During the 2007 hunting season, the MFHA’s 16 Districts of North America that have not already had a Centennial Joint Meet will conduct Regional Joint Meets for its member hunts. The goal is to maximize participation and have great sport and fun. Each District will have the opportunity to express its own special panache as it sees fit, and organize its events to raise funds for the MFHA.  Centennial Calendar of Events.
 

So far the Centennial Joint Meets have raised more than $66,000 for the MFHA defense fund.  As Chairman, I cannot thank you enough for making this possible through your herculean efforts!

Daphne Flowers Wood, MFH

Chairman, Centennial Joint Meets Committee

 

Quick Calendar

November 2007


Elkridge-Harford, Fox River Valley-Cornwall, and Live Oak Hounds Centennial Joint Meet
by Daphne Wood, MFH
Centennial Joint Meet Chairperson

The Elkridge-Harford, Fox River Valley-Cornwall, and Live Oak Hounds Centennial Joint Meet at Live Oak March 1st through the 4th exceeded all our wildest dreams in terms

of the quality of the sport, the amount of money raised

(just under twenty thousand dollars!) and the nighttime festivities.

Thursday night’s kick off party featured a mechanical bull riding contest (won by Elkridge’s Marian Hamilton),

oysters shucked on site and a country western band.

Over 100 people attended and by the end of the evening some were trying to ride the bull double!

At 1:15 a.m. that night a horrific storm with numerous tornadoes came through but Jim Meads and Dennis

Foster slept through the whole thing peacefully. The

tent did not blow down surprisingly.

Fox River Valley hunted 17 ½ couple of hounds Friday

from 10,000 acre Seminole Plantation’s stable. Heidi

Leahy and Live Oak Hounds’ first whipper-in Dale

Barnett viewed a coyote. Hounds were laid on and ran

south to Cyclone Hill, the line swamp, the new duck

pond and on to the green barn further west before

turning north through magnificent longleaf trees and wiregrass toward the double gates across Scott Road

where a wheel-whip viewed now three coyotes ahead of

the pack. Hounds were flying as they ran up the west

side of the north/south ditch toward the barefoot boy’s house and pond.

In this thick covert hounds turned east and then south where they were viewed by Live Oak Hounds master

Daphne Wood 100 yards behind the coyote. Dale and

Heidi meanwhile were stopping a small split as the

main pack recrossed Scott Road to the south. There

may have been still two coyotes because 3 ½ couple

were at the dry pond on the Merrily Plantation line when

Dale and Heidi saw the main pack close to a coyote

running hard across from the meet.

Tony Leahy, MFH asked Dale to stop them so the three groups could get back together. A single hound was

out and when we got him the hounds pushed out a

bobcat on Mayhaw Plantation belonging to Daphne’s

sister. This race blew up inside of ten minutes and was indicative of fading scent.

Had this been the only good run of the joint meet, all

would have been happy except of course the masters

and huntsmen of the other two packs. Hounds had gone very fast over a lot of ground and pounded the field.

The hunt breakfast was complete with French champagne courtesy of Karen Smith, Live Oak Hounds member and owner of Seminole Plantation. Some 90 people enjoyed delicious barbecue and all the fixings.

That night some Live Oak Hounds members dressed up

as Sonny, Cher, Dolly Parton and the Supremes to

enjoy a karaoke party at Patty and Bobby Brantley’s

Flying Colors Farm.

Centennial Regional Joint Meets Details and Contacts
 

  Rocky Mountain

  November 13-17, 2007 - Arapahoe Hunt (CO)

  Price TBA.

  Contact is Dr. Marvin Beeman, MFH - (303) 798-2230

  INFO

  Maryland-Delaware

 

  Mid Maryland Centennial Celebration info

 

  Q & A

 

  9-11 - Goshen Hunt and Howard County-Iron Bridge Hounds (MD-DE

  District) Contact: Tom Pardoe, MFH (410) 489-4196

 

  16-17 New Market Middletown Valley Hounds and Potomac Hunt (MD-DE

  District) Contact: Frank Becker, MFH (301) 607-4368 OR Vicki Crawford,

  MFH (301) 972-7621 or Skip Crawford, MFH

 

 

 

 

It was overcast and 45◦ Saturday morning, much more settled conditions than the day before. Expectations were high as Jeff Hyde cast 15 ½ couple of bitches from Merrily Plantation’s Parker pecan grove belonging to Marty and Daphne Wood.

A gray fox was found in Robert’s woods and the bitches ran it with excellent cry to the school house swamp after a big circle through Charlie Reichert’s. The bitches split in the swamp but hunted on in what seemed to be deteriorating scent. When they could not regain the line, the bitches were counted on in Copper’s Field (so named for Marty’s great hunter Copper who is buried there) and hacked across to the Greenwood Corner, a dense covert, where they found a coyote, again viewed away by Dale Barnett.

They then proceeded to produce a five-mile point and the coyote was viewed four more times with these very level bitches hot on the trail giving lovely cry. It was their first time to run coyote as a pack (a few had been to a performance trial with coyote) and they did a great job.

Temperatures were rising and eventually they lost the line on a hill above Seminole Plantation’s old duck pond. It was curious as that is an area where coyotes have been lost before. All hounds were on.

Again the champagne flowed freely at a welcome breakfast after the long hack home. The seventeen hardy hunters from Maryland were rightfully proud of the day.

With the Hunt Ball band still ringing in everyone’s ears, Sunday dawned bright, clear and 45◦. There was not a cloud in the sky which did not bode well for scent. The meet was from Live Oak and we were drawing the Horseshoe Covert when joint master Marty Wood and famed English photographer Jim Meads viewed a coyote east of Bull Hole (so named for a huge bull alligator that lived there for many years).

Hounds were brought to the view and took off with thrilling cry for Linton Lake and swamp. They circled the big swamp and then ran north crossing Mitchell Road, the Diston Place, and on to Poacher’s Covert where a mobile-whip and joint master Daphne Wood saw them cross close behind the coyote and in a wad. They ran on to the Bone Yard trail, the dip vat, Glen’s pecan grove, the pig parlor and on to the Cain place where the coyote ran through a large area fenced with low electric fence containing lots of pigs.

Getting through the pigs cost time, but out the other side they flew to the Taylor Place and on toward Seminole Plantation’s pre-Civil War main house where they turned south across the hay field and caught a huge coyote half a mile later in top style after running an hour and five minutes.

An amazing amount of ground had been covered but spirits were ebullient as stragglers in the field showed up. The horses were totally cooked so we hacked the long way back to the kennels for a hunt breakfast at the masters’ house Live Oak.

Tony Leahy, MFH said that despite attending all of the performance trials, this was the best three days hunting he had had. Liz McKnight told Jim Meads that she found following Live Oak’s first whipper-in Dale Barnett across country more frightening than her four rides in the Maryland Hunt Cup!