Saturday December 1, 2007....Around 2 A.M. last night I was awakened by a howling wind blowing hard against the house, and the trees whistled as cold air rushed through their branches. Oh Boy! Tomorrow is gonna be a humdinger of a day in the woods with the hounds. Sure enough just as forecasted, at 5:30 A.M. it was still howling out, and the temperature was locked in at 22 degrees. Christopher and I got some breakfast and gathered our stuff for the hunt. Today we would take just LUKE my young male dog and Hannah would stay in the kennel as she hurt a shoulder the other day and I wanted to make sure it had recuperated before I'd run her again. Steve Mayo a friend of mine would hunt with us today. Steve hunted with us all the time a few years ago and it was nice to have him come along today. We picked up Joshua along the way and would rendezvous with Neal, Wayne and a friend of Neal's who answered to the name "Brother". Neal had brought 2 hounds, Nynah and Heidi..
LUKE has been in on only a few hunts this year and has progressed well as pup. All three dogs would get severely challenged today.
When we got to the hunting place we had selected, the wind hadn't let up at all, and getting out of a nice cozy warm truck made one wonder why in the world we even came out in this wind. "LIFE OF A HARE HUNTER, NEVER EASY". We hit the woods in a place where we had great luck last year but today it was all work. We walked around this cover for nearly an hour before LUKE jumped one and our hunt finally began. LUKE hunts great and the young dog shows a lot of promise for our kind of hunting. We were running in a pretty open area with a lot of oak trees and some hemlock stands, with thickets of alders and small birches. Hearing the dogs was very difficult as you can imagine and we spent more time just trying to find the hounds. One minute you couldn't hear them, then the next minute they'd be near you. I used my "TRACKER" a lot just to locate the hounds as the hare ran in a very erratic manner, making the killing of the thing hard to get done. Christopher saw him once, Wayne saw him a couple times, I saw him twice, including a clean miss. At about the three hour mark the hare took the hounds into some low thicker cover where there was a lot of water and most of the water had iced over. The ice could support the hare in most places but not the hounds and the hunt slowed down considerably. During the earlier portion of the run Steve blasted a hare that turned out to be a stray, which happens occasionally.
The young dogs Nynah and LUKE of this bloodline showed really well given the conditions we were in, and I wished that HANNAH and CHASE were in on this hunt with us. We caught the hounds on the edge of the frozen swamp at the three hour and thirty minute mark so we could move away from the ice. Twenty minutes later we got another start and they circled this one checkless to the muzzle of Christophers gun. The bunny died and this ended a very tough outing as we quit early because the hearing was so poor.
On the way home we drove by a small pond and the wind was whipping up some strong waves with white caps on them. Very rare event on such a small pond. The kids had to memorize some verses out of the Psalms for tomorrows Church service, so I guess the LORD saw fit to put up a stink with the weather in order to drive us out of the woods early so they could learn their verses and recite them without balking. As it turned out both Joshua and Christopher did their parts well in front of the congregation!
I checked the weather report when I got home and just as I thought it got colder as the day passed, getting down to 19 degrees, the wind blowing 20-30 MPH sustained, and the dew point dropping to -6 degrees. Not a fun day, but the hounds performed well and the experience they got on this stuff did them good. More tough days ahead for sure, but that's the way it is! LIFE OF A HARE HUNTER!

