graded this site that all the photos that have been posted on this thread are now gone with just blank spaces where the pics were?????
Hope you all had a good running / gunning season.

[Aubrey Holcombe]

Sure is a good looking photo Dana.

I got to run all day yesterday, in the Goose Pond, Oglethorpe County, Ga. had a few good races, but due to low rabbits this season we didn't shoot any.

May me my last season, this old age is about to get me down.

D.R.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Hey Daddy Rabbit. Know how you feel.Back in December I took a fall on some mud while running the dogs and according to the Ortho doc have a torn meniscus in my knee. He gave me a shot in it ,I'm wearing a support and eating Alleve's.Still running /hunting regular but it's bothersome.Got a problem with my right ankle/foot. Don't know which side to limp on.LOL.

Last day of the Tennessee hunting season. Got to hunt today up in Grainger County with father -son Bradly and Brandon Reed and my son Zach.
The country up there is very steep hills/ridges,deep hollows.It's all basically rough pasture land but really open with thick brier patches throughout.
When you get a rabbit up they run big,hard and about as fast as a cotton tail is capable of.
That may account for the fact that we were able to shoot some but not as many as we missed.All 4 of us missed at least 1 and 3 of us missed 2 !!
Hope you all enjoyed a good hunting season.
I'm now looking forward to running some of these breeding bucks in March / early April. I have some of the best year's running during that time.

[Aubrey Holcombe]

Hello:

Glad it's over, may be my last year to gun hunt? Man I have truly enjoyed this year,, Spit had a ball, that thing is a mess!

Gotta run,, wife calling me for super. see you..

D.R.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Well I guess you can tell rabbit gun season is over. Look at several of the inter net beagle sights [especially Face Book ]and you'll see they are full of dogs "up for discussion" otherwise known as "for sale".To me it's pretty obvious that there are a lot of guys that are just "dumping" the dogs that they used for killing rabbits during season.
Guys that buy running dogs 2 weeks before gun season opens and then have them for sale a week after the season closes, to me aren't what I'd call houndsmen. They're consumers of a product.This practice seems most onerous in the beagle world. Do many not value these little hounds?
I've never known of a retriever man picking up a Lab to kill ducks with over a 8 week season then sending him down the road as soon as it ends.Don't believe the Setter / Pointer fraternity do that either.I kept coon hounds for many years and never heard a guy say "ya I treed a truck load of coon with him this season but I ain't keeping him through the summer". I can tell you the bear and cat hunters when they've got one that gets the job done don't peddle them down the road when the season ends.
Now I'm not ever going to keep a worthless or faulty dog in my kennel but all the dogs in my kennel have either been born here or since they were weaning pups and will be here until they die - God willing. They are my hunting companions and because I spend more time with them than most people I know they are my buddies too. I could no more swap or trade them off like they were nothing more than game roosters.
I've known several guys that are forever on the prowl for the next great hound - buying and selling like there was no tomorrow.Most times they were disappointed and their packs were often erratic with these new hounds often not fitting in or even performing as advertised.
Be careful when you see somebody has "up for discussion- two 8 year old males that are top running dogs for $300.00 or a 10 year old bitch that you could " make your money back with just one litter". Please ! Give me a break !
There's a world of difference between a houndsmen and just a guy that has some beagles.
Caveat emptor -- let the buyer beware.

[Swampman]

Excellent post Dana, couldn't agree more!!

BTW, nice pics, don't understand why you are posting pics from late Sept/early Oct though (no snow)?
CT season over here, now it's time to make some trips up to the cabin to run the Ghost of the north.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Hey Rowdy
Those pics were both taken last week of February. Only snow we got this winter was about 2 inches the first week of November and it was all gone the next day.And ya my dogs could run on snow. LOL .
I'm envious of you getting after the hare.I'll have to wait until this coming October to head north and give em a whirl.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

