Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow beginner kits. Of course, the first month I went around our land sticking arrows in anything that could get stuck by an arrow. Did you know that a 1955 40 horse Farmall tractor tire will take 6 rounds before it goes down?

Tough sumbich..

That got boring, so being the 10 yr. old Dukes of Hazard fan that I was, I quickly advanced to taking strips of cut up T-shirt doused in chainsaw gas tied around the end and was sending flaming arrows all over the place.

One summer afternoon, I was shooting flaming arrows into a large rotten oak stump in our backyard. I looked over under the carport and see a shiny brand new can of starting fluid (Ether). The light bulb went off in my head…

I grabbed the can and set it on the stump. I thought that it would probably just spray out in a disappointing manner. Lets face it, to a 10 yr old mouth-breather like myself, (Ether), really doesn’t “sound” flammable.

So, I went back into the house and got a 1 pound can of pyrodex (black powder for muzzle loader rifles).

At this point, I set the can of ether on the stump and opened up the can of black powder. My intentions were to sprinkle a little bit around the (Ether) can but it all sorta dumped out on me. No biggie, a 1 lb. pyrodex and 16 oz (Ether) should make a loud pop, kinda like a firecracker you know?

You know what? Screw that I’m going back in the house for the other can.

Yes, I got a second can of pyrodex and dumped it too. Now we’re cookin’.

I stepped back about 15 ft and lit the 2 stroke arrow. I drew the nock to my cheek and took aim. As I released I heard a clunk as the arrow launched from my bow. In a slow motion time frame, I turned to see my dad getting out of the truck… OH S–T! He just got home from work. So help me God it took 10 minutes for that arrow to go from my bow to the can. My dad was walking towards me in slow motion with a WTF look in his eyes. I turned back towards my target just in time to see the arrow pierce the starting fluid can right at the bottom. Right through the main pile of pyrodex and into the can. Oh S–t.

When the shock wave hit it knocked me off my feet. I don’t know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me back or just reflex jerk back from 235 fricking decibels of sound. I caught a half a millisecond glimpse of the violence during the initial explosion and I will tell you there was dust, grass, and bugs all hovering 1 ft above the ground as far as I could see. It was like a little low to the ground layer of dust fog full of grasshoppers, spiders, and a worm or two.

The daylight turned purple. Let me repeat this… THE FRICKING DAYLIGHT TURNED PURPLE.

There was a big sweetgum tree out by the gate going into the pasture.

Notice I said “was”. That son-of-a-b–ch got up and ran off..

So here I am, on the ground blown completely out of my shoes with my thundercats T-Shirt shredded, my dad is on the other side of the carport having what I can only assume is a Vietnam flashback: ECHO BRAVO CHARLIE YOU’RE BRINGIN’ EM IN TOO CLOSE!! CEASE FIRE. DAMN IT CEASE FIRE!!!!!

His hat has blown off and is 30 ft behind him in the driveway. All windows on the north side of the house are blown out and there is a slow rolling mushroom cloud about 2000 ft. over our backyard. There is a Honda 185 3 wheeler parked on the other side of the yard and the fenders are drooped down and are now touching the tires.

I wish I knew what I said to my dad at this moment. I don’t know – I know I said something. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t hear inside my own head. I don’t think he heard me either… not that it would really matter. I don’t remember much from this point on. I said something, felt a sharp pain, and then woke up later. I felt a sharp pain, blacked out, woke later….repeat this process for an hour or so and you get the idea. I remember at one point my mom had to give me CPR. and Dad screaming “Bring him back to life so I can kill him again”.
Thanks Mom.

One thing is for sure… I never had to mow around that stump again, Mom had been bitching about that thing for years and dad never did anything about it. I stepped up to the plate and handled business.

Dad sold his muzzle loader a week or so later. I still have some sort of bone growth abnormality, either from the blast or the beating, or both.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, get your kids into archery. It’s good discipline and will teach them skills they can use later on in life.

I was also surprised how many were from Australia...

[http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E32F19BEC8241ABC]

The "best gun to carry hog hunting" thread got me wondering about what was out there on youtube. It took forever, but I found a few and had a friend put them into a playlist:


http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E32F19BEC8241ABC


Anyone know of any other Bay-n-Shoot youtube videos that can be added to the playlist?

If any one knows a technic for situtations when your dogs bay 20 please let me know.

Depends... do you want the hogs out alive? If not, the answer is easy.

It's not rocket science...

Experiment until you find what you want, then line breed the  out of that, then cull ruthlessly until you've fixed type, then cull/refine until you've removed the major faults. By then you'll be 90 years old and can only hope that the next generation won't squander or abandon what you've spent your whole life building.

Hybrid vigor and in-breeding depression are very real, but they are also very over-blown. I don't understand why horsemen and houndsmen keep having the line-breeding/out-crossing debate. Line breeding is the only way to create reliable/predictable type, period. Intra-breed-out-crossing proponents like Pat Burns conveniently forget that they can get a lot of jam-up dogs from out-crossing now only because of all the hundreds of years of selective line breeding that went into their hounds/terriers/bird-dogs before they were even born that created large pools of prepotent stock among various breeds/types from which they can now "out-cross" <sigh>. It's like a trust-fund baby that thinks you don't have to work hard to be wealthy... he forgets that his granddaddy had to work hard to make all that money.

