December 2004 Hunting Stories

Thursday December3, 2004 at 4 A.M.   FINALLY, the 2004 deer season in Maine is over and now we can get it on once again after them SNOWSHOE HARE with the hounds.  Steve Mayo and I are in my driveway loading up the hounds in his vehicle along with all the accoutrements needed for the planned 3 day hunt. It's a bit on the cool side at 22 degrees with clear skies and no wind. Steve will run a pair of dogs, Valerie and Leah; and I'll take Timmy and Sophie. All the dogs have BUCKSHOT MR BILL blood in them and are very capable hunting dogs. Sophie did well at the trials this past year earning her "Field Championship" title and gaining enough points to become the State of Maine's "2004 High Hound" in the 13" bitch class. She was retired from competition after finishing at CAYUGA LAKE in July and competed in only 7 trials all year. The trials are fun but the dogs are for hunting as far as we're concerned. Both Valerie and Leah have 2 licensed wins apiece and my buddy Timmy has never been campaigned and is just an old reliable gundog and has been in on hundreds of kills over the years and part of some great great hunts.
Up route 95 we go with great anticipation heading toward a parcel of property I purchased this past summer up north. We're going to hunt that general area on this hunt and hope for the best. After some 150 miles of driving we pull off the highway for breakfast at the DYSART'S truck stop as this is a great place to eat if you're traveling in these parts. With breakfast finished we keep on trucking some many more miles and finally reach a motel where we'll sleep the next two nights. We stop at a few stores along the way to pick up a few incidentals so its not until nearly 10 A.M. before we're standing in a tote road ready to release the hounds. This is a cover we never have been in before as we strive to learn this area and hope for the best. Leah is coming in heat so we decide to run Sophie, Valerie and Timmy. They're cut loose and in 15 seconds or less Sophie gets a start and the hounds blend in together and we're off. The temperature is about 25 degrees up here now but the wind is blowing horribly at 30-40 MPH. Just difficult to hear and it blows like this all the day long taking some of the fun out of the hunt.
The area is thick with fir and cedar trees, hard to walk through and very hard to see in. Though the hare are white and the ground bare, killing the critters comes slow. The run is big and steady and the visibility at near zero. When you can't see your boot in some places shooting is nearly impossible. The hare crosses the road near the truck and angles a sharp right heading toward the hot top road about a half a mile away. When I got out to the truck I realized what happened and headed for the hot top. Sure enough they had crossed the main road and were circling in a small thicket up there. I had a chance to catch them and I did because this wasn't a good place to hunt with cars whizzing by. I walked the hounds back to where we started and cast them again. Again in less that a minute Sophie has another hare going and we get another good run but this hare stays in the general area and died an hour later. The wind never stopped blowing and the temperature was dropping. We got some long runs and managed a fair amount of shooting at the white fur balls. Steve got his limit before we quit at 3:30 P.M. and I cut a few HAIRS myself. But the wind made the hunt a difficult experience. This was the first time I ever saw Valerie run as Steve just purchased her from Tony and I thought she ran real well today. Steve was pretty happy the way she ran too!

