Out For A Badger Dig

It's hunting season here in the Rockies and what more could you ask for but a cold morning with good friends and a couple of trucks full of willing hounds and terriers. The morning was very good starting out in the 30's with a moderate breeze. We began with a hound workout. Got into a wheat stubble field hoping to scare up a young coyote or maybe a hare to course. This field is about 15 square miles of area so there is a lot of walking to do. It had not been harvested since last year and so the weeds were knee deep and wet. I was sorry within 5 minutes that I had not worn my Filson coveralls but had my insulated Carhartts on that were soaked to the skin in just minutes. Who said you get smarter as you get older? The crew today was myself, Greg, Burt and Cody who is Bramble's new owner. We had 4 Staghounds and Riley who is a Staghound of sorts. We walked for a few miles getting the hounds plenty of exercise and us plenty wet. About half way through our walk, Mace and Scorch bolted after some mistery quarry. I never did see what it was but they ran hard for about 1/2 mile and then went unsited. They hopped around trying to see over the weeds but nothing, so back they came. On our way back, we came across a fresh badger dig. One of the holes was partially stopped up with just a bit of an air hole visable. We walked back to the trucks and drove back after loading the wet hounds. Burt collared up Rake his terrier and put him on the ground after we did a quick clearing of the backfill. Rake was very keen on getting in further. The soil was sandy and the badger did his best submarine emergency dive impersonation as the hole was down about 6 feet and corkscrewing down from there. We never had direct terrier/quarry contact and knew it was going to be a lost cause, so packing up the tools we headed to a field we hunted last year for another look this season.

The next field was promising. It was all in large round bales and there was plenty of badger digging going on as there were holes everywhere. We rotated terriers between Rake, Greg's Tonka and Cody's Bramble, a little Black Fell Terrier he got from me that was from Gerry Herrera's breeding. We did the Kentucky type of hunting, driving from hole to hole and dropping the terriers to have a look. Finally, we came upon a sette that Bramble acted decidedly different. She stared intently into this sette with her tail just buzzing and she was growling. Then in she went and started baying and growling immediately. We jumped to the tools like the General Quarters alarm had just sounded. We located her only about 2 feet down and she was moving deeper. We got the general direction of the pipe location and tried to sink a hole just ahead of the scrapulation. This badger was backing away from Bramble and going deep, pushing mounds of dirt up in front of her. She was digging frantically trying to clear backfull and we were trying to keep up with the both of them. This was Bramble's first badger and was a good learning experience. We never did catch up with Old Brock but being in the field with friends and terriers with spade in hand is better than taking up space on a couch watching a football game. There is always next weekend and this badger has a long way to go before he is out of this field. We will meet again.