A historical question: really carefully formulated LOL

[Hoker 79]

lamping in the 1950s i thought it was more of a 70s thing be hard to pick up a lamp an battery in them days

 

I know lads that lamped in the 50's and 60's.......... you could allways tell a lamper by the way his Barbour jacket pockets were rotted out by the battery acid from the motor bike batteries !! LOL !!

 

Cheers.

i know all about it but we didnt have barbours or motor bike batterys an your hand was half cooked by the time you got home

[stav11 32]

Some interesting answers here: thanks very much. I was thinking of doing some articles on the historical use of lurchers and realised that you never read any old accounts of taking fox with lurchers. The lamping thing makes a lot of sense: when my dad used to lamp back in the 50s no one even thought of taking fox with fast dogs. It just wouldn't have occurred to them at all: lamping was purely to put meat on the table then, but I do think that the big increase in fox numbers has a lot to do with it: so the next thing to consider is exactly what caused the explosion in fox numbers?

i have always believed the explosion of the fox number was down to the country side getting smaller and the towns getting bigger, with no towns about the fox has to work for its food and try to gain as much food as it can to feed the young, but with towns a fox can find it much more easier to feed itself and its young,which would give a much more larger population rate.

[paulus 26]

another thought a population can only increase if there is an ample food supply to sustain its growth as simoman stated. has anyone ever seen that documentory on the rats on some island who`s numbers that increase exponentially every 30 years when a certain palm flowers and drops its fruit. nobody knows how they do this but it happens, when the food supply runs out they turn to cannibalism until the numbers return to a level the island can sustain.

[Ideation 8,216]

Another maybe unrelated point, but something i have noticed, is that these days if you wanted to run large numbers of foxes on the lamp, your best bet would be on the fringes of towns and not in the countryside proper. THe number of foxes in the 'countryside' seems to have dropped since the ban. Whereas the fox population in and around towns has sky rocketed. The problem is, it's probably easier to target the rural fox, in many situations, so they are getting hit pretty hard. I certainly wouldnt mind a few more around here. Speaking to folk who were hunting fox in the past, one difference as well, was that they could sell the skins.

[whippet 99 2,613]

some good answers , my opionion on the matter is i think when man had too rely on game and farm our own livestock for self produce. reynard became more in competition with man for survival . we both need too survive , desperate times on both parts. there were dogs to protect flocks , but protect is all it could be as these dogs werent made to run and deal with reynard. i think from this time on reynard made his way as a high ranked pest. as we all know they kill for the sake of it aswell as survival, which makes it a must for control. there were hounds years ago what could catch reynard, but who could dedicate there time for this type of hunting when a lurcher could end matters in seconds as the present. as we didnt depend on game as much i think reynard was sought more as game for the lurcher. foxes are definately fair game to a lurcher and it takes a good lurcher to catch aswell as despatch regularly. as said above technology has played a part in hunting reynard with lurchers at night for sure. (but then look what this has done for the rifle boys ). i think also lurchers have been adapted by man as more of a natural apex predator for reynard aswell as hounds. i get as much pleasure out of the escape as i do to the kill because a lurcher coursing a fox is fair game in my opionion

[Hoker 79]

Another maybe unrelated point, but something i have noticed, is that these days if you wanted to run large numbers of foxes on the lamp, your best bet would be on the fringes of towns and not in the countryside proper. THe number of foxes in the 'countryside' seems to have dropped since the ban. Whereas the fox population in and around towns has sky rocketed. The problem is, it's probably easier to target the rural fox, in many situations, so they are getting hit pretty hard. I certainly wouldnt mind a few more around here. Speaking to folk who were hunting fox in the past, one difference as well, was that they could sell the skins.

skins were sold an tongs were taken into the police station for a bounty

[skycat 6,173]

lamping in the 1950s i thought it was more of a 70s thing be hard to pick up a lamp an battery in them days

 

It would have been about 1957-60 I guess: my dad used to go lamping with a local farmer in Cornwall: with a car battery strapped to the farmer's back and car head lamp! Dangerous stuff: one night the battery leaked acid down the man's back and ate through his clothes and burned him badly. I was too young to remember much about it, but the dog was a blue Greyhound, or a greyhoundy lurcher.

[Ideation 8,216]

Another maybe unrelated point, but something i have noticed, is that these days if you wanted to run large numbers of foxes on the lamp, your best bet would be on the fringes of towns and not in the countryside proper. THe number of foxes in the 'countryside' seems to have dropped since the ban. Whereas the fox population in and around towns has sky rocketed. The problem is, it's probably easier to target the rural fox, in many situations, so they are getting hit pretty hard. I certainly wouldnt mind a few more around here. Speaking to folk who were hunting fox in the past, one difference as well, was that they could sell the skins.

skins were sold an tongs were taken into the police station for a bounty

 

So that had to have bumped up the numbers of folk after them, and the numbers being taken, i would say.

