Cumbria sabs were out and about on Saturday keeping an eye on local hunts! Choosing to visit the Melbreak, the three attending sabs spent a little under two hours searching the countryside surrounding Buttermere, Loweswater, and Mosser! With no sightings during this time the decision was taken to head over to the back up meet, the Blencathras Jackies hunt, instead. Arriving at Scales just after 11am a large amount of support and hunt staff were quickly located parked up along the A66. With whips in hand, and donned in high visibility jackets, it was clear they were anticipating hounds to spill down over this busy road at any moment. Pulling up behind hunt staff the sabs began scanning the area, quickly spotting hounds and terriermen at work up on Mousthwaite Combe. Wasting no time they made their way up onto the gated road, which passes along the foot of Mousethwaite Combe, where two sabs went in on foot the third remained with the vehicle returning to position on the A66. The presence of sabs filming was enough to prompt a reaction from Barry who fled onto Southerfell with the pack, whilst many of his accompanying support descended to the road a tad annoyed! The sab in the vehicle, now tailing road support moving towards Mungrisdale, monitored Barrys progress as best they could until the footsabs had worked their way to the area. Once the footsabs had repositioned the vehicle returned to the A66 to keep an eye on a few lingering support still up on Mousethwaite Combe collecting stray hounds. From this point on Barry moved quickly managing to stay one step ahead of the pursuing footsabs, who were being costantly slowed by the diminishing support. Contact with Barry and the pack was once more restored on the mines bridge road, Mosedale, after the three sabs, now reunited, located a small number of hardcore support waiting in the shadow of Carrock Fell. Within minutes the pack appeared on the brow of Bowscale followed by Barry and a couple of terriermen. Eager for one last chase the hunt was stopped in its tracks when informed sabs were in the valley. After some time spent pondering their next move the hunt decided to call it a day, it was just after 3.30pm. The sabs remained in place for a short while longer watching as support left the area, then when confident the hunt was over returned to base for a hot brew. Video clip - The hunt pondering its next move on the slopes of Bowscale minutes before quitting!
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 11:25:02 +0000