Week's Hunting Part II

[Mosby 355]

Part II

Next evening Tanner calls. He tells me that the weather was so windy and the snow was threatening, therefore, no work for Tanner in the morning. I thought, “Hell, I'm sleeping in with weather like that.”

Tanner showed up and made me get my ass out of bed. I grabbed my two pups getting close to a year and Magua (The King as Tanner calls him). Tanner brought his two, Tipper and Booby MacGee. A fox has been Killing my dad's chickens and we have a bit of lust after fox anyhow. Our dogs, especially Magua, have never been really keen on fox. Magua up until this week won't take a track that I can smell out if it is fox.

We checked a spot where the young dogs had bolted a bunch of fox out a month or so ago. We ran the things pretty hard with a pack of young dogs and I wouldn't doubt there were six fox that we were watching worm past our dogs. They got in on one last month but were so surprised to run into it that it got away.

No such luck this week. The farmer had tractors running in there cleaning up a field of stumps left over from one of my favorite orchards I frequently hunted. We moved on to the next spot down the road a mile.

We pulled into the large alfalfa field down the road and dropped the whole gang. We just wanted the dogs to hit the patch like a swarm of locusts and get fox on the trot so we could shoot'm.

Magua shot like an arrow to the patch leaving the other dogs in his dust… Made it to the patch… Squatted and took a crap, then ran back to hang with the pack. He was just making sure everybody knew who is the best.

Once again we had a bad run of the patch. The dogs just weren't working top snuff. Can't blame them if there's no scent. We hardly ever catch squat there. It looks so amazing I think there must be some mistake when the dogs don't locate in there.

After half a mile we reached a fox sette (just as I planned). (11 month old pup out of Magua and Steve's Liza) Darkness got wired at the sette. She was shooting in and out and tracking all around the holes. There were two holes and Tipper and Bob started digging frantically at one but were both too big to get in. Magua was acting in his usual calm, don't give a care manner. Thus, I did not see him slip into the sette.

We had three dogs that could fit; Magua, Darkness and a Dave Jones Russell I call Hammer.

We had forgotten about Magua (out of sight, out of mind). We knew Hammer won't go to ground to save his life. So we didn't bother staking dogs. Darkness finally pushed her way deep into the den. Barking soon thereafter commenced. GAME ON!! We had to pause for a second... "What the Hell? That sounds like Magua." says I. "Yeah. He's down there." Tanner replies. Dang. Well I didn't want two dogs down there but all well. That's what I get for hunting a pack.

After the initial two barks I couldn't hear a thing. Tanner put his ear to the hole and said he could hear fighting. He pointed to where I should dig. I hit about two feet in depth before deciding "Screw this" and I started trenching. Tanner was only off by about a foot but we were well down to four feet in the trench and it was getting to be as bad as digging a big hole. So, I started a big hole in the direction I saw the tube was going. I dug about a 4x4x4 hole and intercepted the tube. I could hear breathing and thought I was spot on.

Magua popped out and had one bite on his snout, “not much for a battle royal” I thought. Magua only comes off after something is dead or I call him off, so I was weirded out a bit, but obviously Darkness had passed him in the tube or she would have been there, not him. Darkness is smaller so I assume she made it where Magua could not.

Tanner handed me a mini maglight and I shone down the tube. "Damn!" I thought. It was still a good 15 feet and at a steep grade. I was gonna have to dig a hole the size of a dump truck at this rate.

I could hear Darkness tugging down there though. But I figure she didn't have the stuff to draw a fox on her first ever dig. Tanner and I sent Tipper in to draw. She could fit at this point but she made it only a distance, turned and came back out. Obviously, Darkness was blocking the action. Tipper will draw whatever she gets her teeth into. I lit the hole up again and this time could see Darkness. It looked like she was squeezed very tight and trying to navigate a corner with a sort of drop off to it.