[skycat 6,173]

some good answers , my opionion on the matter is i think when man had too rely on game and farm our own livestock for self produce. reynard became more in competition with man for survival . we both need too survive , desperate times on both parts. there were dogs to protect flocks , but protect is all it could be as these dogs werent made to run and deal with reynard. i think from this time on reynard made his way as a high ranked pest. as we all know they kill for the sake of it aswell as survival, which makes it a must for control. there were hounds years ago what could catch reynard, but who could dedicate there time for this type of hunting when a lurcher could end matters in seconds as the present. as we didnt depend on game as much i think reynard was sought more as game for the lurcher. foxes are definately fair game to a lurcher and it takes a good lurcher to catch aswell as despatch regularly. as said above technology has played a part in hunting reynard with lurchers at night for sure. (but then look what this has done for the rifle boys ). i think also lurchers have been adapted by man as more of a natural apex predator for reynard aswell as hounds. i get as much pleasure out of the escape as i do to the kill because a lurcher coursing a fox is fair game in my opionion

I remember reading somewhere of a couple of hill collies that killed foxes when they were out working the sheep: anyone know where I might have read that?

[paulus 26]

some good answers , my opionion on the matter is i think when man had too rely on game and farm our own livestock for self produce. reynard became more in competition with man for survival . we both need too survive , desperate times on both parts. there were dogs to protect flocks , but protect is all it could be as these dogs werent made to run and deal with reynard. i think from this time on reynard made his way as a high ranked pest. as we all know they kill for the sake of it aswell as survival, which makes it a must for control. there were hounds years ago what could catch reynard, but who could dedicate there time for this type of hunting when a lurcher could end matters in seconds as the present. as we didnt depend on game as much i think reynard was sought more as game for the lurcher. foxes are definately fair game to a lurcher and it takes a good lurcher to catch aswell as despatch regularly. as said above technology has played a part in hunting reynard with lurchers at night for sure. (but then look what this has done for the rifle boys ). i think also lurchers have been adapted by man as more of a natural apex predator for reynard aswell as hounds. i get as much pleasure out of the escape as i do to the kill because a lurcher coursing a fox is fair game in my opionion

I remember reading somewhere of a couple of hill collies that killed foxes when they were out working the sheep: anyone know where I might have read that?

hancock

[Ideation 8,216]

some good answers , my opionion on the matter is i think when man had too rely on game and farm our own livestock for self produce. reynard became more in competition with man for survival . we both need too survive , desperate times on both parts. there were dogs to protect flocks , but protect is all it could be as these dogs werent made to run and deal with reynard. i think from this time on reynard made his way as a high ranked pest. as we all know they kill for the sake of it aswell as survival, which makes it a must for control. there were hounds years ago what could catch reynard, but who could dedicate there time for this type of hunting when a lurcher could end matters in seconds as the present. as we didnt depend on game as much i think reynard was sought more as game for the lurcher. foxes are definately fair game to a lurcher and it takes a good lurcher to catch aswell as despatch regularly. as said above technology has played a part in hunting reynard with lurchers at night for sure. (but then look what this has done for the rifle boys ). i think also lurchers have been adapted by man as more of a natural apex predator for reynard aswell as hounds. i get as much pleasure out of the escape as i do to the kill because a lurcher coursing a fox is fair game in my opionion

I remember reading somewhere of a couple of hill collies that killed foxes when they were out working the sheep: anyone know where I might have read that?

 

Don't know, but it's not that uncommon. Seen a lab that liked them as well, which wasn't expected.

[skycat 6,173]

One of my first ever lurchers wasn't really a lurcher: breeding unknown, picked up off the streets as a stray pup, but looked like a mongrelly Scottish collie: she loved foxes, even though I wasn't really interested in them as quarry at the time.

[darbo 4,774]

wasnt it Brian Plummer who started catching foxs with a dog called Merle?

he only thought he did :laugh:

dr.plummer caught loads of foxes. i talked to him in hancocks yard in the 80s he told me so. :laugh: .he also used to win houses at card games.

[paulus 26]

wasnt it Brian Plummer who started catching foxs with a dog called Merle?

he only thought he did :laugh:

dr.plummer caught loads of foxes. i talked to him in hancocks yard in the 80s he told me so. :laugh: .he also used to win houses at card games.

the cottage at the egde of the world

[Carraghs Gem 1,675]

An elderly neighbour "mick higgins" had a small merle collie bitch well known in the area for her hatred of foxes and she wasnt mucj bigger than a fox... Dont know what happened to her as she disapeared after mick died, she wouldnt touch a cat though.