Friday December4, 2004 at 6:00 A.M.  We roll out of the sack and head toward our hunting grounds and stop at a nice little restaurant for breakfast along the way. The plan is to hunt Leah and Sophie in the morning then Valerie and Timmy in the afternoon. We drive to another new place to try and cast the two dogs. With uncanny "luck" Sophie gets a start once again within minutes of being cast. This dog is all business and is a great starter. Off the two hounds go right on out of hearing. It's a lot colder this morning at 12 degrees and everything is frozen solid. The puddles of water are covered with an inch of ice and with all the rain we've experienced the last few weeks ice is everywhere. Bare ground; sure, but hard as a rock and cold. The only good thing though is that the wind is gone. Overcast skies, cold and no wind! I've seen a lot worse. So here we are in strange woods and we can't hear the hounds. I get the "tracker" out and monitor their location for ten minutes or so before we hear them coming back. Steve and I move in to intercept them but the hare gets by us and keeps going crossing the road by the truck. I radio Steve and he has already moved across the road heading for the dogs. I head out too and get to the road just in time to see the hare cross back some 100 yards away. The white rabbits we ran yesterday ran "BIG" and this fur ball was no exception. After a two hour run Steve drilled this one too and the end of a pretty screaming run came to an end. Sophie starts again and again the hare crosses the road but this time doesn't come back. Way, way out there just barely within hearing they run and run and run some more. We move in on them only to encounter a stand of fir trees growing thicker than down on a goose. Think of small trees an inch or so in diameter 5-6 feet tall growing 3-4 inches apart and acres and acres of it. The hounds come near us several times and we couldn't see them just a few feet away. We moved around as best we could trying to get positioned to do some shooting but couldn't find openings big enough to see through so we decided to catch the hounds. Easy to say but not so easy to do. Forty five minutes later we get the drop on the pair in full cry and end the hunt this time with a snap on the end of a leash. Now where's the truck! With no sun and in thick fir trees where everything looks the same a compass only gets you out to a road not necessarily the shortest way out. We bushwhacked out of that tangle with the help of Steve's GPS which he had decided to carry with him on this hunt. Boy that thing was a real help.
We got to the truck and had a drink of Gatorade and then drove to another place to hunt Val and Tim the remainder of the day. Its still cold out but with all the moving around we do, cold really isn't that big a deal. The "TOOLMAN" gets a hare going and we enjoy some great running the rest of the day on one rabbit and picked up the hounds about 4:00 P.M. after Steve shot the hare that was 7 1/2 minutes ahead of the two dogs. Tim and Val matched up well together and Steve was pretty pleased with his new hound. She is sired by Fd. Ch. John's Buck VII and out of Rich Holdens great bitch "Holden's Lakeside Beauty".

Saturday December 5, 2004 at 6:00 A.M.  This is a travel day home for us today so we hurry out of the motel and head for breakfast so we can get as much hunting in as we can before we head south. Our strategy today is to hunt Sophie and Leah first, for two hours, or for two rabbits which ever comes first, and then hunt Val and Timmy the balance of the the time until we decide to call it quits. Its really cold this morning with the air temperature at 9 degrees but thank God no wind. The ground is frozen solid and so isn't the acres and acres of moss which covers most of the woods in some of these covers. We try one of the places we hunted back in October and it wasn't long before Sophie gets a start and Leah harks in. Everything is frost covered and the tote road is a mass of stalagmite like formations protruding upward like spikes of frozen ice. In a few minutes the hounds push the rabbit across the road too far for a shot and they continue to run with great authority for an hour before Steve kills the thing in some thick greenery on an ice covered swamp. A while later Sophie does a bit of cold trailing and it wasn't too long after that, that rabbit number two was getting clobbered by the two hounds. The sun had come up a bit and some of the frost was melting where the sun would hit it. This was not a good situation for Mr. Bunny, as the additional dampness made scenting that much the better and this rabbit didn't live too long biting the dust a half an hour into this chase. We wrapped up this pair of hounds for the day as we had planned to do and drove to another place to finish the day with Val and Timmy.  We collared the two hounds and moved into the bush and "the TOOLMAN" opened a few times and Val was right there to responded likewise and off they went. The hare ran the same as all the others had on this hunt, BIG. That is to say the circles were huge and the patterns unusual for a hare to pull off at this time of the year. No doubt they being white on the bare ground effected their running styles for if the ground had been snow covered, the circles and running patterns in all probability would've been more traditional. Nevertheless Val and Tim pounded their first rabbit in every direction on a compass. Out of hearing over there and back again then out hearing in another direction on back again but never crossing in the same place with enough regularity to cut him off. Only thing to do in this situation is get a good crossing and wait. Sooner or later the critter will come back and that's just what happened. At 40 yards Steve slapped that hare with slug of bird shot right in the fur balls kisser ending a great 2 1/2 hour run. We got some more good steady running and killed a few more bunnies before we headed to the truck. Another GREAT hunt was behind us and the hounds ran flawlessly with NO LOST RABBIT over the three day hunt. YUK! Now we had a 250 mile drive home but we got the hounds, a bunch of bunnies and some more great memories.

