Had the pleasure of getting up to my favorite place in Wyoming to hunt the Longdogs last Saturday. Went up with several groups of hounds in addition to my Staghounds. First was a pack of Irish Wolfhounds. I hear all the time that these hounds have lost their hunting drive. To those people I say you have never seen or been out with my friend Karen's Wolfhounds. They are the fittest and most prey driven Wolfhounds I have ever been out with. They just go and go like the energizer bunny that we are coursing. The second group of hounds we went with were Scottish Deerhounds. They too still have some strong hunt drive in them. When Karen and I pulled up to our hunt location, she unloaded her Wolfhounds. I was not even able to get my Staghounds unloaded before her hounds bolted the first Jack Rabbit. They are going into their winter coat color which is a mottled white. They were off and running and I was holding my hounds in place until they returned. Within just moments while on their way back to the trucks, the Wolfhounds had bolted a second hare. My Staghounds were going mental wanting to get loose. I was patient and waited. We gathered up most of the Wolfhounds and started off to our north. I would say not more than 30 seconds later, the chase was on. For those of you that have not experienced watching these hounds explode into motion after a quarry, it is one of the biggest adrenaline rushes there is for me. Out in the wide open West, we have views that extend for sometimes 20 to 30 miles. No fences, treelines roads or highways to get in the way. These hounds streaching out to maximum strides and coursing a truly worthy opponent, the White Tailed Jack Rabbit, which is not a rabbit at all, but a hare. This hare was off and running full speed with the hounds in hot pursuit. They were about a half mile out and the hare was nearly grabbed by my Scorch. My young hound, Mace was very close to her and made an attempt to get teeth into this hare. A couple of hard turns in a circle of about 10' and the hare straight lined it out and managed to get into a badger sette. A great run. All of this has taken place in the first 20 minutes or so. More of the story tomorrow
3 comments:
I think it would be a fool who believed or commented that Deerhounds and Wolfhounds no longer had a drive for the hunt in them.
The Stag Hound as a breed, for me is quite interesting as a fan and historian of the deerhound.
I’m quite sure during the many great exodus of people from Scotland to various regions of the world and especially the Americas - their deerhounds (so part of ancient Celtic and Pictish clan culture) went with them.
From this, probably stemmed the ‘Stag’ Hound, an unusal name for the breed in that I’m sure it not only hunts the male of the deer species but the female also.
Longdogs rule and ‘yae canny whack the Tinchel’
Blog on and we’ll visit soon
I live Cody, Wyoming, and am helping my husband raise a pack of sighthounds for hunting coyotes. We also have wolves in our area, and, in fact, they have been spotted within a mile of our place, so we are interested in adding a Wolfhound or two to our pack, but have consistently been told that they no longer possess the instinct to hunt. Therefore, we were very interested in your blog about your friend Karen's hunting Wolfhounds. We would greatly appreciate being put in contact with her or a breeder who raises Wolfhounds or halfbreds for hunting. Thanks!
I have read your articles on your blog. I started a puplication 20 years ago dedicated to he people who use dogs to hunt with. As i am a coyote hunter with sight hounds, that was the main copy for the paper. I sold it after about 12 years and just repurchased it for the January issue. I am looking for stories for the paper. I want stories from the hunters themselves. ( make better reading than madeup stories )
I would like to converse with you on e-mail or phone. rayedollarten@gmail.com or 308-876-2551
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