An excellent video from the Three Counties sabs.... The Cotswold Vale Farmers Hunt met at 7am at Southwick Farm on Saturday, just south of Tewkesbury in the Gloucestershire Cull Zone. With a bit of forward-thinking, one sab headed to Long Plantation, an area signed up to the cull, and pre-sprayed the area with citronella. She had headed there early so she could chill, make a coffee and have a snack as well, so it was pretty obvious no trail was laid in the area that day. One of the 3C cycle-squad (the name is starting to stick...) meanwhile jogged inland from the A38. The hunt, as predicted, went straight to Long Plantation where the hounds struggled to pick up on the scent of the 3 fox-cubs who had been resident there as the hounds arrived. Moving back towards Southwick Park, they drew a hedgerow and disturbed a wasp nest, sending wasps everywhere who stung horses, hounds and sab alike! Hounds soon made their way into a small covert near to the second sab who had just seen a fox cub in the bushes. With the hunt on camera, despite riders and the ever-charming Nick Hodges disrupting the sab filming, the huntsman - Simon - drew the covert too quickly and the hounds missed the cub. The hunt now moving away, the sab finally did what she was told and returned to the footpath, getting back to the hunt before the supporters did. Only do what youre told to when you benefit from doing so. Hounds soon picked up on the scent of an older fox just north of Southwick Farm, but responded better to the sab rating them than they did to the whippers-in and huntsman themselves! Might be something to do with the slightly weird singing-voices the hunt used to communicate with the hounds - weve known huntsmen to make odd noises, but this was new to us! Two more of 3C who had spent the night in the car within the cull zone also arrived on the scene, catching the hunt in our favourite pincer-movement Closer to Apperley, hounds were sent into several maize fields (hopefully with no trapped badgers in them as it would have been an even more terrifying experience) but with sabs keeping watch nearby. Another scent was picked up, but hounds stopped in a hedgerow where sabs had put a line of citronella down. Hunt supporters (like the lovely, pro-cull Mr. Smith who owns land in Apperley) proceeded to try and persuade us that trails had been laid... and assaulted one sab. vimeo/106767279
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:54:39 +0000