Thursday December 16, 2004 at 8:30 A.M.    Man it's really cold here for this time of year with the temperature at 20 degrees. I've got Sophie on the truck and will hunt locally. Not many rabbits around here but we'll try to get a run or two in if we can. It's just about all bare ground at my house now but as I get to my hunting place some 15 miles north of me the ground is snow covered with 4 inches of hard concrete like snow and the thermometer in the truck reads 12 degrees. I never rabbit hunted this spot before but we do deer hunt it quite a bit. Great cover, real thick and a lot of water. But today that water is all ice and very slippery. It's a nice sunny day with no wind but cold dry air. For nearly an hour I don't get even a whimper out of Sophie as she hunts hard as she always does. Finally she opens a few times and begins to work some old scent she's comes across. She "Pop and Drops" for a while then it takes on a more meaningful sound and after a fashion she's into a run. There are deer tracks all over this place and I wonder? The run gets pretty steady as she heads for one of our well known deer crossings. Oh Oh! I'd better check this out so I hustle as fast as I could go in this thick cover and as I approach the edge of the swamp I fall down and my glasses go flying. Quickly I get up and mark this spot with my red gloves and continue heading for Sophie on a quick trot. When I get to the top of a knoll by a deer stand we use often, I notice that the hunt has turned back into the swamp and I'm confident that she's running straight. I head back to look for my glasses and find them by GOD's GRACE in some real thick cover. By now Sophie is nearly out of hearing toward the other end of the swamp running well even though it's mostly all ice in here. Since I know the area pretty well I cut toward her and a little clearing I know about just in time to see her pass by. "Good place to wait I guess" I said to myself, as moving around in this cover is just about useless. She's running good and I get to enjoy the music, so I just hang out here. A while later the hare makes a loop and doubles back heading down the line she ran when I saw her go by earlier. I'm a ready; and here he comes running at full tilt. KAPOW...KAPOW, the hare tumbles into a heap. Moments later Sophie slips down along the line chopping away right to the dead rabbit, concluding once again the "reason for being"; A BEAGLE. I'm pretty happy with the dog and I let her feel appreciated as we head out to the truck. I put my gear away and let the dog jump up into the front seat to ride home with me. I look at her curling up into a little ball on my jacket as we truck out of the woods on an old bumpy tote road. In a few minutes she's in a ball snug as a bug in a rug and staring right at me. I wonder what's going on in her mind right now but I suppose it goes something like, "thanks for taking me hunting today, I sure had a good time" and Oh Ya "I love you Pappy". The kids call me PAPPY around here and I guess the dogs do too?