I asked tanner to go and get another shovel. I anticipated the truck load size dig. I started the border of the dig when I heard a big to do. I ran back to the last hole and looked in. Magua was kicking ass and taking names on this fox. He got his hold and yarded it up the pipe to the entrance. All the while I'm yelling my head off telling Tanner the fox is getting drawn. He gets there and gets the video rolling on his phone.

I hold all the other dogs back and Magua is yarding on this thing but I can't get my hand in to help out. As soon as the fox's head showed I released Tipper to help draw. I was able to get the fox by the scruff then and we pulled the game out to the pack. Darkness came out holding on tight. I think she gave it a good run for its money for a first time to earth pup.

We decided to take some pics and the phone wouldn't work. The entire video was lost. Tanner turned his phone off and back on and deleted a bunch of stuff then was able to take some pics. We then buried the fox and filled in the holes we had dug. The fox was too tattered for any worry about fur.

The area is very large and the dogs other than Darkness were none the worse for the wear so we walked on. We walked a good half mile to another patch of berries where I often bolt fox but never had a gun with me to drop one.

A coon went up a tree but by the time we got around to help the dogs locate it had jumped. The dogs acted stupid and didn't follow. Tanner wanted to cull the whole pack. I've gotta admit I was disappointed. Magua sat at the base of the tree whining but I couldn't convince him it had jumped out. I called him off and we moved on down.

We were able to walk along the sand of the river now. The gully we were in was strewn with enormous amounts of lumber; trees three to four feet in diameter. Magua was out of sight as usual and the rest of the dogs were with us. (Tipper was sick as hell a few weeks ago and really shouldn't have been hunting but Tanner is merciless when it comes to hunting) Normally Tipper is not to be seen and can find anything but she was content to boot lick.

That is until she caught wind of game. She hit the brush and moved through screaming like a banshee. Dogs hit the thicket from all sides and were all making a hubbub. Not a minute later and the fight was on. It was nothing but growls. No coon to be heard. Tanner and I gloved up and started moving like monkeys on top of and through the blackberries, wild roses and hazelnut suckers. One at a time the dogs came back. “Weird stuff”, thought I. Eventually all the dogs had checked in and left to hunt other parts of the brush.

"Well, whatever that was, it's dead now."

"Yeah. But where is it and what was it?"

"Not sure. Didn't sound like a coon or a nutria. Maybe a Possum?"

We searched high and low and cut a swath out of the patch. I cut a patch and laid down to see through the tunnels the dogs were passing through. Nothing could be seen. We heard a jealous growl and knew one of the dogs had went back to claim the game. I walked on top of the berries like a tight rope circus performer while Tanner bored his way through the thick like a mole. He came to it first... "She did it. By God! She did it! All those hound hunters can kiss my ass! She did it!" Tanner lifted the dead todd fox up for me to see. A strong, healthy todd (that is, before Tipper found him and the pack ripped from him his soul). I was a full few feet above Tanner standing on the thick brush. He handed it up to me and I looked it over. "Dang! That is amazing." I tossed it to where we had cut a standing ground in the patch. Magua showed up when I got down there and he was torn up pretty bad by that fox. All the dogs had gotten in on it. I think coming from all sides the fox had nowhere to go and settled in to fight. No Chance! That thing was annihilated in under a minute.

We took some pictures and continued on our journey back to the truck. We found some more fox dens but all were empty.

200 yards more and the whole pack started screaming and rushing through the brush. Up popped Mr. Coon. We've been having some trouble keeping the young dogs at trees so Tanner busted through and called all the pups to the tree. I threw dirt clods up at the coon to get the pups attention. After about ten minutes of Tanner beating on the tree, me throwing dirt and the both of us screeching like coons and just about earning our permanent rejection from civilized society, Tanner yelled "shoot it now!" The timing was right and all the dogs were looking up. I fired and dropped the coon dead as a door nail and the pups’ eyes followed it straight to the earth... perfect for connecting the dots in their brains.

This was a great day; one of my favorites of all time in fact. Magua is 8 years old and still kicking some serious ass.

But the week doesn't end there; far from it.

[patterdale666 1,620]

Great write up bud sounds like great hunting