Hunting with the Middletown Beagles

Middletown Beagles

A bright sunny day with a cold wind did not Make it easy for this delightful pack.  Hounds are a mix of American and English hunt beagles.


Dave the huntsman, was assisted by a large number of junior whips who almost provided as much entertianment as the beagles.

Hunting the line.

Along the hedge.


Along the edge of the lake.

Hunting in the zone

As a teenager with a 410, a couple of ferrets and a terrier I had a blissful up bringing. Able to shoot, trap, and ferret to my hearts content, apart from the inconvenience of school, which attempted to turn me into a useful, and compliant tool of society; happily they failed.

In my work helping those who have anxiety and stress I use a thing called mindfulness; its a technique to live in a calm and engaged way.  What has often struck me is how this happens naturally in field sports, picture the course fisherman attentive to the twitch of the line and float, aware of the movement of shadows; clouds above and carp moving through the water.

Waiting hidden in a hedge, for rabbits to creep out of their burrows, so I could get a clear shot.  I would wait hours lost in nothingness, aware of the breeze and the movement of the sun, such as it was in Wales. I would see nothing and everything, sight lost until movement triggered the synapses in the brain and my focus would zoom in the movement, discerning the shape of rabbit, hare, fox and badger materialising out of the hedgerows at dusk.

Wordsworth perhaps had a clue what was going on when he penned "What is life if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare."  It is this ability to drop in attentive meditation, which some call the Zone, this leads to a calmer, and more contented outlook on life.

Hunting being a natural pursuit, it is not surprising it feels right, calms anxiety, and gives us a break from the stress of modern life.

The drive of youth

In my youth I would walk miles to fish hunt and shoot, but the other day I stayed right  by a wonderful lake but didn't fish.  In my defence I had a load of books to read and it was cold and wet outside.  The worry is I am sure that even a few years ago I would have been out, at least in the dry spells and trying to fish.  Has age given me wisdom or just a love of ease? What a worrying thought.

Perhaps its just the long days that stick in my mind from the past.  The night my lurcher caught six hares in a night and I walked with them four miles back to the car, after walking for five hours lamping.  I was not much good in work the next day.

Hunting on the black mountains with hounds to get back to the van after a hard day up and down to find that hounds were missing and turning around to walk up the mountain again.  You know you have had a hard day when your legs cramp up when you try to drive home.