No one noticed ole Juniorpc's name at the top of the leader board did they now.......well, that's because it wasn't there. The best laid plans sometimes go a glib!
Only three of us hunting on Friday of the contest. One of dogs took a track outta the swamp, across the road and worked it for a time slowely. Staying on top of the snow crust at that time. Went in and brought her out and took her around to the swamp we suspected the yote was headed to. Right off the bat she starts one. Temps in the low twenties, clear a little wind and the crisp sound of barking in the air! two hours later she had brought it up and down the length of the long swamp 5 times. Only one loss of about 8 minutes, otherwise just a few times of a minute or so when she had to figure track out. All three of us had her close a bunch of times but never saw the animal. Finally at 9:30am a shot.... a beuatiful red fox..just beautiful, but no yote. She worked the swamp for several more hours and nothing. Plenty of coyote sign, no coyotes. Over to the next swamp where we worked her for several hours without a pick up. Day one was good, but not on the board.
Day two- Met the troops at 6am- Eight of us total (yes, all registered for the hunt) Set the guys up in position and brought the dogs into the swamp to work it. Conditions were horrible. Coyotes did not break through the crust overnight, dogs were breaking through all over the place right from the get go. One of the dogs starts one, runs it for several hours, but keeps making losses and just real slow going even after picking it back up. Like a chase in slow motion. Coyote got by one of the guys and she never picked it up again afterwards. After some work trying to figure things out we headed to the next spot. Worked the dog through a really thick but small swamp.... Nothing. Nothing in the next area as well. Just real hard going for those in the group who didn't have snowshoes and for the dogs. Weren't going to hunt on Sunday, but on the way out of the woods, the troops decided we could start, run and kill one in time to make the trek from the Northeast to Frenchville in time for the weigh in! Snow was also coming!! Man what a plan!!
At 5:30 am only Tim, me and my brother were at the meeting place. We wait and wait, finally decide to go scout for tracks. Two other folks meet us late. We have several tracks going into the swamp were planning to run. Take the dog in and boom she starts cold trailing. What a stinkin plan, man we rule, what am I going to buy with my money!!! She cold trails it out of the swamp onto the ridge and then jumps it. It hightails it away from us into the next swamp in the series. We set up it leaves the swamp in a place no yote has left before and spends the next three hours in between a highly travelled side road and a major highway. We send two folks in to see if they can get into the chase, one goes to a likely crossing spot, and the other two of us patrol the roads to make sure we don't lose a dog to traffic. At that point we weren't making the weigh in anyway. The dog we had running was older and eventually got chased back. Checking tracks on top we found she was chased back by two coyotes. Lots of fun and exercise, but no prize money. We'll be running some of pups from here on out working with them on picking up a colder than "Just made" pen track. So we don't expect much in terms of kills, but should gain the pups some great experience and get them on thier way.
For anyone that's interested I loosely figured out that of the coyotes killed during the hunt 43% were between 30 and 35 pounds and 26% were between 35 and 40 pounds. 13% were bnetween 40 and the 51 pound plus winner. Don't have my figures in front of me but I think that's pretty close to what I figured. The prize money is great for the top three yotes. WOW, but you can't have folks signing up thinking it will be 200 dollars per coyote and make it 50 dollars after folks have already signed up. Don't have an issue with it being 50 dollars and realize it makes the top three prizes more just do it from the get go. Enjoy, Juniorpc.