JANUARY STORIES 2004

January 1, 2004   9:00 A.M.  Happy New year. Let's hope it is just that for all of us. Starting the new year off right with a local area hunt. I met up with my nephew MATT at "BOONIE'S Country store in Shapleigh Me. It's cold this early at about 20 degrees as it has been lately with the daily high temperatures forecasted to be in the low thirties. Despite the relative mild temperatures, we've had some tough running with the hounds. I have Timmy and Simon with me this morning, and we're heading for a place we call the "BEAVERDAM". Should be a few rabbits there. Ice and crust has prevailed for quite a while so far this year, and this morning is no exception. We cut the hounds loose and in a while they start doing some picking and tongueing old night lines. Simon does quite a bit of it but nothing hot to run. Finally they get a start but can't carry it too far without a loss. Simon keeps coming back to the loss and continues to give tongue. He reruns a portion of the old line to the point of loss but can't get beyond this point. Timmy moves out but keeps getting pulled back into Simon and over the next ten minutes or so he repeats more of this mouthing around. I decide that the day will be tough enough without listening to Simon try so we go back to the truck and put him away for the day. We try the opposite side of the road with just Tinny and he quickly gets a rabbit going. He runs it pretty good, though not too fast. Thirty five minutes later I see the bunny coming and nail him. Matt had jumped a stray while positioning himself for the one I just shot so we worked Timmy over that way and he managed to get this one going too. Again we got another nice steady run and I nailed this one too. It took quite a while to get rabbit number three going but after a fashion "Number Three" got to run his last few laps on earth too. YEP! This one I nailed also. MATT finally got into the act and made a nice shot on a hare running flat out at about forty yards. Timmy ran this one with a lot of foot and continuous driving with just momentary checks. All the previous other runs were much slower runs with mostly pick and go checking. Just can't figure out how they can hardly smell one one minute then drive the hair off of one the next. Three o'clock now so we had to quit in order to be home for a special family supper with MATT's Mom and Dad. Shooting four hare with one dog around here wasn't too bad especially considering the ice and the crust.

January 2, 2004   3:30 A.M.  I'm on the road heading to Esperance New York to do some cottontail hunting with Tony. This'll give the hounds a bit more down time running them crazy things. Hit a snow shower along the way and that caused some slippery going so it cost me an extra hour of driving due to the need to slow down. Chris Minchoff from Pa. was at Tony's when I arrived. He was picking up a pup from me and meeting at Tony's saved him a bunch of driving. Finally we hit the woods about 10:00 A.M.with Ruby, Sue and Sophie. The running conditions weren't the best and the hounds had to work hard to keep the runs going. The first two rabbits went to hole after thirty and thirty five minute runs. Rabbit number three they ran a half an hour to a loss. Never really know about these things. The first two rabbits the dogs ran to the hole that we verified. The third one just sounded like a loss. Rabbit number four ran nearly two hours. It was tough cover to hunt and the rabbit gave us only a couple looks at him before he expired. I don't believe this rabbit ran straight anymore than twenty yards. They had several pretty steady pushes and eventually brer rabbit ran into the guy from Maine and got his life ended. We had trouble getting another start so we headed home to check on the other dogs who we left running in Tony's enclosure. When we arrived at Tony's the two hounds Ruth and Preacher were running pretty well. They were left to run until dark then picked up. We had supper and watched some T.V..  Before going to bed we put a spot light out on Tony's front yard and saw fifteen deer eating grass. We will put some hounds on them things in the morning and do our TRASH PROOFING business.

January 3, 2004   5:30 A.M.  We're up early and promptly head for Dunkin Donuts for coffee. We ride around here and there checking box traps Tony has out to catch bunnies for restocking his running area. Caught one possum. Its raining pretty good out and we decide to just run dogs in his enclosure. Tony has a very nice forty acre running grounds completely fenced. As we approach his house we see four deer standing in his field not far from the house. We drive straight to the kennel and yank out a couple dogs to try them on the deer. I collar up the "PREACHER" and Tony has a hound he's deer breaking for a friend and she gets collared up. Load the dogs in a carrier on his four wheeler and drive out of the kennel toward the deer who are still standing there. As we approach the deer take off but we continue to drive to the spot they occupied just moments before. We let the dogs out and the "PREACHER" is scared to death as he smells the deer scent he's standing on. The other dog starts working the scent and is as happy as can be and about ready to bolt. Bolt is a good word to use here as the shock from the "system" jolted her and she dropped her tail and wanted no more of that scent. The "PREACHER" still scared with the presence of the deer was coaxed to follow me as I walked along where the deer flushed out. He followed me reluctantly and I just let him walk around sniffing a bit. Obvious that he wasn't interested at all with this scent we picked up and drove back to the kennel. Took the "PREACHER" with another couple dogs and put them in Tony's area for a run. Within minutes they had a cottontail going. We ran this group until noon then changed hounds for the balance of the day. Next morning I got up early and headed home.

