bassethund

Hi Countess, compliments of the season to you. We are from Hexham.

We were invited over from Northumberland to the Lake District to have a joint meet with Bowderdale and his hounds to join forces and and thin some Rabbits out with the explicit instructions from his numerous keeper friends to shoot foxes as well. We set off at 6-30 in the morning and arrived about 8-15 and then forwarded to the venue which took another 30 minutes. 7 of us and around 20 of Bowderdales friends assembled and discussed tactics surrounded by some of the most stunning scenery imaginable. A large patch of gorse adjoining a cover was surrounded by the guns and then the hounds loosed i

That certainly sounds like us. I never like to speak on anyone elses behalf but i know foxmad very well.

They are VERY keen, are into there 4th season now and know the score, very fast in the cover , doesnt matter how thick or how big it is, they scream there little heads off, the guns have got to be sharp there're usually about 20yrds behind matey They certainly look in good hard fettle.

thank you for your interest. Ours are not K.C. registered and are a far more streamlined type than the hush puppy Basset as people know them. Ours are the shape they should be which is what they were initially bred like. About the only book you can get on the old type Bassets is called "A bother of Bassets" which shows and explains far more. Their hunting technique is basically to draw of their own accord and raise the roof once they find a fox obviously we are doing it to the new laws of flushing to guns so they tend not to tire themselves out too much, but they are far faster than you would

Hi Compo, I suppose you might call us a bobbery pack although we are registered as a pack by the English Farmers Fox Control Association with our own registered hunt country. Although for whatever reason the MFHA. seems to think they have sole rights to fox control.

He's one hell of a dog that when he finds a fox he doesn't speak he roars! Frustrating my god they can be ignorant but so long as you can keep on top of them, that is why we all have a cheapie wireless so we can see what they are hunting and get too em quick before they get settled on the wrong quarry. When asked what they hunt we can only reply that they will hunt a fox sooner than anything but they will hunt anything sooner than nothing and that about sums them up.

We were out again today the weather was pretty miserable, not a day for hanging round. We put a fox up in the first cover but he ended up going to ground in a whopping great awkward place so we tried to evict him for a few minutes then decided to give him best and move on. A couple of small covers proved blank but the next one held a dog fox which was duly accounted for and then we all made a swift exit to get our feet up in front of the fire.

Hello Hendy, good to see you on here. Should you not have called yourself "franks pal"

Hi Brockbart, We try where possible to ensure the woods etc. are well covered with guns so that hopefully Hounds don't get away on us, but they are pig headed and don't take too much notice of anyone once they are past you. We all have a cheapie wireless so we can communicate with my son who hunts them to let him know if anything breaks cover and what it is etc. so he can hopefully get to them before they disappear into the sunset

We were out again today, just over the Scottish border so we could take more than our normal two hounds so we took three! we did a vast expanse of gorse, which took us all morning, but although there was fresh sign everywhere we just couldn't raise a fox anywhere, i suspect they were underground, so we went back and had a sulk and some bait and then went and tried a biggish block of windblow which came up with the goods and 2 big dog foxes were shot, they weren't keen to show thereselves to the guns so there was a bit of nice music until they lost their bottle. We then moved to the other end o

We are a group of lads who have formed a small fox control unit using two Basset Hounds for flushing to shotguns with AAA shot in England, we do have a bit of permission in Scotland and use up to 5 Bassets for flushing, we act strictly within the new laws and in actual fact find it a very successfull method of control causing very little stock disturbance and we can target specific areas as requested by the farmers and gamekeepers. Providing my pictures come on, i thought you might like to see a couple, please note this fox has been flushed and shot dead prior to hounds and terriers ragging it

Thats one big strong fox, presumably a dog fox? in the top picture.

We are all squabbling amongst ourselves yet again. Have you boys ever stopped to think who got us in this mess in the first place! We all went down to London at great expense to support the Hunting ban, filled up with the usual Countryside Alliance hype. Terriermen, Coursing clubs, Lurcher lads, standing by our sides was the vast support of the shooting fraternity we were all there and we have all lost our sport and have to look over our shoulder all the time and who got us into this mess the bloody Foxhunting with its arrogance and refusal to go with the times, have they lost their sport have