Wednesday December 5, 2007.... When I headed out this morning to pick up Kenny for a day's hunt the truck thermometer displayed one degree outside. But when I pulled into his driveway twenty minutes later it had warmed up to a cozy three degrees. On Monday we got ten inches of light fluffy snow that came down in extremely dry air and this mornings cold temperature would once again challenge the dogs. I would hunt Hannah again and Kenny would bring another one of her half brothers (same sire) who goes by the name of Buddy. Buddy is LUKE's older brother and is a tough as nails stocky built hound, nice looking and very capable. To make matters worse on this morning, the snows that came just a day ago stuck to the trees, so seeing in this stuff would be limited and hearing would be a major problem again. Last Saturday was pretty bad with the strong winds and today with little wind, the audio would be close to nothing.
The dogs were cast into the swamp and two steps into the bush put them out of sight. There was a fair amount a hare tracks and I figured it wouldn't take too long to get a start. Well, I have no idea when they actually started 'cause you couldn't hear very much. Kenny and I split up, and since I knew the area better than he did, I decided to double time it around the swamp to the other side to take up a well known stand there. When I got to the stand, Kenny said on the radio that he could hear them running, but because I had been walking at a steady pace I hadn't heard them at all. And after he called I still couldn't hear them. A while I could hear them sporadically.
After an hour passed the hounds worked their way closer to me and were running at a slow pace and I thought it was best for us to catch them and move to another portion of this cover. I called the dogs with my horn and they came in to me quickly. I leashed them up and cast them into another really thick swampy area, but in this spot there was a high knob just at the edge of the swamp and from here we would at least be able to hear some of the running. The dogs ran some at first then would check and then run a bit more and would check. Then we'd get a better spurt only to be interrupted by another check. No doubt about it the scenting was not good. We just stood up there overlooking the maze of white stuff and tangled up bushes. No way were we going to see a hare in there and shoot it. We enjoyed some good fellowship just listened to the dogs struggle just enough to keep a line moving. Every time out on snow is a new challenge! Scenting conditions sometimes can change by the hour. But as time passed the running got steadier and a lot better. After a pretty good circle the hounds put a bit more pressure on the hare and they headed our way. Where we were was actually a good crossing to be on when pressure was exerted on the bunnies, as there was some real thick pines behind us on the high ground. Hannah was was about 20 yards behind Buddy and 20 yards to the right of him? Both hounds were into a good drive and getting closer and closer. Here comes a bunny flat out running a bit off to our right, and some 20 yards beyond this hare was another one. Both hare coming as fast as they could run on this flour like snow heading for the pines. Kenny let out a blast from his twenty and I followed up with a blast out of my own gun and dumped the brownest looking rabbit on this white snow as you would ever find. As it turned out we shot at different bunnies and only one died. Our hunt continued and it would take us over two hours to get the second one dead. Both hounds did a lot of hard work grubbing out some early running and finished up by keeping the hare going with a lot of authority. But it was once again a tough day in the woods, with the cold early in the day and visibility and hearing as poor as it gets. But that's the way it goes. Hare hunting is not easy but it sure is a lot of fun!

Thursday December 6, 2007.... It was a sad day today as we had to have our Dear friend "Timmy" laid to rest.. This dog was one of 28 pups that I bred with a mating of Nomad's Buckshot Mr Bill to Wingate's Faith, that was made four times over the span of a few years. Timmy took his first breath in my hand when I delivered him in the whelping box in my basement on December 12, 1995. I kept 2 others of this cross Leb City Saint Peter and Leb City Saint Candace and we hunted this trio for many years with great success. Timothy never ran off game and was a friendly happy hunting companion and very manageable in the woods. He never won a thing at the couple trials he was entered in, but he was a big winner in every sense when we took him to the woods with a gun in hand. He was in every respect that which a hunting dog should be and we will miss his contributions to our hunts and his friendly cooperative spirit. It didn't go easy at the Vets when he looked me in the eye and put his two front feet up on my lap..............

Friday December 7, 2007.... Christopher had a half day off from school today. One of those early out things that they do in this school systen once and a while? I had promised him that we'd do a short hunt after he got home from school, so after he got a bite to eat off we went. Joshua who is home schooled got his Mom to say he could go with us. We took just Hannah as one dog would be plenty for a quick hitter. It was 25 degrees out so the scenting should be OK and in the winter you always have to say; should be! We tried a small cover not far from home that can hold a rabbit or two. At first we scoured the woods without even seeing an old track. I cut through a small patch of thick pines I new about and found a few tracks. Hannah responds really good to voice command and worked the cover industriously and put one out of a squat. Off she went and I called the boys to find a place to stand and to keep their eyes peeled. I didn't carry a gun on this hunt as I wanted the kids to shoot the bunny if at all possible. This place didn't have a lot of thick cover, but did have a lot of large open pines, so the rabbit would be hard to predict where the crossing would be. But the boys have been trained to watch those places where the cover is best, and wait it out. Fifty minutes into the chase Joshua lets go two shots out of his "pea shooter", but the rabbit doesn't die. Hannah pushed the rabbit around that place for another hour before Christopher killed it with his new 12 single shot gifted to him by an uncle who lives in Tupper Lake New York. Well, Hannah did a good job on that hare even though the hare ran repeatedly over the old tracks in the ten inches of soft snow. For a short hunt this went pretty good. We'll do it again tomorrow; Lord willing!