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Saturday December 18, 2004 at 8:30 A.M.    It's very cold again this morning at 10 degrees with sunny skies and no wind. I haven't heard from the "deer hunters" who usually rabbit hunt with me so I imagine they are snoozing in preparations for a busy Christmas shopping day. SO! I'll just takes my two grandsons Christopher and David for a days hunt on a tough concrete like frozen snow and all the ice. So off we go heading for a cover that usually holds a few hare and we have Sophie and Timmy to run. If they can't run on this stuff nothing else I have can either. I decide to run in a place that usually holds a few hare and is pretty easy to hunt given I have the two boys with me. Both have .410 guage shotguns, David with a single shot and Christopher with a pump. I leave my gun in the truck and will just help the boys kill a bunny or two. I get out my GPS and collar the two dogs with transmitters. The GPS thing is new to me so I need some practice using it. It will be a helpful tool next year hunting around the camp property I just purchased up north.
The hounds are cast and it takes a while to get some noise going. As usual Sophie starts doing some cold trailing in an off and on fashion, and a while later Timmy joins her. All of a sudden the hounds are into a drive as the rabbit has been jumped. Chris is allowed to move around on his own a bit, but David with less experience stays with me. The hounds circumnavigate this entire cover and Christopher calls to say he saw the hare go by but couldn't get off a shot. At times the dogs would check on the cold surface and do some "bump and grind" running followed by a good steady drive. An hour ticked by and nobody has gotten another look at the bunny. The hounds are on a check up by the dirt road we drove in on, so I move up to see whats going on. By the time I get there the hounds are driving again on the other side of the road, so I call the boys on the "walkie talkie" to come out to the road. I place Christopher on a good crossing and David and I move into the bush and get into a good position before the hare turns and comes back. Pretty soon that's what happened, but the hare went by an opening a bit quicker than what David could react to! Pretty fast ain't they David I said and with a smile he said Ya Pappy. It didn't get any better with the other soldier on his post, as he looked the other way while the hare ran by behind him. This he never realized until the hounds came by right behind him and headed back across the road. We readjusted our positions once again and waited. We're two hours into this run by now and the dogs are running pretty steady. Not really fast now but steady as they have brains enough to adjust their pace to the conditions. I had noticed that the hare kept circling up into a little corner of this wood lot on each swing before he lined out to the other parts of this cover, so I called Christopher over and told him where he should go stand. Forty five minutes later the hare came back up to this spot but unfortunately for him ran by the little hunter and got drilled by a load of #4 bird shot. I witnessed the shot that Christopher made and thought to myself WOW that was a great shot at a running hare in an alder thicket. After three hours of running I saw the hare 3 times (no gun), David saw the hare two times and Christopher saw it two times. After the kill I asked the boys if they wanted to go to the store for a hot dog or two and they both let out a cheer!   We had a great time as the hounds ran pretty well, every body saw the hare several times and we got the bunny. HOW SWEET IT IS!

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Friday December 24, 2004 at 8:30 A.M.     It's raining out a bit and a heavy fog fills the air over the crusty snow. Some places are frozen and some places are wet. Warm air is rising over the cold air and a mixture of rain and in some places freezing rain depending on the highs and lows of the land, falls to the ground intermittently. I have Timmy and Reggie will run Pete on this hunt. The pine trees and hemlocks are dripping wet and a lousy day for hunting unfolds. To cut this story short I'll just say that the scenting was poor and the dogs couldn't run for beans. We got a start after 15 minutes or so and the dogs couldn't make a run. Off and on and off an on for over an hour the dogs try to gring it out but managed nothing more than a dead loss. Walking around was counter productive and only managed to get us wet. Time to cut our losses and quit. We headed out and in the process Pete jumped one and the two dogs ran it about a circle and it was killed. The dogs were leashed and we headed home soaking wet and cursing the conditions. The weather always plays a major roll hunting in the winter. It's not easy given the vast changes in running conditions that surface daily. There are plenty of bad days in winter hunting to go along with some better days. It's just the way it is!