I'm sure you've all seen it many times but as long as I've been watching hounds work it still puzzles me.
Yesterday morning I turned my two older dogs loose on a blue sky 43 degree morning.These two are 6 and 8 years old and usually when they get a rabbit up they can circle it without problems for as long as he wants to run.
Well,they jumped fairly quickly and for the next 45 minutes or so they struggled,ran U.B.G.F. speed and had long checks. They were circling the rabbit but just never seemed like they could get up on him and drive.I thought scenting conditions should have been good as we'd had rain recently and there was no wind.
All of a sudden something changed and I can't tell you what but the running took off and they pounded that rabbit for the next hour !
This morning the weather was identical to yesterday.I had 5 year old Fly and 3 year old Queen out. They jumped fairly quickly and it was off to the races and they flogged that rabbit around the W.M.A. at speed with minimal checks for over an hour. Then it began to change. Their race got slower and the checks got longer and it was obvious that the race was deteriorating -- but I could see no obvious change to account for it.
They kept the rabbit moving as I saw him several times but they really never could get a good drive going on him again and it wasn't like he was way out in front of them.
I've seen occasions where you have the clouds open up and rains coming down ,or it starts to snow,or the wind suddenly picks up,or the sun comes out from behind the clouds and gets hot, change a race right in the middle of it.But the difference in these two days didn't have that to factor in.
I've seen where slow hounds can fall so far behind a hare or swamper that the game really just runs off and leaves them and they peter out or as one guy puts it"die beautifully on the check".
I've also seen fast hounds that want to push so bad that they race and swing and get over competitive to the point they just blow the race up and can't recover the line. Those things i understand and they are pretty obvious when they happen.
It's the vagaries of how a race can change right during it when conditions don't appear to change that is often baffling.
Your thoughts?
Ya, I know -- barometric pressure. LOL

[Beagle Huntsman]

Interesting post. Shows how scenting is a funny thing and often hard to predict. I had a similar day with my pack this week, but the day was cloudy, rainy, and cool - a day you would think would have great scenting. They ran the last rabbit of the day for an hour in the rain before holing it under a big rock on the hillside, but it was never a pretty run. They made several circles on the hill and a couple in the swamp below. They really had to pick when the rabbit was in the swamp water. Just an odd run to a successful ending. Not what you expect and hope to get this time of year.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

During this winter's gun season it occurred to me that some of my best running was during the worst weather days.Hard to figure.

[steve w]

I used to shoot a lot of rabbits, our season ends 3/31. I found over time and a lot of dead rabbits that when they were breeding you would have two kinds of runs, real good and real bad. If you shot a rabbit during a real good run it usually was a buck with his balls hanging out, bad run usually produced a pregnant doe. I know this has been argued both ways before and scientifically it probably doesn't make sense but after gutting a lot of rabbits over a number of years it sure seemed logical to me. Take it for what it's worth.

[Beagle Huntsman]

I believe that too, Steve. Nothing like a buck rabbit in April with a good pack of hounds on a high scenting day!

[Shady Grove Beagles]

steve w. Makes a lot of sense and Beagle Huntsman you've got that right. I've always maintained that here in Tn. my very best running is right after the gun season ends 2/28.March and early April produce cottontails that can run really big.
When I lived in New Hampshire the term "crazy as a March hare" really rang true.You could jump a hare and he'd head out straight away sometimes for a mile to his home territory before starting to circle.

[Beagle Huntsman]

Rabbits who make half a circle then hole at this time of year I believe are the pregnant does. I sometimes get several runs like that, then jump one who runs hilltop to hilltop, most likely a buck. Sometimes those buck cottontails, like the hare Dana mentions, take off for home territory, often distant from where they were jumped, and do not return.

[steve w]

Beagle Huntsman you make me think of another thing I have noticed this time of year is the incredibly long runs, it just seems the rabbit won't quit nor will the dogs. Sometimes the rabbit goes like Shadygrove said of the hare to distant area's, yet other times it stays in the same general area yet won't go to ground. I have often wondered if it just (the rabbit) does not know where refuge is.Also I would like to know if a male rabbit is breeding does it smell more? It would seem so judging by the way the dogs run.