When I was a youngster there was a chunk of the year when it was illegal to train dogs in the wild. It lasted from spring into part of the summer. For some reason April through June sounds plausible, though I am not sure. Currently, we can train all year in the wild, as science has demonstrated that a baying beagle is a lesser threat to baby rabbits than weasels, hawks, owls, bobcat, fishers, fox, snakes, crows, or even lawn mowers. Certainly, the game commission could reinstate a prohibition on training in the wild at any time. Loss of habitat, in my opinion, is one of the biggest threats to all game species, as strip malls, housing developments, and roads appear as quickly as mushrooms after a rain. It seems like I lose rabbit spots every year to progress.
Running in the wild was a great joy for me as a kid. This was because in my adolescent years, before I could drive, it was very easy for me to walk a couple hundred yards and be in an area that held bunnies. This was an especially great thing in the summer, when I wanted to train dogs and listen to the hound music. It was in July, perhaps, that we could return to the wild if we so desired. Naturally, there were beaglers that preferred to run inside the fence all year. The irony of that peculiarity was that most of the guys that wanted to run inside the fence all year had very slow dogs that could never go missing. Perhaps the concern was also related to the fact that these were guys that found rabbits for their dogs. Even today, I see gundog brace trials where the shaggers (guys with sticks to shag rabbits out of the brush) are as important as the dogs, and the judges sometimes have to stop walking so as to not pass the beagles. I know people who never hunt with their field trial dogs, preferring to keep them in an enclosure.
Anyway, late summer is a hot time of year, and it makes it difficult on the dogs. Night running was more common then, as the coyotes did not own the woods after dark as they now do. Incidentally, the Pennsylvania Game Commission printed a study in the book of laws that accompanies your purchase of a hunting license a few years ago detailing that the eastern coyote is larger and stronger than the western coyote, and therefore eats a larger percentage of deer. The reason for this increased size is that the eastern coyote is a result of migration, wherein the western coyote arrived hear via the Great Lakes region, and interbred with wolves. Our yotes have a sizeable percentage of wolf DNA.
When I was a teenager, our biggest night time worries were skunks and porcupines. My father would let me stay out all night long in the woods, and only imposed a summertime curfew if I went in to town. I knew that if I violated this trust, I would be in big trouble and may not be allowed to go out in the woods for a long time.
“Dad,” I said one morning after he had his coffee, “Can I take the dogs out tonight to run them.” I never asked him anything before coffee.
“Why?”
“Because its hot now,” I held out a thumb, “And we can run in the wild again,” I held out my index finger to count my second strong point.
“How you going to get to wherever you plan to do this? I am working second trick today,” he scratched his stubble. Trick, in this case, was interchangeable for shift.
“I am going to walk,” I said. I could tell he knew my intentions right away.
“You plan on running a hare?” he grinned. It was a facial expression that combined an appreciation for my plan with a heavy dose of skepticism.
“Yep,” I said, “They won’t go in a hole. And they go in huge circles. The dogs will fly!”
“You better get there before dark,” he sighed, “Because those hemlocks have as many deer as they do snowshoes. You will want to know what you are chasing before the sun sets.”
Training collars and GPS were not even close to being used in the beagling world then. We used compasses to get around in the big woods, and it wasn’t uncommon to come out of the hemlocks onto a dirt logging road that you had to walk for a mile or so until you saw a landmark that helped you determine where you were. Getting lost could easily happen. I had an old coon hunting light that I planned on using, the helmet barely adjusted small enough to fit. An old lensatic compass was my guide into the timber.
Modern hunting is different. For instance, last fall I was catching dogs at dark in Maine, a place where getting lost is a much more serious issue. I had to work very hard to trust my handheld GPS. It was telling me that my truck was parked 90 degrees off from where I felt it was positioned. Oh, it was a half mile away too. For reasons that I cannot explain, I trust a compass more than the communication between my handheld and the satellites. I had to resist the urge to trust my instincts rather than my technology, I got my compass out and confirmed that the blasted machine was right. Of course it was correct, and it even compensated for the angle of declination that demarcated the difference between true north and magnetic north. So, off through the cedars I went, struggling to keep the leashed dogs from getting entangled in the ubiquitous, identical cedar trees, each ten inches in diameter. This was the forest that replaced the last clear cut—perfect habitat for hare.
I digressed. Let’s go back to Pennsylvania in the 1980’s. I was using a compass and a second hand coon lamp with a battery that attached to my belt, or should have. The battery may as well have been from a Buick it was so heavy. An older gentleman that retired from hunting gave it to me. I cut his grass every week and I saw the relic in his garage.
“Jay,” I asked, “Can I buy that light?”
“I thought you had beagles,” he poked the light with his cane.
“I do, but that could be handy,” I said.
“If you can pick it up, you can have it.”
It was heavy, and I wondered if many other kids had attempted to lift it, but failed like so many that tried to pull Excalibur from the stone in the King Arthur stories. “I got it,” I moaned, pretending that it wasn’t too heavy. “Thanks.”
“You better get some suspenders for that thing. Take this adapter I made to charge it.” Jay worked for Ford Motor Company in Buffalo before retiring and returning to Pennsylvania. He could build and design all sorts of things.
