The Foxhunt!

Do people still hunt foxes on horseback with hounds? Like in the old days with those fancy jackets on? It’s prob for rich folks if so.

It's still popular in a few south states ..think South Carolina is like the main one if I remember right. But the common man deal is more fox pens in the south.

I know it's still kinda big in the UK but after talking with a lot of those guys isn't definitely gonna be dying off soon because how divided they are. All the outdoors groups just throw each other under the buss so they ac last a lil longer over there it seems

Interesting, thanks Wolfdog! I had imagined it would be big in England.

It’s big in England , Ireland, and other countries. In Asian areas , especially on the Himalayan steppes too . I have rode many warm blood hunters in cross country racing to that end, it is fun . Here they are done following scent trails , not the fox itself . For me it is fun with the group of superb riders and horses , with well trained hounds sticking close to the masters . A tradition of freedom and working with the ultimate team of dogs , horses and horsemen .

I like that!

There used to be a group that did it near Smithton Pa. Some of the older gents started letting the dogs run while they sat around a fire towards the end of the 80's early 90's.

It was quite a shock to be walking into a treeing hound and a guy on a horse come riding by you in the pitch black.

Northern Ireland it is legal. Rest of the UK illegal. There is a group by Saint Louis: bridlespur.com

There is one farm that still chase with horses close to me.
Not to change the subject,but i have heard or read that
the reason we have frosty fox, the English sent fox over here.

Used to be SO common here.
Growing up I heard many stories about chasing fox with 20/30/ 40 horses under the ( hood).

Sad to see these wonderful old hunting traditions die out.

Still active in Chester County & Lancaster County PA. They try to payoff neighboring Amish to NOT let trappers trap their farms. I have had to wait until some of the fox hunt neighbors went to FL for extended winter vacations to set up. Amish want to get along with their neighbors, for the most part.

There is a club in Lexington. It’s a rich man’s game and more about sipping bourbon at their fancy club house. I trapped a members property and he wanted me to keep any fox alive for him. Illegal here so I couldn’t

There's a big group of them about 25 miles from me.they have a few thousand acres and have people take care of the horses and dogs.they just do it for fun don't really hunt them. Think most of them come from chicago

When the kids were little, the dog pack chased a fox through my yard.
Later the horses and riders came trotting down the road.
My oldest said something like,
"The English are coming the English are coming".

Their perpetual trespassing and property damage is frowned on.
Dogs can't read you know.
They need large tracts of private land.

They are real nice when fishing for info
or trying to bribe and buy live fox.
The rest of the time they bad mouth and hate me
according to farmers.
Just gossip, I'm sure.

And here we go, haters gotta hate.

Used to hunt fox here but now you hunt coyotes with old clothes on and fancy trucks with radio collars attached to the dogs

There is at least one hunt in our area that I know of. A couple came into our business in late November fully decked out in the riding gear. I would guess it is merely a social event here not enough foxes around to have much hope of finding one.

The last hunts here were on the barrier beach, last place there was enough land... I watched one hunt where the dogs chased a deer into the bay and it swam off, the horseman came by and I told them your dogs are chasing deer, pointing to the swimming deer, he said no, the dogs only chase fox, and that the foxes are so smart that they run under the deer. I asked him if said fox was riding the deer swimming away?
He didn't want to talk anymore, lol . I think that might have been their last hunt...

It was outlawed in England and most of Ireland, but is still done there. Kind of a big deal when they outlawed it there a few years ago to still put on and go to the hunts, an act of mass civil disobedience.

Still done here in places, although the common quarry is now coyotes rather than red fox (it is acceptable in most hunts for the dogs to run red fox, grey fox, or coyote). Many of the hunts of disappeared because of urban sprawl. Between highways (dangerous for hounds) and the breakup of so many old farms into smaller tracts sold to people moving from the cities that didn't want anybody on their land and/or "tormenting the poor fox."

I used to correspond with a couple old houndmen that handled the dogs for horseback hunt clubs, but they have passed on now. The vast majority of the participants in the hunts were there for horses and the social aspects, the hounds were just an excuse to ride pell mell through the countryside with their friends. Most of them had no interest in training or handling the dogs, so they had dog handlers hired that handled the dogs during the hunts and took care of them and trained them between hunts.

I love haters that speak true,
and hate click baiters that crave
attention, drama, and sucking up.

And how the great old traditions gradually slip away.

Wright Brothers,
You are CORRECT!

The houndsmen wanted to run whereever they wanted, no matter who owned the land, but despised trappers.

Then, with the increasing popularity of leasing deer hunting rights...that wound up the houndsmen running all over the country.

They were then relegated to running in enclosures only.

I'm no hater, but fox houndsmen were NEVER a trapper's friend.

Did I say hate, I meant jealousy. It was always the gamehogs on either side that caused the problem.

Jealousy?

Why would a fox trapper be jealous of houndsmen running a fox when a good fox trapper caught dozens or hundreds in a season?

