Just Getting Back Into It
Those conversations after the dodgy ECG results………….”What you need is an interest that’ll get you out exercising in the fresh air again………..Oh yes, fishing’s relaxing, but it’s hardly strenuous is it?………. What was it you used to do before we were married?”………..
What did I used to do before we were married? Wind back 15 dogless years..……..
….I recall an evening on the cusp of late summer/early autumn. The corn was just cut and rows of loose straw seemed to lengthen the field, much as the low sun over my shoulder stretched the shadows thrown by the 2 strand fence, the belt of saplings, the striding pylons, and the folds of the land.
My own and the Lurcher’s shadow were also on the field. Being glossy black, the Lurcher was like a shadow herself, in a couple of seasons she’d be a shade, but for now……. She was a little young for this game, but then so were the Hares.
The Hares, hardly more than well grown Leverets, were tucked up against the straw rows, bewildered at the sudden harvest change. They squatted tight in, as the long lean shadow loomed, then they silently lifted, puffing up chaff and dust, running over the corn stubble, running for their lives, running for the plantation.
I can’t remember how many, not many, maybe three, anyway they all made sanctuary. But it was a magic evening all the same, though I don’t think I realised that at the time, being impatient and wanting to notch her collar with another first……..
Can I get this back?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They say you should never go back………..but yesterday I did. Back to the old ground, but with the next generation, a new companion. She’s smaller and more Collie influenced than some of her predecessors, but I can see them looking out through her eyes.
As is usual when revisiting youthful haunts, the place seemed smaller. It’s not physically smaller, but development has now reached the borders on all sides and is poised………presumably waiting on planning permission, or the last farmer to throw in the towel. Or for dirty money to cross greasy palms, while a “Mall” obsessed population looks the other way, either not realising or caring that the brownfields are actually richer and more accessible, (to most of them), than the green. When they get bored with consumerism as a hobby, it’ll be too late…………….
That 1 st Lurcher coursed her first “real” winter Hare on here, (and her last not so far away). But the Hares seemed absent, half an hour of zigzagging upwind through the yellow grass revealed no sign, not even the large round droppings I used to look for on the cropped patches and worn paths. There was some sign of Foxes, mostly hair packed scat. Two decades back a Fox was unlikely here……...
After a shared KFC we moved on to another youthful haunt.
The old pitstack was grassed and planted, with stone paths, benches and lookout points. Not open to the public yet, but not closed either, so up we went. Working into the wind produced a covey of Partridges, (no change there), a raised tail, raised hackles, snorting run on Fox scent, (definitely a change), and a few Hare droppings found on a bare patch, where the slag still poked through. The slurry lagoons complete with abundant Gull population were gone, along with the marginal Rabbit infested gorse and bramble patches that used to cloak the lower slopes. Definitely smaller, very overlooked, no longer a place to go put up a Hare, not without looking over your shoulder anyway.
The wastelands that used to be below were the old coke ovens, brown and unpleasant lands. Semi scorched earth where a real Falconer quartered his GSP and flew Partridge and the odd Pheasant, a place where runs under the chainlink could be, (usually unsuccessfully), netted for Hares, the ground where my GSD bitch caught her first Rabbit. Now they’ve disappeared under concrete and tarmac. The place where I was free to indulge my childhood hunting urge has become a place where people are only free to spend their money freely, in a “Mall” that ironically has “Free” in its title…………….
In 1960, (the year of my birth), Ian Niall writing in his New Poachers Handbook said “…..where a man runs upon a Hare in his youth he can be fairly sure of starting one when he has come to manhood……..” In 2005 he’d have to add, “……always assuming that the place hasn’t completely disappeared…..”
I sometimes feel this brownfield development is more of a threat to my sport than the ban……
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today I woke early with a sick head, decided to knock work and get up on the moors for some fresh air. Someone had kindly given me a nudge in the direction of their extensive permission, and just as spending money once burned in my pocket…………this information seemed to be burning a hole in my mind……..no wonder I had a headache!
The moors were just as I left them in my previous Lurcher incarnation. Maybe a bit more managed, but still so vast and open in comparison with my usual ground that it would be all too easy to become absorbed in this new country, forgetting to maintain my bearings or watch for changes in the weather. Vigilance and frequent sweeps with good pair of binoculars are the order of today.
Half an eye on the Lurcher as she quarters upwind into the heather and bracken. Half an eye on that raptor against the soft grey skyline. Better forget the bird and watch the horizon instead, unnatural colours and movement are what draw the eye, blue plastic drum feeders, snaking crocodiles of orange kagouls, white caps, red rucksacks and yellow socks. But most of the movement today is either the hobble of dull ivory sheep, disconsolately cropping at the white grass. Or the whirr and glide of cackling Red Grouse, distracting the Lurcher from her diligent hunting up.
The binoculars pause on a football sized lump of mottled blue grey whiteness, lodged in the heather. Calling the Lurcher to heel, a careful stalk from down wind puts me in the ideal spot to send her on to………..a clump of dirty sheep’s wool! A couple of hours later, and a similar stalk that revealed the same result, and our circular route has brought us back to the car, there’s enough of the day left to try elsewhere.
By the third spot she’s cottoned on that we’re not hanging about today, she’s nose to the ground as soon as her feet touch the springy dry peat, working faster now, maybe a shade out of control, but let her go, it’s big country. Straying off the footpath, I see her gait change, a few bounds followed by furious head down running, then a Hare is up and flying over the yellow grass. She turns it into the heather, now I’ve lost the Hare…..but I can still see her, springing up with head turning to track the movement and keep sighted. But I’m totally unsighted, as she plunges down a gully.
After a decent interval I figure she’s missed it, so start whistling…………..With no response, I reach the slightly worried stage and start walking toward the gully……….She’s off in the distance, further away than I expect, limping along and my heart sinks, just how bad is the damage…………..
……….She’s not limping, just trying to drag the dead Hare through the heather! So I meet her more than halfway, this is no time or place to bugger about. She’s blowing a bit, and is splashed with the Hare’s muck, like there’s been a struggle. I’m surprised it’s a Brown Hare, I expected a Bluey.
Discretion dictates that I end up wearing the Hare inside my shirt like an extra beer gut to get it off the moor past the hikers. She’s giving the game away by jumping up and nosing my stomach where the hare bulges. I must look decidedly odd, covered in hare hair!
Quite a big Hare, despite poor grazing. The badly bruised shoulders look like a truck has hit them when I skin it, whether because of impact or tight grip while attempting a retrieve I don’t know. Mind you, I’ll forgive her the rubbish retrieve, it weighed a fair bit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Am I getting back into it?……Yes, I think I am……..slowly…….well at least it feels that way……….