Suspenders were no help, as the battery was pulling my britches to the ground. I used a backpack to throw the battery into, and I am still not entirely certain that he did not build that thing. The charge seemed to last forever. The only drawback was that I had to carry a lot of water to stay hydrated from lugging the massive thing up and down the hills of the Alleghenies.
I can’t describe to you how wonderful the chases were. Those two beagles thundered through the hills, and the only time I had trouble was if they got onto a cottontail that ran close to houses. People tended to not like the barking at midnight. At least three nights each week I would do this. I came through the door one morning at 7:15 or so, just as dad was coming home from work. He was working third “trick” that week. We had a little breakfast together and chatted about our night.
“I was busy,” dad said, “We were a man short and we had to hustle.”
“Dogs crossed the creek,” I said, “I got soaked crossing it. Real soft bottom, I sunk knee deep.”
“You sure it wasn’t the weight from that contraption on your back? I think that battery is tearing the seams of your backpack.”
“You might be right,” I said.
“The seams on your pant legs are not doing well either.”
“Yeah,” I poured some juice, “My legs are a lot bigger from that backpack battery.” My mother shook her head as to indicate that sanity was sorely lacking.
I look back at all of this amazed that I was allowed in the woods, alone, all night long at the age of 15. I was instructed to avoid people if I saw them, which I never did see. Then it happened. My light burned out. Of course, it was the bulb. The battery could probably have powered a small village for a week. I felt my feet wanting to run north, and get back home. But I remembered what I was told weeks before when this hare chasing began. If you run out of light, build a fire and sit still until the sun comes up. I caught the dogs in the dark—not easy as all I had was a small flashlight in my backpack. I tied the leashes to trees, and built a fire. I won’t lie, I was a little scared, and for some reason I would have felt safer if I was walking rather than standing still and sitting by the fire. Tiny critters in the brush sounded like monstrous bears, and screeching owls made me think panthers were surrounding me.
Catching the dogs in the dark was a disorienting process, and as the pre-dawn sky brightened I realized I was closer to my cousin Ray’s house than I was my own. I trod up to his house and sat on the porch until the kitchen light came on. Then I went inside for breakfast and called home.
“Yeah,” dad answered.
“Light burned out, I am at Ray’s house. Can you come get me?”
“I’ll take you!” Ray yelled.
“Never mind, I got a ride,” I said.
“Okay. See you later,” dad hung up.
Back here in the present, I hear coyotes all the time now, and if I am running dogs after dark it is accidental. That was one glorious summer of running, and the cooler temperatures after dark were fantastic for conditioning the dogs. The following rabbit season was the best I had ever experienced to that point in my life. I never did have another great summer of chasing hare at night with such regularity. I was 16 years old the next summer, and hanging out with girls seemed to make more sense. I am still thankful for a father that let me roam those hills. Happy Father’s Day.
Running in the wild was a great joy for me as a kid. This was because in my adolescent years, before I could drive, it was very easy for me to walk a couple hundred yards and be in an area that held bunnies. This was an especially great thing in the summer, when I wanted to train dogs and listen to the hound music. It was in July, perhaps, that we could return to the wild if we so desired. Naturally, there were beaglers that preferred to run inside the fence all year. The irony of that peculiarity was that most of the guys that wanted to run inside the fence all year had very slow dogs that could never go missing. Perhaps the concern was also related to the fact that these were guys that found rabbits for their dogs. Even today, I see gundog brace trials where the shaggers (guys with sticks to shag rabbits out of the brush) are as important as the dogs, and the judges sometimes have to stop walking so as to not pass the beagles. I know people who never hunt with their field trial dogs, preferring to keep them in an enclosure.
Anyway, late summer is a hot time of year, and it makes it difficult on the dogs. Night running was more common then, as the coyotes did not own the woods after dark as they now do. Incidentally, the Pennsylvania Game Commission printed a study in the book of laws that accompanies your purchase of a hunting license a few years ago detailing that the eastern coyote is larger and stronger than the western coyote, and therefore eats a larger percentage of deer. The reason for this increased size is that the eastern coyote is a result of migration, wherein the western coyote arrived hear via the Great Lakes region, and interbred with wolves. Our yotes have a sizeable percentage of wolf DNA.
When I was a teenager, our biggest night time worries were skunks and porcupines. My father would let me stay out all night long in the woods, and only imposed a summertime curfew if I went in to town. I knew that if I violated this trust, I would be in big trouble and may not be allowed to go out in the woods for a long time.
“Dad,” I said one morning after he had his coffee, “Can I take the dogs out tonight to run them.” I never asked him anything before coffee.
“Why?”
“Because its hot now,” I held out a thumb, “And we can run in the wild again,” I held out my index finger to count my second strong point.
“How you going to get to wherever you plan to do this? I am working second trick today,” he scratched his stubble. Trick, in this case, was interchangeable for shift.
“I am going to walk,” I said. I could tell he knew my intentions right away.
“You plan on running a hare?” he grinned. It was a facial expression that combined an appreciation for my plan with a heavy dose of skepticism.