The game hog is the guy that let his hounds run all over everyone's property w/o permission and then griped about a trapper "catching all the fox."

I dealt with this throughout the late 70s and 80s...until deer leases took over.

Weve still got some folks who do it around me in central GA. I believe there is a pretty good chunk of land that is a part of a horse riding club that does it. I saw the packs of dogs running across a sod farm a few years ago and the cars in front of me hit the brakes in the middle of the road. Out popped people with whips trying to keep the dogs from crossing the highway. It didnt work and they ran across the highway onto another property. Then behind me runs a couple guys in red coats on horse back. That was my first experience with the whole thing.

Im willing to bet Game wardens have done more " running all over everyones property w/o permision" than fox hunters.

Diggerman,
Why are you being such a turdhead? You just wanna argue with a retired game warden about something you don't know anything about? Direct your efforts elsewhere..because I could care less what you think about me or any employed game wardens.

BTW, here in Georgia, GWs are allowed by state law to go on or about properties, outside of buildings, without a warrant, in the performance of their duties.

Maybe they are allowed to do that in Wisconsin. I hope they visit you regularly! They probably should.

Wow I didn’t realize there were so many conflicting opinions about this! I was watching Darby O’Gill and the Little People and I thought i would ask about the fox chase!

a tradition brought from England, ya know when common folk were peasants and the crown owned all land. We run those sucks out of of this nation long ago.. Our founders had a better ideal, hence the good old USA.. unless you've got blood from those vampires I'm not sure why'd anyone would want to entertain any of that.

I’m poor. I can’t entertain any of it. Was just musing. Additionally, I can’t claim to be “American” unless I’m a Native American.

Your more than welcome to name any nation that has came to being without conquest...good or bad. I was born here, I'm a true blood American.

I don’t feel right saying it. I ain’t earned anything. Right place at the right time maybe

Now we're getting deep, alls I've earned is (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) and the grave.. it's about grace. I was born as an American I had nothing to do with how this all came about but I will honor the Ideals of self governance that the founders laid out before me.

We can’t solve all the world’s crap nor make sense of it! I just know that I have Russian and Croatian heritage and that I happened to be born in this country. Beautiful as it is; I feel that God loves us all. This country has enough dark history , enough to be ashamed of sometimes. Just like the rest of this miserable planet. It’s nobody’s fault. The Devil has been cast down, knowing he has a short period of time.

You hold the shame of your ancestry?, not me. I think most have revisionist history driven by lies told by our current social ideals. Again I'll ask, what nation today stands that hasn't used conquest to exist? Our current world is much more tempered than those in the past. Before all the men/boys were killed in conquest, the question is why. If you struggle with that answer I can help.

The shame of mankind just cannot be undone. Doesn’t matter which country or race. We are all imperfect idiots. I don’t need any help to accept that. Leave it be. Please.

That's fine, the truth isn't for everyone.. war is for men.

Lucky for you, I’m a woman. And I don’t need “the truth” from some imperfect man

Of course you don't, perhaps you can look to another woman for your answers.. you all wonder what's going wrong with the world.

I look higher. Have a snack and calm down I said I didn’t wanna fight. Night court is on

The "higher" has spoken on this, your argument isn't with me..

Until He speaks to me I have no argument

What a tradition!

I find it disturbing that a GW would side so heavily against one form of recreating over another, and most if not all GW's stretch Their "performance of duties" when it comes to "tennis shoeing", Yet feel it is just fine to bash houndsman on social media.
Every hunter, trapper, fisherman knows wildlife knows no boundaries, neither do hounds. Wildlife here today, over there tommorow. OR maybe we can all build high fences like Texas and just keep "our" wildlife on "our" property.
If trappers and houndsman can not get along in Georgia, deal with it. Up here most trappers also run hounds, The best trappers I have come to know are also some off the best houndsman.

I became a GW in 1996 to 2022. The fox houndsmen used to run all over the country where I grew up in the late 70s and 80s. Again...deer leases took care of that. Where I worked as a GW and continue to live is pure hound country....all leased to hound hunting clubs. Dog boxes remain in backs of pickups here year-round. Deer hounds, bear hounds, hog dogs..some of my best friends are houndsmen. But, none of that changes the fact that FOX houndsmen back in the day, and any pure fox houndsman today (which there aren't many left), doesn't care for fox trappers.

In the early 80s, I attended multiple statewide meetings that were coordinated by the fox houndsmen to place a limit on the number of foxes a trapper could take annually. A couple of those meetings..I was the only trapper there. It got a little heated. They failed to achieve a law change on the limits..not due to me, but due to the Ga Trappers Assn efforts on a state level.

You're the one that brought game wardens into this topic....can't pass up a chance to gouge at a game warden, especially me because you know I was one.

Keep digging Diggerman! Most on here see it.

BTW,
I can bash who I want now....even you, as I'm not a GW anymore. But I wouldn't bash you.. even though you seem to want to bash me. As you said..haters gonna hate!!!