Other Game

Red Fox

Vulpes fulva

As game for coursing the fox is underrated. I am speaking of the red rather than the grey, swift or kit foxes. The grey fox is more secretive, likes a lot of cover and is difficult to find without the aid of trail hounds. When pursued the grey will usually run up a tree and a sighthound is not a tree hound. The swift and kit foxes are small foxes of the western prairies and deserts. They like open country and run very well. However, they are very nocturnal in habit and are rarely seen in daylight. And they have a propensity to hole up like a cottontail rabbit. The kit fox is fairly plentiful on the deserts of southwest New Mexico where I live. However, I’ve only seen a handful in 20 years, all at night. Dave Hise and Milt Garrett over at Roswell, New Mexico have run a few and they report that the kit fox is even quicker on the dodge than a jackrabbit. This might be a place where a “hole dog” — a Jack Russell, Dachshund, or a Patterdale terrier — to flush them out would have its uses.

The red fox is excellent sport with gazehounds. He is generally plentiful over his range and is not afraid of open country; often he is found hunting in open fields. He will hole up on occasion, but usually as a last resort, giving the hounds a good run before looking to go to ground. The red fox is fast and enduring, very graceful and truly a beautiful runner. What’s more his range is vast, especially in the East, offering the eastern courser game which approaches the jackrabbit in running ability.

You have to be a better hunter to find a red fox than you do to find a jackrabbit. The fox will be actively hunting from evening until early morning. During the day the red fox will most likely be laying up in cover, not out in an open field as does the hare, making good use of whatever cover, fences or rough terrain that is available. On the other hand, the fox does not usually possess the speed or agility of a hare and so may be attempted in smaller open fields than would normally be suitable for running jackrabbits.

Don Wells, Larimore, North Dakota, greyhound/Rhodesian ridgeback cross, and 3 prime fox.

Fox are usually hunted in fall and winter as their pelts are worth more money at that time. Also, snow is a great aid in finding a fox to run as the fox shows up well against the snow and also leaves tracks to follow. I have found that as winter comes on the fox, like jackrabbits and coyote, runs increasingly well. In October, most fox are a quick catch if the hounds have a reasonably good start. In January, look out! That same fox will be pushing 40 mph, and will run the second mile as fast as the first.

At the catch the red fox is clearly inferior to the coyote. Still, it’s a good hound that will take one singly and the hunter must be careful when introducing a gazehound pup to fox coursing. A fox can make a pup’s initial experience a bad one, thereby ruining a potentially good hound.

The red fox is reddish yellow in color with black on the legs and feet and a tail tipped white. In winter he will take on silvery “guard hairs” which are the mark of a good pelt. There is also a cross phase with dark hairs across the shoulders and down the back, and a silver phase which is all black with silver tipped body hairs.

Mice are the usual diet of the red fox but they will also feed on fruit, insects, rabbits, hares (including jackrabbit) and birds. The red fox will weigh from 8 to 12 pounds on the average, occasionally to 15 pounds, though they appear to be much larger because of their bushy coat.

Coyote (Prairie Wolf, Brush Wolf)

Canis Latrans

An old Texan once told me, “A big ol’ coyote separates the dogs from the pups!” In a way he was right. A coyote course is no place for a candy-ass hound and it is true that most coyote hunters will scoff at the running of any other game as an inferior coursing experience. We’ll go on a few coyote hunts in the next chapter but there are some interesting things to be learned about the animal first.

From our Minnesota days, Cricket and Charlie have one caught and bayed up.

The coyote is a true wolf, belonging to the genus Canis, along with the grey or timber wolf, the red wolf and others. So it is not out of line to refer to coyote hounds as wolf hounds. But the coyote is, at best, half the size of the grey wolf, weighing from twenty to fifty pounds with 30 pounds about average. A coyote that weighs over forty pounds is a trophy. Originally native west of the Mississippi River, the coyote averages larger in the north woods and mountains than on the prairies and deserts.

Over the last fifty years the coyote has slowly migrated east of the Mississippi into all the eastern states. Sometimes called “the new wolf,” this coyote may in fact be carrying some timber wolf or red wolf blood. In some locales this new wolf may average close to 40 lbs. with trophy animals weighing 50 to 70 lbs. They are raising hell with the traditional red fox populations in the eastern states; at the same time they have given hunters with both trail and sight hounds a brand new sport.

This is a very intelligent and remarkably adaptable animal. Unlike the grey wolf, which shuns the vicinity of human habitation, the coyote finds a way, in the wilds or urban areas, to survive. They may be found within the Los Angeles city limits as well as in the wilderness forests and prairies of the country.