“Yep,” I said, “They won’t go in a hole. And they go in huge circles. The dogs will fly!”
“You better get there before dark,” he sighed, “Because those hemlocks have as many deer as they do snowshoes. You will want to know what you are chasing before the sun sets.”
Training collars and GPS were not even close to being used in the beagling world then. We used compasses to get around in the big woods, and it wasn’t uncommon to come out of the hemlocks onto a dirt logging road that you had to walk for a mile or so until you saw a landmark that helped you determine where you were. Getting lost could easily happen. I had an old coon hunting light that I planned on using, the helmet barely adjusted small enough to fit. An old lensatic compass was my guide into the timber.
Modern hunting is different. For instance, last fall I was catching dogs at dark in Maine, a place where getting lost is a much more serious issue. I had to work very hard to trust my handheld GPS. It was telling me that my truck was parked 90 degrees off from where I felt it was positioned. Oh, it was a half mile away too. For reasons that I cannot explain, I trust a compass more than the communication between my handheld and the satellites. I had to resist the urge to trust my instincts rather than my technology, I got my compass out and confirmed that the blasted machine was right. Of course it was correct, and it even compensated for the angle of declination that demarcated the difference between true north and magnetic north. So, off through the cedars I went, struggling to keep the leashed dogs from getting entangled in the ubiquitous, identical cedar trees, each ten inches in diameter. This was the forest that replaced the last clear cut—perfect habitat for hare.
I digressed. Let’s go back to Pennsylvania in the 1980’s. I was using a compass and a second hand coon lamp with a battery that attached to my belt, or should have. The battery may as well have been from a Buick it was so heavy. An older gentleman that retired from hunting gave it to me. I cut his grass every week and I saw the relic in his garage.
“Jay,” I asked, “Can I buy that light?”
“I thought you had beagles,” he poked the light with his cane.
“I do, but that could be handy,” I said.
“If you can pick it up, you can have it.”
It was heavy, and I wondered if many other kids had attempted to lift it, but failed like so many that tried to pull Excalibur from the stone in the King Arthur stories. “I got it,” I moaned, pretending that it wasn’t too heavy. “Thanks.”
“You better get some suspenders for that thing. Take this adapter I made to charge it.” Jay worked for Ford Motor Company in Buffalo before retiring and returning to Pennsylvania. He could build and design all sorts of things.
Suspenders were no help, as the battery was pulling my britches to the ground. I used a backpack to throw the battery into, and I am still not entirely certain that he did not build that thing. The charge seemed to last forever. The only drawback was that I had to carry a lot of water to stay hydrated from lugging the massive thing up and down the hills of the Alleghenies.
I can’t describe to you how wonderful the chases were. Those two beagles thundered through the hills, and the only time I had trouble was if they got onto a cottontail that ran close to houses. People tended to not like the barking at midnight. At least three nights each week I would do this. I came through the door one morning at 7:15 or so, just as dad was coming home from work. He was working third “trick” that week. We had a little breakfast together and chatted about our night.
“I was busy,” dad said, “We were a man short and we had to hustle.”
“Dogs crossed the creek,” I said, “I got soaked crossing it. Real soft bottom, I sunk knee deep.”
“You sure it wasn’t the weight from that contraption on your back? I think that battery is tearing the seams of your backpack.”
“You might be right,” I said.
“The seams on your pant legs are not doing well either.”
“Yeah,” I poured some juice, “My legs are a lot bigger from that backpack battery.” My mother shook her head as to indicate that sanity was sorely lacking.
I look back at all of this amazed that I was allowed in the woods, alone, all night long at the age of 15. I was instructed to avoid people if I saw them, which I never did see. Then it happened. My light burned out. Of course, it was the bulb. The battery could probably have powered a small village for a week. I felt my feet wanting to run north, and get back home. But I remembered what I was told weeks before when this hare chasing began. If you run out of light, build a fire and sit still until the sun comes up. I caught the dogs in the dark—not easy as all I had was a small flashlight in my backpack. I tied the leashes to trees, and built a fire. I won’t lie, I was a little scared, and for some reason I would have felt safer if I was walking rather than standing still and sitting by the fire. Tiny critters in the brush sounded like monstrous bears, and screeching owls made me think panthers were surrounding me.
Catching the dogs in the dark was a disorienting process, and as the pre-dawn sky brightened I realized I was closer to my cousin Ray’s house than I was my own. I trod up to his house and sat on the porch until the kitchen light came on. Then I went inside for breakfast and called home.
“Yeah,” dad answered.
“Light burned out, I am at Ray’s house. Can you come get me?”
“I’ll take you!” Ray yelled.
“Never mind, I got a ride,” I said.
“Okay. See you later,” dad hung up.
Back here in the present, I hear coyotes all the time now, and if I am running dogs after dark it is accidental. That was one glorious summer of running, and the cooler temperatures after dark were fantastic for conditioning the dogs. The following rabbit season was the best I had ever experienced to that point in my life. I never did have another great summer of chasing hare at night with such regularity. I was 16 years old the next summer, and hanging out with girls seemed to make more sense. I am still thankful for a father that let me roam those hills. Happy Father’s Day.
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