Back up and running

[Ike]

I did get my first day off Sunday and loaded eight of my hounds to go look for a bear or lion. It was my first chance since elk and deer seasons ended and the dogs needed some work.

We didn't make it very far and my four dogs on top opened with a roar so I put Choco down to go look. He went out on a run so I began turning in hounds behind him until all eight was going across the flat.

They had struck a tom lion that had came up out of a deep canyon around 7:30 AM, and the track was slow enough they'd move it thirty or forty yards then over run the track and have to backtrack a little to start it again. I probably should have pulled them and looked for something fresher but, heck sakes, that's what we were there for right?

Those dogs rolled down the track all day and I got in behind them in an attempt to call them all out before dark. I managed to get five back but three got on across a little road and into the next canyon. Needless to say, I left them out and was back in that same country picking up hounds at daylight.

To this day I always wonder what will make a hound cold trail all day long and into the night and not quit a crappy track like that...........I guess with a slow track in the dirt a guy better be on the right end of a long walker.

Ikehump

 

[azdogman]

you must have some prime conditions to rig lions, that doesnt happen here in az.

 

[Ike]

Yeah, I know what you're saying az as I felt the same way eight or ten years ago when someone told me there were some guys in Oregon rigging bobcats off the truck. I laughed pretty hard at that comment and figured it as bullcrap.hump

But the years have pasted and my hounds went from rigging bears to lions to bobcats and I no longer call bullcrap on their statement. First off, I figured yeah sure in Oregon where the humidity and moisture is lots higher than Utah a hound might......and I mean might do that. But Utah is the second driest state in the union?|oo


My red Choco dog and his redbone sire Ike started it, and now the whole damn box blows up on bobcat and lion scent.......tracks that are so slow it hurts to watch them trail them. Both my parents came from Missouri, the Show Me State, and have pasted those genes on to me. I believe all that I see and damn little of what I hear.

If my six and eight year old redbones will rig a tom lion scratch that they can't hardly start a lion track off of, and or a bobcat they stumble over then I'm sure they'll do the same in Arizona.

Keep'em treed,
ike

 

[Thumper]

Ike,
I read your site and would love to get my hands on a copy of the new where the red fern grows. That was my favorite childhood bood as I felt like I was the boy in that book at one time. I was obcessed about coon hunting and my hound. (Still am) but only get to go up to Wyoming to run lion a few weeks each year.

On the topic of rigging hounds, my first experience was a trip I took up to hunt with Black and Tan legend Dougie Stephens in Maine in the 80's. My uncle was working for Danials construction in the area and I went up cause I could not belive a hound would strike off a truck running at 45 miles an hour..
I certainly ate my word and had many people call BS on me when I would tell them about that. Seems like the hounds we have up in Wyoming are only game in the snow. No snow is a now go. Yes, we have got lucky a time or two hiking the river canyons and walking them in. But to try and dry ground is a waste of time. Wish I had some good cold nose hounds that would work a trail away from the snow. You know sometimes I would swear that they are sight tracking and not using their nose. I know better, but sometime ya just have to wonder.

 

[Ike]

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Fern-Gr...rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=304485601&pf_rd_i=0553274295

Tht should take you there to see the last Red Fern movie that was done.......