The Cry of the Hounds


The Way It Was
By Jimmy Ragan


As a newlywed, my mother realized the important role hounds and hunting played in my fathers life when he took her to a field trial on their honeymoon.
He became involved with beagles and rabbit hunting before I was born. According to my mother, on the day I was born, my fathers favorite beagle gave birth to a litter of puppies; she said he seemed as proud of those puppies as he was of me.
When we moved to Oriental, he got rid of the beagles, but it didnt take long before he had acquired a pack of walker hounds. Walkers are fox hounds. Much larger than beagles, they have more speed and endurance to chase larger and more wide-ranging game such as fox.
Dad fox hunted mostly on Sunday mornings. One Sunday morning, his pack of dogs ran a fox through a church yard during the worship service. The fox, followed by the barking hounds, went under the church and out the other side. Another time, his hounds ran through a tobacco bed. My mother was not happy when she found out the amount of damages he had to pay the farmer.
Foxhunters do not hunt with guns. They dont shoot foxes, and they certainly dont eat them. Back in dads day, fox hunters were strong advocates against shooting fox. They wanted to protect the fox population, although it could be argued they did so for their own selfish reasons.
If you have an image of fox hunters adorned in the finest riding apparel, on their beautiful horses and surrounded by a well-behaved pack of hounds, you don't know a thing about the ways and culture of local fox hunters. The local hunters, being part of the sports lower classes, drove pickup trucks. After the hounds were released from the truck, the hunter made no attempt to follow them through the woods. Instead, the hunter drove along the roads so he could position himself to hear the hounds.
Fox hunting is a listening sport. The hunter runs his dogs so he can listen to their voices (barking). The sound of the running dogs is music to his ears. Fox hunting is all about the chase and has little to do with killing the fox. Indeed, a fox hunter is completely satisfied if his dogs run well, the chase lasts an hour or two and the fox escapes into a hole at the end of the hunt.
Unless you put dogs out on a fox or fresh scent, the hounds hunt through the woods searching for scent. After they pick up scent, they begin trailing the fox. While trailing, the dogs open (bark) during infrequent intervals. The frequency in their barking increases as the scent grows hotter. When the fox jumps, the hounds open with increased frequency, volume and excitement. The hounds, now in full cry, are in hot pursuit of the fox. As the hunter enjoys the chase, he can identify each of his hounds by their voices.
If dads dogs jumped a deer, he would catch them. He did not want his fox dogs running deer. Occasionally, the hounds jumped a bobcat, and he allowed them to chase it; however, a cat could do a lot of damage to a pack of hounds before they subdued it.
Percy Flowers, the states most renowned bootlegger, used to come to Pamlico County and run his hounds. Percy was from Johnston County where they raised their corn by the gallon instead of by the bushel.
One time, Mr. Ralph Mayo and daddy had some kind of dispute or disagreement with the Pamlico County Commissioners. To get back at the two of them, the commissioners got the local state representative to introduce a bill making fox hunting with hounds illegal in Pamlico County. Local bills usually pass without difficulty because the bill applies only to one county and has the support of the county commissioners.
Mr. Ralph and daddy got in touch with every fox hunter in the state. In turn, they contacted their representatives, and the bill was soundly defeated. One of the few times a local bill has ever been defeated.
When asked about how fox hunting was different here than in England, dad would say, In England, they say, “Tally ho, the fox.Down here we say, “There goes the son of a #&%*#.