Can people who hunt with hounds talk about them on this forum or is it just for pointers and retreivers?

Just askin.........

I put up pictures of my curs before and nobody got bent out of shape. I think most folks on this board just like dogs. I guess we'll see what the gun dog folks say and I'll know if I screwed up!

It's been my experience, that anyone can have at it. I post most of my pointing dog stuff on the upland forum.

Gary talks hounds on here all the time.

Hound dog talk is always welcome...

Heck, if you hunt hounds, you can actually hunt 12 months out of the year. If you have pointers or labs, you hope to hunt 6-12 TIMES a year, so most of the time you have a pet that eats a lot.

Back in the '70s, we leased the ranch to the Austin Bird Dog Club. The hunters would show up every weekend with a dog that had been in a kennel all week, perhaps all year long. When they turned the dog loose, that was generally the last time the dog was seen. The hunters would leave me their business card and a description of the dog. The hunters would pay me a reward when I found the dog that would show up around a house or windmill, easiest money I ever made.
We kept an old English pointer crossed with a Brittany (looked like heck). He was a great dog for the tight brush as he would not work too far out. When he pointed, he looked like an armadillo but a heck of a bird dog or at least that is what the Austin hunters who borrowed him said. They would turn their high dollar, big running pointer loose and then hunt over Old Rip.
I love following good bird dogs while hunting quail but nothing beats listening to a good set of dogs trailing a coon or running a bobcat.
Adios,
Gary

nothing like listening to the music of hounds on a hot track.....

i love listening to my hounds run a coon, and then that long dyeing bawl locate on the wood. treed. dont get know better. also like hearing my beagles smoke a rabbit.

I'm sure y'all will appreciate this post I did back in January.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/2004056

A fellow came by last week to purchase a bluetick pup from me and said that he had an interest in an older dog as well. I asked him what he had and he said that while he had hunted all his life, he was rebuilding and had two 7 month old blue pups. I told him that the female I had considered selling just turned two and if hunted with two dogs that would run anything might cause her to back up instead of improving. I told him that he needed an older, more mature hound like my Lizzie female, my best hound. Next thing I know, we are loading her in his pickup.
To say I was a little concerned about how my two 2 year old youngsters and their mother would handle life with Lizzie was an understatement. So the next morning, I had them in the woods.
Shortly after dumping them, Ten strikes and others fall in and we tree a coon not 200 yards from a deer feeder. It was good but chances are, my Dash Hound could have treed that one.
I roaded for several miles before Hondo opens on a cold track and while all three dogs try, can't get it going. It is after sunup. I roaded another half mile to water and I notice Hondo wiggling as he drags his nose in the powder around the water and finally opens. Ten covers him and after a minute, opens as well. The two dogs work in a southerly direction, aided by a breeze in their face, opening every 20-30 seconds but steady moving. Finally, they are about out of hearing so I crank up and cut the distance on them. As I drive the sendero, I see all three dogs swinging west in an attempt to pickup the track so I kill the engine. No dogs open for a minute or two until Ten picks it up west of the road and I see her loping up a long flat, headed back north. I thought to myself that it was over as trailing a cold track is made more difficult with a wind at your tail.
Ten surprised me and carried the track by herself for 300-400 yards when Hondo finally got back in. Now we were pretty close to where we started as all three dogs began to give mouth and heat up the critter.
Turning back west, I heard Hondo jump and the race was on. After jumping it was not but a couple of minutes that I heard the dogs catch on the ground and the battle was on. I drove as close to the fight as I could and hustled through the mesquite and prickly pear where I found three hot blues baying a big boar coon. The coon was backed up in an agarita thicket where the dogs could not get behind him and he seemed to be more than holding his own. I pulled my Browning Buckmark and ended the hunt.
I am proud of the youngsters and feel that while I will always miss Lizzie as she was born and raised here, I don't have to have her to catch a tough coon. Hondo started the track at 7:30 and I shot the coon at 8:15. Conditions were extremely tough as it has not rained in over three months and we have had 62 days over 100 degrees. The pasture were I was hunting is overstocked with cattle and sheep so there is very little ground cover to hold scent. It was 85 degrees when I loaded the dogs after killing the coon.
Adios,
Gary

I grew up coon hunting with my papaw's blueticks in Mississippi with my cousin. Some of the fondest childhood memories that I have are running those ridges all night and waking up with chiggars the next evening.

