fox scent

[xydeb 2]

iv been out and about with the terriers and lurchers and keep smelling fox.

my question is how long does the scent hang around how would you know if it was 1hr 2hrs or 12hrs since they past that piece of ground y.i.s

[oggy808 24]

this is like asking how long is a piece of string !!!! it depends on so many things ,sunlight,temp, frost comming out ,rain , an old poacher told me once that it has taken him all of his 70 years to understand scent, but if you hunted with beagles on hares (pre ban ) you might just get an understanding of it........... but do not count on it !!!!!!!

[Coyotehunter 689]

" Nowt so queer as scent, sept a woman "

[DIDO.1 22,840]

Quite often you can smell fox but hounds wouldnt touch it.

[fidodido 30]

yeah thats true mate my dogs do it all the time why is that pal or does [NO TEXT TALK] else know why a know dogs can smell thousand time better than us an it stinks to u

Quite often you can smell fox but hounds wouldnt touch it.

s an yet they ignor it an then you wonder on your dogs marking ability an try get em in settes they wana ignore

[fidodido 30]

that last reply didnt come out right dido didnt say that its a question from me cheers :thumbs: new to this sh`t sorry

[weasle 1,119]

I find if you can smell fox,senting conditions are bad.

[Rocky2 14]

I've been told that its the foxes piss were he has marked his teritory

[skinner 348]

ask a indian

[xydeb 2]

i agree about the dogs and even hounds walking past this scent and you do think it abit odd but as been said i have allways beleived it to be the male scent marking more noticable this time of the year when they are pairing up,thats why i got to thinking i should ask the question cheers for the input y.i.s

[neil cooney 10,416]

The other morning it was blowing a gale and the hunt secretary remarked that there's an old saying "if it's blowing a gale leave hounds in their kennel."

This man first followed hounds in the early 40s.

To cut a long story short, hounds (a bitch pack) marked to ground after a brilliant one and a half hour hunt. A hunt that seen many riders lost or buried in ditches such was the speed of it.

Another man I'm lucky enough to hunt with has 55 years in the game and when I ask him "will scent be good today?" He usually says "I don't know".

IMO the way to tell if scent is good is that if hounds are flying it's good, if they're not then scent is bad.

[DIDO.1 22,840]

I always thought the 'leave hounds at home on a windy day' saying came from the it being so much harder to keep hounds together and keeping in touch with hounds yourself due to it being more difficult for hounds to hear each other and you to hear them. I cant see wind affecting sent as much as temp and pressure.

[neil cooney 10,416]

Wind will blow scent everywhere too, but your correct in that it's hard to hear or stay with hounds in high winds.

The other day there were 16 and a half couple on and and all were on at the mark.

[Johnny85 50]

so many books have been written on this subject and stil it can not be understood fully. If you can smell it hounds can not. Think that scent is like a piece a string if the weather is bad for scent then the string will raise up quickly, if good scenting day the string will stil low for ages and hounds will hunt well.

In a windy it is hard for hounds to hear others and hear you. Scent can be great on some windy days

 

Good Hunting. Let me know if you want some titls of books

 

Johnny

[thefootman 17]

What Johnny85 says ties in with what I have been told, that when you can smell the fox the scent has risen, that the fox is a long time gone and it is too high for hounds to hunt. We hunt both fox and hare with our pack and their is a big difference between fox and hare scent. In general, unless a fox has too much law on the pack, no matter how bad scent is they will always manage to hunt a fox to ground or a good distance, It may be slow work but they will have enough scent to keep going. As for hare, if scent is bad they may not be able to hunt a hare two fields. It appears that soil and weather conditions have a big part to play aswell. Its only my own observations and not based on anything scientific, but some parts of our country give good hunting when its wet weather with the ground nearly saturated, but poor hunting when the weather is dry and fine, other parts are vice versa and some parts are grand no matter what the conditions are.

 

One of the strangest things I have seen regarding scent was when a hunted hare came into the field that myself and the rest of the followers were standing in. She ran straight through the field close to the hedge with no doubles or checks. When the pack came they could not pick up her line at all where she ran. It wasn't until a few hounds casted out about 10 or 15 yards into the field that they picked up the line and hunted breast high parrallel to where the hare had run. The old lads said that they had "winded" the hare and said that it was something that could happen. Thats nearly 20 years ago and I have not seen it since.