Metamora Hunt
P.O. Box 263,
Metamora, Michigan 48455.
Established 1928.
Recognized 1930.

Season Opens With A Crafty Coyote

At the blessing of the hounds ceremony at our opening day meet, the minister asked that the hounds be swift and courageous and that the game be cunning. And so it was.

About 50 riders, split between the field, the gate crowd, and the hilltoppers, followed hounds, but it was the hilltoppers and the car followers who had the best views of the quarry.

Hounds struck a line in the woods behind Jesse Reynolds’ farm on Rock Valley Rd., the site of the meet, and looped it several times around the swamp just to the west. The car followers moved their cars to Barber Rd., so they could hear hounds working in the woods. Then the hounds split, with one group moving north along Barber Rd. They kept approaching the road and then turning back east.

Finally, a deer trotted across the road, with a coyote trotting right behind it! The coyote was not chasing the deer. It looked more like a football receiver using a blocker to help him get down the field. Once they were through the gate on the west side of the road, the deer took off one way and the coyote another.

Meanwhile, the hilltoppers were coming through a trail toward Barber Rd. when the big red fox who had just looped around the swamp ran across the trail right in front of them. From there, it headed up to the car followers and ran right between their vehicles. Once it had properly greeted everyone and left everyone yelling and pointing, the fox trotted off to the west.

At this point, we had two lines–fox and coyote–heading in the same direction. The fox gave the hounds the slip in the dry ground on the top of the ridge, but the hounds then rejoined the other group, working the coyote line through the wetlands and meadows, across Gardener Rd. and farther west, down into the swampland along the river.

About half a mile north and west of the river, in the open, higher ground, the hounds lost his trail. A whipper-in saw a coyote trot back across Gardner Rd., east of the river, and slip into the woods to the northeast. If it was the same one, he had looped almost right back to where he’d been half an hour before.

Pat Pearce, our huntsman, collected the hounds, and since all of the riders had already headed in, decided to head back to the kennels. At the masters’ breakfast, the hilltoppers proudly described the fox they’d viewed, and one of the car followers said, “It’s lucky for you folks that we were there!”

Many people had predicted that as the coyote population grew, the fox population would decline, but–for the moment at least–we seem to have had an abundance of both to grace our opening day hunt. Caitlin Rollins

At the blessing of the hounds ceremony at our opening day meet, the minister asked that the hounds be swift and courageous and that the game be cunning. And so it was.

About 50 riders, split between the field, the gate crowd, and the hilltoppers, followed hounds, but it was the hilltoppers and the car followers who had the best views of the quarry.

Hounds struck a line in the woods behind Jesse Reynolds’ farm on Rock Valley Rd., the site of the meet, and looped it several times around the swamp just to the west. The car followers moved their cars to Barber Rd., so they could hear hounds working in the woods. Then the hounds split, with one group moving north along Barber Rd. They kept approaching the road and then turning back east.

Finally, a deer trotted across the road, with a coyote trotting right behind it! The coyote was not chasing the deer. It looked more like a football receiver using a blocker to help him get down the field. Once they were through the gate on the west side of the road, the deer took off one way and the coyote another.

Meanwhile, the hilltoppers were coming through a trail toward Barber Rd. when the big red fox who had just looped around the swamp ran across the trail right in front of them. From there, it headed up to the car followers and ran right between their vehicles. Once it had properly greeted everyone and left everyone yelling and pointing, the fox trotted off to the west.

At this point, we had two lines–fox and coyote–heading in the same direction. The fox gave the hounds the slip in the dry ground on the top of the ridge, but the hounds then rejoined the other group, working the coyote line through the wetlands and meadows, across Gardener Rd. and farther west, down into the swampland along the river.

About half a mile north and west of the river, in the open, higher ground, the hounds lost his trail. A whipper-in saw a coyote trot back across Gardner Rd., east of the river, and slip into the woods to the northeast. If it was the same one, he had looped almost right back to where he’d been half an hour before.

Pat Pearce, our huntsman, collected the hounds, and since all of the riders had already headed in, decided to head back to the kennels. At the masters’ breakfast, the hilltoppers proudly described the fox they’d viewed, and one of the car followers said, “It’s lucky for you folks that we were there!”

Many people had predicted that as the coyote population grew, the fox population would decline, but–for the moment at least–we seem to have had an abundance of both to grace our opening day hunt.