January 10, 2004   5:30 A.M.  FOURTEEN DEGREES BELOW THE ZERO when I got up this morning. That is cold. We'll still hunt today but the hounds we currently have will be challenged for sure. I let Chris sleep in a bit longer because it was so cold and a later start would be smart I guess. Got to Reggie's house at 8:30 and we had a few cups of coffee while dragging our feet a bit before getting started. We hit the woods with Tim, Sue , and Pete. We found some rabbits in a new place and got a start pretty quick. The dogs ran this one about fifteen minutes to a loss. After another half hour or so we got another start and they lost this one too. I figured that two hounds might work better than three so I caught Sue and put her in the truck. I decided to just run the two brothers together. The next rabbit they ran about forty minutes and Chris missed the hare. He found out that the autoloader in these conditions wasn't much good as his follow up shot went "CLICK" when he pulled the trigger the second time. The spent shell never got extracted after that first shot. This rabbit went to a loss too. Another start got us underway and they ran this one nearly an hour off and on and slow going. Reggie fired as the "wascally wabbit" was sighted in some pine trees and didn't connect. The dogs checked a good long time and recovered the line for another thirty minutes of running when Chris fired. He was standing next to Reggie and his follow up shot went "CLICK" once again. Then POWWWW! Reggie followed up Chris's "click" with a kill shot and that ended our day. Back at the truck at 2:30 P.M. and it was 5 degrees above zero. Still very cold. We headed for the store for a drink and the Lady there said it was "twenty two" degrees below zero there that morning. Tough day, one kill, and still had fun. "FROSTY" can take credit for the rosy red cheeks on the faces of the hunters in the photo.

January 21, 2004   7:30 A.M.  I pull into my daughters driveway to pick up my grandson David who wants to try out this rabbit hunting business. Pretty cold out with seventeen degree temperatures and a bit of wind blowing the new snow we got yesterday. A while later we pull into Reggie's driveway to get him and his son Cliff. We have brothers Tim and Pete for dogs to hunt over once again and before long we're bushwhacking it in to a cover we hunted several weeks ago. Tracks all over the place and in a few minutes we had a hunt going. Dave would stay with me as he has some learning to do and Chris would hunt within Reggie's watchful grasp. Not fifteen minutes into the hunt Reggie and Chris exchange a bunch of shots at the rabbit. Over the next forty five minutes or so it was a Reggie and Christopher show. Volley after volley echoed out across the country side without a hair getting cut. FINALLY Reggie connected on one, but only after his E-R-A (earned rabbit average) rose a considerable amount of points.Chris made a shamble on his E-R-A too. But somewhere in all that shooting Chris did hit one that we suspect the dogs caught after a frenzeid drive to silence, but we never found the hare and never got another peep from the dogs on that one. Meanwhile the wind picked up considerably and hearing became a problem as well as scenting conditions. Dogs roughed it for a while then they'd get a good drive going only to have somebody miss the critter. A while later Dave got baptized under fire and managed to miss the first hare he's ever seen in a hunt situation. POW went the little .410 followed by a KAPOW out of my automatic. We both missed a flying rabbit and that's no bull. The wind continued to pound us and the dogs had a hard time. Tim came by me and I caught him. I walked the dog a couple hundred yards to get a new start and he found one quickly. He pushed the bunny hard, right where I stationed Chris and he proceeded to screw up his E-R-A further. So far Chris missed five times (with maybe one scratch hit), I missed once, Dave missed once and Reggie made us all look like great shots. Can't mention how many times he missed! We decided to go to the store and get a bite to eat and discuss a new plan. Later we moved to a new cover and walked around for nearly an hour and a half without a whimper. The wind just continued to blow hard. We decide to call it quits and worked toward the truck. A hundred yards from the truck, Pete opens and the two dogs run steady, a big full circle that eventually pushed the rabbit into one of REGGIE's bullets ending the day. With all those misses the SUPER Dooper Pooper Scooper Trooper killed two after all. Dave had a great time on his first hunt in tough conditions and is shown here posing with Reggie's rabbit..