At times coyotes, which don’t pack up or commune to the extent the grey wolf does, will take a weakened or young deer, a sheep, or (rarely) a calf. Mostly they eat small game, including mice, ground squirrels, rabbits and hares. In places they have become a genuine liability to sheep and goat ranchers, and even cattlemen, but like the fox they are overall more beneficial than harmful. Where they are exterminated, rather than merely controlled, the consequent uncontrolled rodent populations cause more loss and trouble than the coyotes ever could.

I rate the coyote as about equal to the red fox in speed and endurance. Like the fox you won’t get an easy start on a coyote as you will with a hare. I’ve seen many hounds turned loose on a fox or coyote from a quarter mile or more away, putting an extra requirement on hounds for straightaway speed. The coyote can’t dodge on the run the way a fox does and they’ll seldom hole up, but while it takes a good hound to kill a fox alone, it is truly a rare hound that can do the same with a mature coyote. In this the coyote requires of a sighthound a degree of strength and ferocity that the red fox does not approach. One does not think of attempting the coyote with less than two hounds.

In summary, the coyote is fast and smart, a challenge to find and, while not the toughest for a hound to catch, it is certainly tough to kill. So maybe the ol’ boy was right. To test the mettle of your hounds, go coyote hunting!

Rabbits: Eastern Cottontail Sylvilagus floridanus and

Desert Cottontail Sylvilagus auduboni

Rabbit hunting. Lal Hardy photo.

There are a number of different rabbits but the above are the two most suitable as game for the hounds.

Cottontails are different from hares in the terrain they prefer and their method of escape. Generally they avoid wide-open expanses and will stay fairly close to the woods, burrow or brush pile into which they can escape. You might say they like semi-open terrain, so they are not as easy to course as a jackrabbit but are better game than the snowshoe hare.

Once jumped and running a cottontail will rarely take the hounds more than 100 yards. By that time the rabbit will either be caught or, more likely, will be safe in a brush pile, woods, or in some way unsighted from the hounds.

In speed and endurance the cottontails are clearly inferior to hares, fox or coyote. I’d give a cottontail 20 to 25 mph top speed and it will tire quickly. But in agility and quickness it rivals the blacktail jackrabbit. The cottontail will reach top speed within a couple of bounds.

The eastern cottontail is very common throughout the eastern half of the country. Along with the red fox this is the game for most of you easterners. This rabbit is brownish in color throughout the year, with the traditional cottony-white tail and ears 2 1/2 to 3 inches long. It will weigh from 2-4 pounds and is excellent fare for the dinner table. The desert cottontail is the western rabbit. It is smaller than the eastern variety with surprisingly long ears. It will weigh from 1 1/2 to 3 pounds and prefers ranging in open country in the valleys and deserts of the arid West. The desert cottontail is also excellent eating.

Serious rabbit coursers may want to take a lesson from the British field men who find great sport in hunting rabbits at night with the aid of artificial lights. This sport, called “lamping,” provides lots of action, for rabbits are for the most part nocturnal.

Deer, Antelope, et al

There are all manner of other critters you’re hounds may stumble upon from time to time (possum, coon, woodchuck, ground squirrel, badger are a few I’ve experienced) but as for coursing I’m thinking here about deer and antelope. I have coursed deer in Texas with some good results and I would reiterate here that there is in fact some deer coursing going on in this country, much of it surreptitious, or at least inadvertent. In some southern states (or at least within certain counties of those states) hunting deer with dogs is legal. The deer is a legitimate, traditional and challenging game with coursing hounds, and it will be interesting to see what measure of deer coursing takes hold in the remaining legal areas. I would be interested in hearing from any experienced hunters.

As for the pronghorn antelope, this would be the supreme test of a North American coursing hound, if the game was anywhere legal with dogs. To my knowledge it is not. Any experienced courser can recount runs for antelope, however. The goofy things have the habit of running right up to a group of dogs and hunters, then flaring away with white rumps flashing, inviting a course. I try to avoid the damned things like the plague and I’m pleased to say I have never seen one caught. Most mature antelope can beat a greyhound at a sprint and a saluki over the distance. Exceptions evidently occur, however, as one will from time to time hear a story about ol’ Billy, or ol’ Johnny whose hounds could catch antelope. Some of the stories may have an element of truth. Theodore Roosevelt, General Custer, and Ernest Thompson Seton ran them; it was legal back then. They all claimed some catches. From what I’ve seen of the pronghorn antelope, those boys must have had some kind of dogs!