Saturday December 8, 2007....Today would be an abbreviated hunt as the kids have a Christmas party at the Church so I must make sure that they get there on time so we would quit early this afternoon. It was 15 degrees out this morning when we headed out to meet Neal, Wayne and Alec to hunt with Christopher , Daniel and myself. I'd run Hannah and Neal would run Nynah and Chase. I wanted to bring Luke for his first snow hunt but the situation given the depth of snow and the type of snow was not in his best interest. I hate to put a young dog down with more experienced dogs in deep fluffy snow. Hannah will run most of the front and the cold, fluffy, ten inches of powder will completely obliterate the track once it's been run over. Young eager hounds aren't best served putting them in that sort of situation. At least that's how I train. Yesterday Hannah ran real well on the one rabbit we got to chase and today it was a bit warmer, so I looked forward to some great running. NOT!!!!
We cast the hounds and found many old tracks in the five day old snow and they were covered with many more coyote tracks. This was something we'd have to watch for during the hunt, as there have been many reports of coyotes attacking beagles over the last few years. We've never had a problem but we're careful nonetheless. The dogs spent the next few hours trying to get a run going but all they could do is a bit of cold trailing and some barking here and there. We got a short run going finally but the hare got turned by a hunter cutting into the dogs. In tough scenting when a hare runs back over the old tracks it's tough to figure out when scenting is poor. I decided to pick up the dogs and move a quarter of a mile further into the cover and hope for a restart. That done the dogs jumped one and it was like flipping a switch. They ran much steadier now and after several circles our young friend ALEC shot the hare.
Alec is going to college and is in the National Guard and has already been deployed once in IRAQ. Let's hope he doesn't have to make another tour there!
After this kill we moved the dogs up a bit further into the cover and Hannah put one out of a squat and this time the hounds made the rabbit roll with his ears pinned back. The temperature had warmed up a bit but the snow was still cold and frosty in most places under the shade of the thick pines and hemlocks. Scenting conditions sure can change and who can figure it? NOBODY!
The hounds ran real well and the few checks they had didn't last long as the hounds quickly snatched the line back into a moving chase. Daniel got a whack at the hare during this run and told me after that the hare was moving left to right on a dead run and he pulled up just ahead of the running rabbit to lead it some and pulled the trigger. About that same time the rabbit stopped motionless and all the bird shot peppered the snow just ahead of the sitting bunny. "Daniel" I said, you did the right thing as you'll shoot more bunnies the way you handled the situation than not. But STUFF happens and that's the way it goes. We got a few more runs with the hounds performing well and headed out. I had the group stop for a photo shoot with the dogs Nynah, Chase at the left and Hannah on the right kissing the rabbit. We had a lot more time to get more hunting in but "Getting to the Church on time" was more important.
Alec! Put a hat on or I'll tell your mother.

Tuesday December 11, 2007....Here we go again, off for another local hunt. Reggie, Kenny and I would try our luck under similar conditions as what we experienced last Saturday. Cold single digit morning temperatures, followed by a rise on the thermometer by mid afternoon. We got about an inch of snow late yesterday afternoon so all the tracks we'd see were newly made and where we went there were a lot of "newly made's". We had Hannah and Hank to hunt once again today under mostly cloudy skies. We tried a new place today where we saw some hare sign during deer season and by the looks of the tracks it appeared that there was a fair amount of hare in this cover for around here. Hannah got a start not long after we got into the woods and pushed this hare right out of hearing. Snow was still clinging on the trees from the storm we got last week so hearing wasn't too good. This place had a lot of small hills and knolls covered mostly by small pine trees. Hank never heard Hannah go off on this hare and she got out of my hearing quite quickly too. Kenny was in the best position to stay with her which he did and I stayed with Hank. After 30 minutes of nothing I got Hank to follow me and Kenny said Hannah was still running. Finally I could hear her running but by now Hank was off looking for one of his own so I headed for Hannah to try to get this one "killed". During the pretty good solo run that Hannah was putting on, I delivered out of my "scatter gun" a package of little tiny balls of lead right smack into the running bunny and he never moved another muscle after that. During the run she apparently jumped out another hare as Reggie found a fresh track not far from where she had been running and put her on the track and off she went. By now Hank came upon the scene and the two dogs got together and gave us a fun time of "run-n-gun" hunting. You can see in the photo that one of the rabbits taken was still pretty darn brown for this time of year. Brown on brown, white on brown, brown on white; what the heck difference does it make??? Hare hunting is hare hunting and "How Sweet It Is"!!! "That's why we got 'em; that's what we do".

