Rocky Places

[Joe 2]

1.

 

[fat man 4,741]

Thank god for clay and sand,them rocks look like hard graft,fair play to you lads that work them.

[bedrock 16]

we have been on that farm twice this season and accounted for three charlies two bolted from the rocks and one dug in a different earth.

[steveS.Yorks 161]

I gained a some permission a few weeks ago not mutch about 200acres Of rough sheep farm that has allot of rock earths. I know there are allot of factors to consider when working the rocks so how many of you work rock earths these days? It would be interesting to here some of your thoughts.

I took my dog out today and later I spotted a fox. of course he spotted me first haha he just froze in front of the rock , he was 30-40 meter away from me, on a hill and I could see a brown thing in front of a rock and im thinking what is that is it a branch it just looked funny becasue of the shape of it and it was brownish, I stopped walking and tried to look harder seconds later it walked slowly to the left , my dog was already running around the hill searching for fox or rabbits, than the fox spotted my dog and it freaked out and did a U turn and bolted than went down for the rocky places. I was like YES, i wa watching all that from far away. My dog went to the wrong direction " idiot lol" so i called him. sadly after 30-40 minute of searching the rocky places my dog just couldnt find the fox. the whole rocky spot is not that big of an area. so I had to abandon the mission. now im thinking is it harder for terriers to locate fox in rocky areas.

 

 

It can be hard for dogs to locate a fox in certain types of rocks,some go straight in like a normal earth for instance,some are very jumbled like rock piles,the fox will climb and squeeze through these places and it can take a good dog to find them.

 

Ive seen dogs with experiance in normal earths fail miserably in rock piles,thats not to say they wont learn if you use them in rocks enough,in my earlier post when i said "the best rock man i know said to me,rocks make dogs" this was his exact point,dogs have to work much harder to find and bolt foxes from rocks as a general rule,the rocks make the dog use its nose and "try".

[morton 5,369]

If you did your apprenticeship with the old timers they could tell you which piles to enter,which to leave alone and the ones you took your chance with.To many good dogs have never re-surfaced over the years.Years ago decent dogs where commonplace,it was,nt to difficult to source a replacement or two,now its much harder to source a decent type,so people are more selective where they enter.

[tearem 31]

We do everything: sand (where I live) clay, bushes and rocks, including bunkers blown up after WW2. Patt collegues refuse to do the bunkers, they are undiggable. The bunkers look scarey, since they have small cracks going straight down, and the rusty iron wires are sticking out everywhere and in every shape. Some I didn't want to do in the beginning but confidence grew with using Semtex 3 successive years and she bolted all that was in there with a red coat. Sometimes we had 7 foxes in one day in the bunkers. Semtex is my best dog, she is clever, she always starts baying and moving and then puts on ever more pressure if he won't come. She knows the trick of moving around trying to get behind him. She can kill them if need be. She lets them past to bolt to the guns, she knows he will be shot then and everyone has won.

In the Ardennes we started doing big deep undiggable rocky holes with fox and badger and we learned a lot there. The results depended mostly on the dog.

For rocks you need a very agile dog which dares to move steep up and down. Reason 2: in big places the fox always runs around ahead of the dog and a fast, agile dog can follow better.

They once showed me a bunker at another hunt and said it was dangerous, dogs were lost in it before. There was surely several inhabitants inside but if they say that it's a bad place, I don't bother to try it but with a leashed dog calling in a bit.

Sometimes rock earths are easier than thought and sometimes you can easily take the stones away, it goes as fast as digging. Sometimes if you have a dog which barks on command, keep it leashed and let it speak to the fox, it's all you need to bolt a fox in shallow places.

In the south of France, we got 20 badgers in 5 days in all rocky ground, we could only dig with bars not spades, and at some places not at all, when they were under huge boulders. I needed my entire pack of terriers. There were 7 helpers to help dig. Sometimes we opened up in the one place where it was possible and let the dog send the badger to it and then I'd take it out. That's about the most impressive experience I have with rocks.

I never let Semtex work our sand earths because she has rather a big span and our foxes all creep up rabbit pipes, so for that I need, and have, smaller dogs. For everything else, Sem can do them all. Rock, clay, deep, big, small.

I must admit though that Semtex sometimes goes up rabbit warrens and even catches one now and then, and more bigger terriers do that and you don't understand how they fit in.

With rocks: no teckels or short legged, round chested, too big dogs which cannot move well, they never come out. When the will is there, agility is nr. one here, I believe. Sometimes dogs come out only days later because then they have lost so much weight they fit through the place where they were stuck.

Waiting after the dog has left for a bolt is common practise with us. Everybody does that here, the fox is for the waiting guns. In big places where he has plenty of space and could keep ahead of the dog all the time, waiting is useless: he won't come out untill the night.

As for big, undiggable (rock or stone) setts.

In Germany we are allowed to do badger setts, and in the Ardennes we can do the setts as well for fox residence, but the badger is not to be hunted, which only means that if he bolts he will not be shot. In a big rocky place you can use the badgers to help the fox bolt if you please: the fox is as afraid of brock as of the dog. What you need is a terrier which is for the most part steady to badger, and prefers the fox. When the dog runs in pursuit of the fox, he will sooner or later find the badgers. All the dog needs to do is stir the chamber where the badgers sleep a bit, or make so much noise the badgers begin to move, so that they start running around as well. And when everything is running everywhere, the fox pops out even if he knows the guns are out there. You are no longer allowed to do that in England I suppose, (In Holland they are also not allowed to put terriers in badger setts, even if they house foxes) but the old timers must know the trick.

[long dogs 580]

cracking pics fella got any more of the brindle dog?

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cracking picture this