timster

Regular beagles should do the job, so long as someone involved is pretty fit and a good runner! I've no interest in getting into the kind of blaming and tribalism back up the thread, and as far as I'm concerned people are entirely free to do things in whatever style they want. Hunt rabbits on foot with a pack of staghounds if that's what floats your boat. But seriously though, personally, if I was hunting on foot (and I mean really hunting cross-country, not just doing that stuff with shotguns and lurchers) in fairly soft, open country, with roads and people in it, I would want to know t

Just out of interest, what hounds are they? Can't really make it out from the bus window picture. Harriers? Fox hounds. Don't look like beagles anyway. And about four couple by the looks of things. Country beyond the road looks fairly soft. I'd have thought you'd struggle to keep up if you were hunting harriers or foxhounds on foot in country like that, and, well, if you haven't got at least a sporting chance of getting up front and stopping them, then accidents will happen, won't they? Maybe downsize to something smaller?

It's back to 50-50 now, and I got all poetic on their arses on the comment thread...

55% now ;-) Added a little comment underneath too, but the debate ain't exactly at a very rarefied, so I don't think it's really worth getting involved...

I came across this marvellous video of youtube that I wanted to share - as close as I've ever come to seeing this kind of hound in action. But what amazing hounds! (there are some more videos of them on there too). What really impressed me was that on what is obviously a very patchy sent this little pack is totally hunting itself. In the whole ten minute video we don't hear voice or horn once. Sure, the checks are a bit raggedy, but they get themselves out of them without fail every time. I reckon every single over-excited, shouting and horn-blowing person who hunts hounds on this

Hi Milliket and Beagle 87, yes, there were always a few of those sort of little informal gun packs in Cornwall too, but also, as I was saying, some more formal ones with fixed meets. A google image search throws up a few shots of the Lambo, nothing from the other packs I mentioned, so I guess they're long-gone: http://picturepenzance.co.uk/photos/showimage.php?i=24589&catid=newimages I always used to wonder how a beagle pack hunting fox compared to a beagle pack hunting hare, but never had the chance to experience the latter.

Down in Cornwall (where there aren't really any hares) there was a long tradition of beagle packs hunting foxes. Many of these were sort of homemade anything goes scratch packs, with just a few couple - and often as not a few shotguns - but some of them were full, formal packs with liveried staff and organised meets. Don't think any of them were ever recognised by the AMHB - not sure if they would have had 'em, given they were hunting the "wrong" thing. Not sure if any are still going in some form, but amongst the more notable of these packs in the past were the Constantine Beagles, the