Saturday December 15, 2007....It's going to be another "tuff" morning in the woods today, 'cause as we rolled out of the driveway at 6:50 A.M. it was 5 degrees with about 12 inches of frosty fridged powdered snow, with the texture of sugar and a dew point into the single numbers. Cold and dry is never a good combination up here. Christopher and I and Daniel pulled into Reggie's driveway at quarter of eight and the temperature was the same. A few minutes later Neal drove up with Wayne and his son Jake on board and a special guest of Wayne's who is called RYAN McKINTYRE. Now Ryan is a really young "YUTE", just 9 years of age and he'll begin his rabbit hunting apprenticeship with us today. Maine has a DUMB law that a kid under good supervision can't hunt with a gun until they're 10 years of age. Well mother nature will take care of that as Ryan will have been aged for 10 years come next August. Halleluia!!!
He doesn't know it, but today he'll be hunting with the best rabbit hunters around here if not in the whole state of Maine. After we had cast the hounds HANNAH, NYNAH and CHASE very little time passed by before we had a hare going. We got a half circle spurt before the hounds checked up and the run went sporadic after that. These young dogs are still over anxious and it took a while to get them settled in. As time passed the running got better and better. A shot was fired and one of the boys chalked it up as a clean miss! Man I'm glad I never did that! The dogs moved quite a ways away from us and when I reached a place to stand not too far from the running hounds, I cleaned out some brush and branches with my little folding saw and waited. A couple more shots hit the air and dropped pellets in the snow somewhere in the forest. Then a single shot rang out not awfully far from me and the hounds drew near; and then nearer. I saw movement, got the "auto" ready for action and then honed in on the "bounding bunny" with "THE TERMINATOR"; and fired. Bre'r rabbit was laid to rest right there in the snow, that is until Ryan moved in to pick up the fur ball for me. My new gun will be known as THE TERMINATOR from this day forward as Billy Superneau of Vermont wishes to have exclusive rights with the name UNDERTAKER on his Benelli. Rabbits need only hope that the TERMINATOR and the UNDERTAKER don't hunt the same cover at the same time; EVER! For they will surely die!

It wasn't long before we had another hunt going and even though we had action enough, I got pretty cold. There was something about the day as the cold was penetrating for some reason but still the hounds ran OK. We quit a bit early in the afternoon as everybody "had the radish", as we say, and the hunt ended with JAKE drilling the last rabbit.
The little guy Ryan got to shoot at a ball of snow with the TERMINATOR just before we quit, and blasted it to "smithereeeens". Bring on the rabbits; right Ryan?

Thursday December 20, 2007....It never ends. It seems that hunting conditions continue to wax poorer and poorer. It's snowing again this early morning with temperatures in the teens. I just saw on T.V. that school has been called off for today. I'll take the kids hunting I guess rather them let them just hang around watching the "boob tube". We've had about 22 inches of snow so far this FALL. YUP! That's right; this fall as winter is still a day or two away. So much for "GLOBAL WARMING"! We've have zero, below zero, single digit cold morning and the snow has built up layer by layer up to your knees.

I called Reggie early and told him I'd drop by his place about 9:30 after I got all the gear on board and the kids picked up. It's still snowing as we drive northward and the stuff is clinging to the trees like soap suds on your wife's head at bath time. In the woods you can't see very far and hearing is radically impaired. The kids think this is great no school and hunting we will go. They'll learn as it's always better the day after the storm than during the storm. Sure they might run good but you won't see much and you'll hear about none of the run. The plan was that we'd drive to a handy little spot and let the three kids Christopher, Daniel and Joshua , work the two dogs HANNAH and LUKE. Reggie and I would stay at the truck to cover a tote road often crossed by the rabbits. Christopher said that it might be hard to find a track, so I let him in on the good news; he wouldn't find ANY tracks given the lateness of the storm. Any tracks generated by foraging bunnies in the night would be surely covered. "THE YUTES" would have to work the hounds through the tough pine thicket until they found a bunny. This place is handy to hunt, but it sure doesn't hold a lot of game. It took nearly an hour before I get a call on the radio that the dogs had a start. GREAT! But we couldn't hear a thing from where Reggie and I were! That's O.K. as I called the kids and encouraged them to get the bunny shot. Every once and a while Christopher would call to say that they were still running and just where they were. Reggie and I walked down the road a ways from the truck to cover a well known crossing but still we couldn't hear the dogs. I decided to cut into the woods to locate the hunt and help direct the kids to get the rabbit. I came across Danny and repositioned him a bit and could barely hear the dogs coming our way. In these conditions when you hear them, they're close. I called Reggie and told him where the hunt was so he could adjust his position. KAAPPPOOOWWWwwww! Danny, standing right near me, let fly a round out of his NOVA and killed the rabbit. By now all the kids are soaking wet from walking through the snow covered pines. The dogs came up the line to the dead bunny and they were wallowing in the deep powder. Pick 'em up I said; let's quit and go get a hot dog. I heard NO complaints!