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Wednesday December 29 2004 at 7:30 A.M.    We had planned a trip north for a couple of days with some guys however that didn't materialize. So a local hunt with just Reggie and my grandson David was made, and we hit the trail with the dogs Pete and his younger brother Timmy. We had a 3 day old snow of about 2 inches deep and the early temperature was 10 degrees. Generally speaking in this location rabbit populations are nothing close to what they are up north. But with tracking snow, we can usually find enough game to make a days hunt but have to do a lot more walking to get it done. It was a nice day with not much wind and clear skies. We walked in to our hunting area and cast the dogs. A few minutes went by before Pete opened up and got going. Couldn't hear Timmy with him at all and the minutes ticked off. Still no Timmy and Pete's running steady? Pete continues to run but no Timmy, still! Reggie calls me and says he hasn't heard Timmy in with Pete and we both conclude the same thing DEER!. I'm still and the spot where we had cast the hounds and David was with me so we took off heading to catch Pete. Reggie had moved on up ahead of me and we got lucky as the run swung by near Reggie and he caught Pete. We headed back to where we started with Pete on the leash and Timmy hunting along with us. Before we got too far Timmy opens up into a drive and we let Pete go. The two hounds ran straight away but with Timmy in the run we knew it was a bunny. Twenty minutes later the run comes our way and David sees the bunny but can't get off a shot. The dogs check a while then get the hare going again and Reggie shoots the thing a half an hour later. We got another hare going but the dogs didn't run as well this time with some checks and jerky driving. But they never lost the rabbit and continued to recover getting into some good drives only to be followed by a check. Then the hunt swung my way and I got a shot at the hare and tipped him over. He sat there about 40 feet away and then started to move right to left so I decided to drill him again instead of just letting the dogs run him down. I pulled up and started the swing of the shotgun as he moved only to deliver a full blast of pellets into an 8 inch oak tree that "jumped" up from nowhere between me and the hare. Soo, the dogs had to catch him after all, which they did. We got some more running and shot a couple more hare. David was getting "experienced" at missing rabbits pretty good and I knew that sooner or later he would connect. Toward the end of the day the dogs got ahold of a bunny that lit out into some big circles with David managing another miss. Huuummm, I've done that before! This rabbit ran all over the place and it took a while to figure hin out. Once we knew his M-O we got ourselves positioned in some of the crossings he'd used earlier. About an hour and fifteen minutes into the run the .410 went off and DAVID had shot his first rabbit ever. HALLELUIA! Another hunter in the family. I have Christopher my other grandson and now David. Both are thirteen and love the chase. One more grandson Daniel who is eleven now wants to hunt too! Pretty soon Reggie and I will have three pair of young legs to work the hounds and catch the hounds for us, YAAHOOOoooo!

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Thursday December 30 2004 at 8:30 A.M.    The day started with just David and I hunting but were later joined by Reggie. I had Sophie and Reggie had Pete. It was 9 degrees out with clear skies with no wind. Yesterday had warmed up to 30 degrees or so and where the sun had hit the snow had softened but the cold night had solidified it to a hard crust. We had one of those mornings that the cold was penetrating and it pinched your ears. Both dogs had trouble scenting and managed to just tongue here and there and off and on. We basically couldn't get a run going for a couple hours. Though both hunted well and tried hard they couldn't smell it well enough to run. Finally Sophie got a spurt put together then was joined by Pete and the pair managed to move the line with a bit more control and as time passed they ran better and better. After a fashion they ran steady as they both muckled on to the line with some authority. Around the lot they went several times and the hare got by David without the young hunter being able to crank off a shot. Later Brer rabbit was put into a dead run and he gave Dave the opportunity for a shot. Kapooow the .410 fired as David drilled a hole in the snow several feet behind the hare. Around they went once again and I managed to let fly a snap shot and figured a clean miss. But the hounds came wheeling down on the line and grabbed the dead hare twenty feet into the thicket.
We worked the dogs a bit and Pete started a hare working it up from scratch and later Sophie got into it with him and a real good run was put into motion. David got to shoot the wind another time and the hounds drove well. What a difference now compared to early this morning as the checks were few and short. Thirty minutes later Reggie emptied his over & under 20 guage as fast as you could ever pull a trigger twice, and the hunt continued. BUT now the dogs were driving as though it were a damp spring night, relentless and fast. I called Reggie on the phone and said he must've hit the hare for the run to get ramped up to this high a level. I was in a good spot and the hare came by but I was looking the other way in some tight cover and they continued right on by me. How in the world that hare ever got by me I'll never know; sure hasn't anything to do with the ageing process?? He got by David once again without a shot being fired and around they went one more time. I re-adjusted my position by moving up near the road we came in on that was a good, well known crossing and waited. Here they come! Right where I figured they would and prepared to put the critter down for good. But about 75 yards from me I heard the rabbit squealling as the dogs had run him down. I moved out quickly for the dogs and watched Pete licking his chops with dead bunny. I snapped up the two dogs and that was it for the day. Great couple days of hunting. David got some good experience and managed to shoot his first hare yesterday. Today he drilled holes in the snow but had a good time nontheless.

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