Chris watches Mountain get nowhere on the last hole of the day. This pipe was constricted by rock just 8 inches up. Solution: Dig a hole just past the rock.
Since it was supposed to rain on Sunday, Chris and I agreed to meet up on Saturday to go hunting. As I rode up to the 2,000-acre DNR tract we intended to work, however, I notice a variety of 4-wheel drive vehicles pulled off to the side of the road.
Upon arrival at my destination, three guys with long guns confirmed that it was the start of early muzzleloader season. There was no reason to get the dogs accidentally shot, or to ruin the day for these deer hunters, so I called Chris, who was still about two miles back on the road, and I told him to stay where he was. We would be hunting a nice farm near where he was -- a place I had not taken him to before.
I found Chris parked in a small graveyard next to the intersection we had agreed to meet at, and I chuckled -- the back side of that graveyard was riddled with holes, but who was going to dig them? Not me. There are some things you cannot explain, and digging in a graveyard is one of them.
Chris followed me, and we turned into a large farm about 500 yards from the graveyard and on the other side of the road. This is a big property with year-round water on it, but there are not as many dens here as you would imagine. That said, at one time or another, I have pulled everything off this farm -- fox, groundhog, raccoon and possum. It had been about a year since I had last visited.
The dogs were a bit giddy coming out of the truck, and were running around playing and not hunting.
Mountain settled down after a short while, and began to hunt up the hedge. Moxie was interested in the holes, but she has not yet kicked into that hard-hunting maniac mode that she will in just a few more months.
Moxie is just 10 months old, and I know she is going to be a demon. A better sized dog or one more game at this age, you will never see.
I knew where we were likely to find quarry, and we headed there on a ramble. As luck would have it, I was right about where the critters would be located
Mountain slid in to the first good den we found, and snuffled about. She was not baying, and after a few minutes I began to box for location. I was not getting a strong signal, but it turned out it did not matter -- I saw a groundhog crown out of the hole and then -- almost as quickly -- it was pulled back into the den rather forcefully. No wonder Mountain was not baying -- she had a mouthful of groundhog ass.
The groundhog was back underground now. I could just see its nose, and I could hear Mountain pulling it hard. I got a snare ready, expecting Mountain to let go of the groundhog at some point, but she never did. After about 15 minutes of waiting, Chris and I decided to drop a hole on the dog and the groundhog. When we did, we found the groundhog with Mountain still firmly attached. After attempts to snare the groundhog failed (because Mountain would not let go and I could not get the snare around a front leg of the groundhog), I used the tip of the digging bar to dispatch the groundog with a powerful blow to its cranium. It was over now, and it never even left the hole.
I pulled out the now lifeless groundhog, and it looked fair-sized. We weighed it at 11 pounds, but Chris and I both agreed that this one looked a bit bigger than that.
We repaired this sette well, as it has held fox for me in the past, and we gathered up the dogs and tools and hit a high dry ridge, but there was nothing there. We headed over to a few holes on a hedge point, but they were blank as well.
I told Chris we would find in the dry hummocks on the other side of the creek in the next hedge down, so we went there. After crossing the creek, we found the hummocks and a couple of good settes, but they were blank. We headed down to the other end of the hedge line and crossed back over the creek. At that point, I realized we had been missing Mountain for a few minutes, and I told Chris I was pretty sure she had found somewhere behind us. About 45 seconds later we heard a furious barking -- bingo.
With Moxie leading the way, Chris and I headed back across the creek to where Mountain was hard at it. Moxie took a flying Mark Spitz leap into the creek -- she looked like a miniature labrador going for a duck.
I scrambled up the bank and into the multiflora rose where Mountain and Moxie were trying to wrestle a very large groundhog into submission. Mountain had apparently bolted it out of its den and then caught it above ground. I put in the boot as quick as I could, and dispatched the groundog with a blow to the head. The dogs came away from it with only a few small nicks for their troubles. All good.
This groundhog was an enormous pot-bellied female that weighed 15 pounds on the scale. A very nice hog!
We packed up the tools and, with the dogs following, we crossed back over the creek. I saw Mountain enter the hedge just on the other side of the creek, but then she disappeared. I whistled, but there was nothing. "She's found again," I said, and we began to look for her in the hedge.
"Game on" Chris said from inside the hedge, and I pushed past the multiflora rose to his voice and found him at a nice little sette under a small black cherry tree.
Excellent. This was a very tight and rocky one-eye sette, and neither dog could get in very far due to rock constrictions. We tried to clear away the brush and poison ivy, but the angle of the cherry tree was going to be a small problem for digging. The good news was this was a very shalow pipe. When the dogs came out (they could only get in about 18 inches), we poked a stick up the pipe, and sunk a hole past the obstruction. Mountain went back in and made contact. We pulled her, felt again for location, and then sank another hole where we thought the groundhog would be. We were off by about 6 inches, and came in on the side of the pipe. The groundhog was right there.
This groundhog was not bolting, and it was not presenting its tail for a manual grab either.
We decided to let Moxie get a bit of work under her belt, so we tied up Mountain and put Moxie in the hole in order to drive the groundhog out. Moxie went in and grabbed the groundhog head-first. Oops -- she's a young dog and is still in her "all-teeth" mode, especially if she can see the critter. No problem. We got Moxie off the groundhog and pulled her out to avoid unnecessary injury to this young dog. With Moxie out of the pipe, the groundhog took the opportunity to run past where she had been. We could work with that! We put Moxie behind the groundhog now, and she pushed it hard to a bolt, at which point the groundhog was quickly snared and dispatched. This groundhog had a dark coat and weighed about 10 pounds.
It was raining lightly now, so we decided to call it a day and we headed back to the truck.
At only a little past noon we headed home. A short day in the field, but a good one all the same.
Chris with Moxie and Mountain.
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