January 24, 2004   5:30 A.M.   I look at the thermometer and it's nudging the eight below zero mark. The weather forecast calls for winds to blow in the fifteen to twenty M.P.H. ranges so I decide that we wouldn't hunt today. Did that last Saturday as well as Monday and the wind just took a lot of the fun out of it. Later, in the afternoon Christopher and I took two puppies out at the Beagle club for a walk and some valuable "yard work", like riding in a truck, visiting a strange place, cultivating some handling skills, tugging on a leash, and perhaps running a rabbit or two. The two pups are just six months of age and are both started. In fact they started especially early at four months of age. I don't work them much at that age 'cause I find a lot of the time spent to be counter productive in that they aren't physically able to handle the rigors of the big woods and their brains not developed enough to be meaningful. There's plenty of time to work them later on when the weather warms up and scenting for puppies is more conducive to quality training. The puppies did act great and even ran a couple rabbits a short distance and hunted well. Hunting in an active, indutrious manner is something we look for and insist that the young dogs we keep do, if they are to remain here at our kennel for an appreciable period of time. Overall hunting conditions have been pretty tough so far this season but sooner or later the "worm will turn" and rabbits will die.

January 28, 2004   7:30 A.M.  It's 20 degrees out right now with no wind as I head out for a hunt some twenty miles from home. This temperature though cold is some twenty five degrees warmer than what it has been at this time of day for weeks now. A heat wave of sorts, HALLELUIA! I have Sophie this morning and will give her a solo hunt as she is just coming out of being in heat. We don't have a lot of snow right now but the the top 2 inches is very dry stuff with a texture like that of sugar. It's been tough scenting on this stuff. She gets a start and has difficulty moving it well and does this bump and gring running for a half hour or so to a loss. A while later she starts picking a line and eventually works it up to a point where she's driving pretty good then gets a bad break in that the rabbit crosses the main road we drove in on. She eventually found it on the other side of the road but ended up losing the thing. For fear that if she re-started the hare, it would cross the road again and run back to where he came from, putting her at risk of getting hit by a car, so I picked her up. Drove to another place to hunt and a run got started as it had before at the other place, slow and picky. But in time she got it up and running better and drove real well without any prolonged checks. An hour and a half into the run she's coming my way and I see the hare coming and drill him DEAD with one shot. Sophie keeps going straight by me but just out of sight and prooved that the hare I just shot was a stray who accidently was in the way and ran into me at the wrong time. She continued to run this hare for another hour and a half before I shot him, some three hours after he was started. A day that began pretty bad ended up pretty good. I caught her and moved across the tote road we walked in on and prettty soon had another going. She had a tough time putting pressure on this one and though I saw him once I couldn't get off a shot. After a half an hour of slow running I caught her 'cause I had to leave. Overall a good outing for her. If the weather turns normal Sophie will put a hurting into the rabbits around here. Fun day!

January 31, 2004   7:30 A.M.  I arrive at my daughters place with Christopher, to pick up David another grandson, and the temperature is four degrees above zero with just a little wind. Sunny day and warmer than what it has been, but nonetheless still cold. Get to Reggies house a bit after 8:00 o'clock and suck up a couple coffees. His son Cliff would hunt with us once again today also. I brought Tim and Sophie and Reggie will run Pete. We cast the hounds a bit after nine o'clock and Timmy acts like a first class idiot. All he has is "love" on his mind and just chases Sophie all over the place and tries to mount her. She's just coming out being inheat and another bitch at home, Ruth is still inheat. Tim's been smelling that female stuff for over three weeks now and I guess this is what the effects of that sex drive has yielded. So, in the truck he goes and Pete and Sophie will hunt together. Sophie gets a start and the dogs have a hard time of it but manage to run it pretty long with some drives, followed by some tough checks. Never did they lose the rabbit but never did they drive well either. The whole day went just about this way. Run good a few minutes then some picky work and into another spurt. Without getting too repetitious this is the way it went. Both Pete and Sophie worked extremely well together and never lost the rabbit. I was very pleased with Sophie in the way she's been handling herself working the tough conditions we'ved had so far this year. I saw on the news this morning that in our area anyway it's been the second coldest January on record and the driest January ever recorded. We managed to kill one hare and our TEAM (E.R.A.) suffered some more. Our Earned Rabbit Average sky rocketed as Christopher missed four rabbits with six shots fired and I missed once. Everybody saw some hare but only Cliff connected. I took a picture of the fours guys coming out of the woods with that lone dead hare only to have the camera malfunction and it didn't coming out. Missed with the camera too. Oh well there's always tomorrow. Need some snow...

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