Good story Gary.

Thanks reeltexan, it is easy to tell them when they are fresh on this feeble mind.
Adios,
Gary

My Dad always had a large kennel of Walker coyote hounds and would take about a dozen hunting and meet up with a few other hunters who had about that many hounds and they would turn loose a little after dark and they would run coyotes till after sun up the next morning. Dad and I ran coyotes nearly all over Texas through the years. I cherish the times with those old men and hounds.

Highways and irate landowners have about put a stop to that kind of hunting. When you get after a coyote with 20-30 fast, in shape, hard running hounds, he's going to cover some territory or get his butt caught.

I used to coon hunt 3-4 times a week back when I was in highschool. Me and my cousin had a couple of blue dogs out of Smokeys Blue Rambo II that we bought up in OK. Some of my best hunting memories came from those dogs. I'd give anything to have my dog back again.

Parasite
There are still a few "Wolf Hunters" out there. I just visited with a buddy who had been up around Decatur where he hunted with a couple of fellows who still had running dogs. I think that he said they hunted some public land but not sure. At any rate, I know what you mean about dogs being able to really push something. I used to attend the South Texas Wolf Hunters Meet over at Gillette. I remember that we cast 264 hounds at one time on the first morning of the hunt in about 1973.
My Great Grandfather, Erskine was one of the founders of the South Texas Wolf Hunters and I have a LIFE magazine that covers the event in Dec. of 1936. By the way the meet was so big that TIME set a crew down to cover it as well.
Adios,
Gary

Yes Gary, my Dad won the South Texas Wolf Hunt back in the late 60's when we used to live in Alice. I think the hunt was in Aransas Pass back then.

I raised AKC registered show bred American Foxhounds (Running Walkers or Wolf Hounds as you may) for about 15 years and showed them all over the US. Here is a fine example of one.

My Grandfather, Julian Roberson bred and hunted a dog by the name of Tulsa. Tulsa won the meet in the late 30's and is considered by most of the South Texs Wolf Hunters to have been the greatest of all time. Walt Disney sent a sound crew down to Cotulla, TX and recorded the dog running a coyote and it was Tulsa who actually provided the sound track of the hound in the Disney movie, "Voice of Bugle Anne".
He later sold the hound to Preacher Balkham from San Antonio. To everyone's disappointment, Tulsa never reproduced any offspring with his great classic bugle mouth.
Now there is a little trivia for you.
Adios,
Gary

P.S. Beautiful hound. What I would call a "flag tail" walker.

Wow!

That is a nice looking Fox Hound.

Dr. Robert D. Smith (the AKC judge) is an old friend of mine. He bred and showed Fox Hounds under the name Hazira Kennels that was located between Hattiesburg and Columbia, Mississippi.

We had three of his dogs that were hellacious on deer.

Yes, one armed Dr. Smith and his wife Polly. I've showed under them a few times. Small world..:)

I am hunting 3-4 mornings a week when I don't have to be at some other function. Conditions are as tough as I have ever seen them here in Menard County. No rain in over three months and 70 days over 100 degrees. My blueticks are still catching coons but having a tough time getting critters jumped.
Adios,
Gary

The army just moved me up here to Ga a few months ago. I'm about to pick up my first blueltick in a couple of weeks when he's ready to leave momma. Not sure what I want him to chase after yet though. To be honest I'm a little nervous on letting a dog run lose in these woods up here since IV never hunted with a dog before. Any good advice on training.

There are a lot of coon hunters in GA. I would do a little checking at the feed stores and see who is feeding hounds. Then just go from there. If you can put the youngster with someone who has good dogs it sure makes it easier.

Adios,
Gary