The first weekend in November is the traditional start of the season

About 600 people turned up for the prestigious Beaufort Hunt on the Gloucestershire-Wiltshire border.

MPs have backed a ban on hunting in England and Wales, but the House of Lords voted for licensed hunting with dogs rather than a full ban.

Joint huntmaster Captain Ian Farquhar said: "We'll be back. We will keep on going in some form or another."

The Countryside Alliance is also confident fox hunting will survive and said it had been fighting off the threat of a ban since 1997.

A lot of people are committed to continuing to hunt whatever happens Nigel Maidment, Beaufort Hunt

Spokesman Darren Hughes said: "We are just as determined to be here next November and the November after that as we ever have been.

"Lots of rural people are now starting to go out and support hunting. Every year since there has been a threat of anti-hunting legislation, numbers have steadily grown almost without exception."

The government has threatened to overturn the Lords' decision to force the Bill onto the statute books.

The start of the hunt season traditionally begins on the first weekend of November.

The Beaufort Hunt is particularly well known as it has attracted the Prince of Wales and his sons Princes William and Harry in the past.

We are not upper class, we are ordinary, working people. Hunt supporter Dennis Smith

Among those at the hunt on Saturday was hunt secretary Nigel Maidment, who also said there had been increasing numbers of people coming out to hunt.

He said: "There is concern, but there's not despondency. People are quite determined. A lot of people are committed to continuing to hunt whatever happens."

In Peckleton, Leicestershire, hundreds of people gathered to watch the Atherstone Hunt, which has been running since 1815.

They believe they have been stereotyped as "toffs", but say they include plumbers, miners, doctors and farmers.

Hunt follower Dennis Smith, 66, said he had worked since he was 15 in coal mines.

"We are not upper class, we are ordinary, working people. If the hunt still comes out we will still come out. If others don't like it, they can stay away."

On Friday, hunters burned an oversized copy of the Hunting Bill on a bonfire, at Melton airfield in Leicestershire, in what they said was a "symbolic act of defiance" against the proposed legislation.