Saturday December 22, 2007....Just the way it is! Life of a Hare Hunter! NOT EASY! Since the first of Decemember we've gotten 28 inches of snow and temperatures have dropped well below normal. We hunted today but the dogs had a very difficult time of it with their mobility. The temperature was in single digits early, but warmed up to 26 degrees in the afternoon. It took over an hour to get a start, primarily because the dogs couldn't cover enough ground as quickly as they normally do. And where we were the hare population wasn't all that great. CHASE finally got a hare going and eventually HANNAH got to him to help out. It seemed that the scenting was pretty good but the dogs moved the line slowly as they struggled to make good forward motion. They ran steady for an hour before the hare who was staying way ahead of the hounds died of lead poisoning. We decided to hunt our way back out and call it a day. So after three hours of wallowing in the snow we headed for the hot dog stand. Forecasting rain tomorrow and a warming trend. That's what we need, some warm weather to settle the snow, then get it frozen and start all over. Nothing easy about winter hunting. But it's still A LOT OF FUN!

Thursday December 27, 2007....The conditions out are pretty bad but we decided to hunt a while today anyway. Now we have a frozen crust of ice/snow on the surface of the white stuff and it doesn't support the weight of a dog but easily lets the bunnies roam without making a mark. We'll be on snowshoes once again heaven forbid, but it's either that or stay home. We limited ourselves to a short hunt, for we din't want to over do it for fear of too much would run a high risk in getting the dogs feet cut. Frozen crust that breaks through is highly abrasive and dogs can cut their pads and sometimes they cut quite badly. I took LUKE today with HANNAH and Neal brought just NYNAH. NYNAH is rigged up as you can see in the photo with a GARMIN GPS system that appears to have some great potential for tracking hounds in the woods. The hand held device keeps very accurate position location of the dog and tells you exactly how far the animal is. It prices out at about 600 bucks but that is half the price of many old technology syatems like the TRACKER I have. The weakness in this current GARMIN system in my view, is in the vest like harness that the dog has to wear that holds the transmitting antenna device. If they redesign this part of the system without the vest then I'm in for one of these systems. Works great but needs a transmitter redesign.

We cut the dogs loose under cloudy skies with an air temperature of 30 degrees with no wind and good visibility. A great day to hunt except for the hard crust. THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING! We worked the dogs slowly through the same cover we hunted the other day because we didn't have to travel far. Not a lot of rabbits but we only needed one. After a while HANNAH and NYNAH jumped one out of a squat and they ran about 3 minutes to a hard check. They screwed around on this check about 5 minutes then started to make some headway with the 3 hounds working well together at a slow pace due to the breaking crusty snow. About 15 minutes into the run Joshua got a shot at the hare and MISSED. The hounds got into running pretty steady with each one of them taking turns doing some individual work. I worked my way toward them but in the process I inadvertantly turned the hare right back over his track as it turned out. The dogs came running right toward me checking about 30 yards in front of me. They worked over the frozen snow with great style and took a line straight back away from me that looked like it could've been a backtrack. But they never faltered running this double line and kept it going in a steady fashion for another hour before they came back to my stand. Moving around too much on this stuff can be counter productive as the hare can hear you with the snowshoes on this surface. Finally I saw the hare coming and took a shot at him with the TERMINATOR! He was moving at a good pace and after the shot stopped dead in his tracks unharmed by the first blast. I reacted too quickly and my second shot sailed right over the four footed beast and then I cranked 2 more shots at the thing for nought. I thought that maybe the Benelli let me down but after further review I decided to blame Joshua for my miss. For if the "YUTE" had killed this hare earlier I would not have missed this rabbit at all. Then Neal followed up with a blast of his own, Then Reggie; THE SUPER DUPER POOPER SCOOPER TROOPER threw two rounds of his own at the bunny. All in all the dogs ran this hare over two hours and it should've died but didn't. We caught the hounds when they got close to where we would head out and we did just that; headed out after a very nice run by the dogs. LUKE did pretty good for a young dog on his first exposure to icy crust. We quit just about in time, as NYNAH was starting to bleed a bit.

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