Today had every chance to be blank, bright sun, melting snow and dicey footing. As luck would have it, we hacked down Canby to the Old Laycock place, put hounds in the behind the pond and into the hedge row along the creek and pushed out Charlie straight off. Scent was not great but hounds held it driving the fox into the Hume. It turned left across the power line running the length of the Hume woods. Hounds are behind but steadily working out the line.

Charlie did not like the pressure and came back out of the Hume woods across the cornfield. He ran across the open field, stopped at the top of the hill to sit down, and looked back. A lone hound opened on the line directly behind him and Charlie skirted off toward Canby Road crossing through the cattle and ducked into the thick undergrowth by the bank barn and cattle pens at the Old Laycock Place.

Hounds picked up the line in the Hume Woods, held it across the open field on the snow, faulted at the fence line and lost it in the cattle only to pick it up again in the thick cover. Could not find a den but the hounds would not give up that cover. Charlie was in there but we could not account for him.

We picked up and headed back toward the Hume. Drew down the south side of the pinewoods. Hounds picked up a fresh fox at the pond, working around clockwise across the hillside above the double creek crossing into the fifteen-acre woods. The scent is holding but not sharp, hounds are pushing forward out the east side of the fifteen-acre woods into the wooded cover next to Mark Anderson’s house.

The fox stays along the Hume border down to the creek, up the other side turning slightly right toward Woodburn Road. Into the pasture along Woodburn Road adjacent to the Hume, hounds fault find and push back into the Hume. The fox has the advantage but hounds keep pressing it. We reacquire the line east of the power line take it all the way down hill turn left at the creek and make a big circle back around counter clockwise back to the top of the hill and by the power line on the Woodburn Road side of the Hume.

Half way down the power line hounds pick up the line again when well ahead a couple speaks past the corral and at the other end of the power line. The temperature has started to fall slightly, but scenting has not changed yet.

We cast forward to the open and hounds pick up the line on the east side of the power line on the Thomas Mill Road side of the Hume. They work out the line turning left across the power line heading toward the fifteen-acre woods. The scent is now much better.

The pack is together and pushing Charlie hard. The fox turns right at the fifteen-acre woods crosses the creek just above the double creek crossing. It is ice covered and deep but we make it through turning sharp right up the hillside next to the Old Laycock Place.

Hounds are driving up the hillside by the pinewoods turn sharp left at the top of the hill and are cruising parallel to the Hume Woods. At the end of this cover the fox turned left again heading toward the pond only to veer right along the top edge of the fifteen-acre woods. It crossed the road on the hillside along the east end of the fifteen-acre woods into the next woods, turning left down hill and across the creek.

The hounds are in hot pursuit, across the creek up to the old Leesburg Road bed. The line falters and hounds cast right circling back toward the creek. We get to the power line end of the road bed when a hound speaks forward, pull the pack together to move to the hark when hounds dive into a den. Charlie had circled back and had gone to ground.

A solid forty-minute run, hounds accounted for the fox, we blew to ground and called it a day hacking back to the kennel instead of the meet.

Submitted by T.J.