TTCG, you said you caught the parvo in Grace before she had diarrhea or vomiting. Did you're treatment keep her from getting diarrhea or vomiting all together? 

[http://www.danshuntinggear.com/Boots_Sizing_Chart.html]

Get you a pair of "Frog Legs".  They're a pair of waterproof chaps on Muck boots.  The ones I got were guaranteed waterproof. I love mine.

Froglegs (they were called "froggies" in the older Dan's catalogs) are just like Valley Creek's in that Dan's uses Muck's and LaCrosse for the base, my undersanding is that the difference is that they do guarantee the waterproofing, but I could be wrong?



http://www.danshuntinggear.com/Boots_Sizing_Chart.html
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If you figure it out then let me know! I go through them about the same way! I am going to use a good sturdy pair of wadding boots this year and see how I do. I know they look goofy as heck but if you every see me you will know why I just dont care! lol

As long as you don't care about the look Alan, you've got lots of options for these:

The Nite Lite Coon Hunter II


The Muck Woody Bayou


Cabela's Tundra Hip Boot


Valley Creek will add hips to muck boots and lacrosse boots, but they won't guarantee their waterproofing to be 100%


Cabela's Millenium Hunting Wader Jeans

The people I grew up around called all spoted cur dogs leopards. In La. and Miss. they called the spoted dogs leopards and the solid colored dogs catahoulas. Now days, the spoted stock dogs are catahoulas and the american leopard curs are the east coast, open on track, tree dogs. They are said to of been around for many years but were very rare untill Richard McDuffie brought them back starting in the 60's. The funny part is, the three main dogs he used came out of Texas. A reliable source told me they came from Cowboy Williams and were July Catahoula crosses. That might be the reason for the double coat. The UKC registers the as American Leopard Hounds.

X2

I wrote an article on this very topic:
http://thehoundsmen.blogspot.com/2008/12/catahoula-or-leopard-cur-dog-or-hound.html

And the one thing I didn't mention in the article because it's politically controversial is that it was, in my opinion, more about ribbon chasing than anything else. The guys breeding for field trials were slowly but surely breeding them into coon-dogs, until one day everyone looked around and was kind of forced to ask the question "Hey are these really curs anymore? They hunt like hounds now." Which was exactly what they wanted because the hound trial guys don't like letting cur-dogs play "their" games... as if that would somehow be an insult to the la-dee-da hounds or something (it always strikes me as odd when you have rednecks getting all snobby with each other)

So they were all too eager to have their dogs reclassified as hounds, it allows them to play the coon-hound game, at least with less condescension

The people I grew up around called all spoted cur dogs leopards. In La. and Miss. they called the spoted dogs leopards and the solid colored dogs catahoulas. Now days, the spoted stock dogs are catahoulas and the american leopard curs are the east coast, open on track, tree dogs. They are said to of been around for many years but were very rare untill Richard McDuffie brought them back starting in the 60's. The funny part is, the three main dogs he used came out of Texas. A reliable source told me they came from Cowboy Williams and were July Catahoula crosses. That might be the reason for the double coat. The UKC registers the as American Leopard Hounds.

X2


I wrote an article on this very topic:
http://thehoundsmen.blogspot.com/2008/12/catahoula-or-leopard-cur-dog-or-hound.html

DON'T GO NIN'JIN' NOBODBY THAT DON'T NEED NO NIN'JIN' !!!!!

i'll have to remember that hat trick, thanks for sharing that one.

we just got have not got to try him yet what has been yall luck with them???

Like any other breed... some good, some bad.
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Thanks Derek, I really appreciate it 

Any one know if they're still breeding, and have good contact info for them??

[a lot]

I tend to over-pack, which means I tend to haul a bunch of crap around that I don't end up needing/using and all it does is weigh me down so I get worn-out/hotter faster. So I've learned that using a smaller pack forces you to stop and think about what you are -really- going to use, and what you really need. Needless to say, I've used a lot of different packs trying to find the right one.

My knife has a full-retention style hard sheath, so I lash that to the left strap of my pack with the knife handle pointed down so it's handy to grab with my right hand and I have the hydration tube mounted on the right strap.
http://www.coldsteel.com/oss.html

The best pack I've found for dogging so far is the Camelbak Uproar.
http://www.sierratradingpost.com/i/1946P,,_CamelBak-Uproar-Backpack-with-Water-Bottle.html

I recommend a camelbak "unbottle" or two over a bladder, but if you're going to use a hydration bladder, don't use a camelbak bladder though, get a Platypus bladder (they are 100 times better) and then put it in your pack of choice.
http://www.cascadedesigns.com/platypus/hands-free-hydration/big-zip-sl/product

As for the cut kit, get an Otterbox 2500 or Otterbox 3500 and put your medical supplies in there.
http://www.otterbox.com/waterproof-cases/otterbox-2500/





All that said, as good a system as I've found this to be, I too, am seriously considering going to something more like a molle vest, I just haven't figured that one out completely though. The idea of having just the bladder and the cut kit box on my back, and everything else up front within easy reach, is really growing on me.

I'm leaning towards the camelbak delta 5 vest but I haven't done enough research or testing to make a decision yet.


Opsgear has an interesting little tool that will let you see what several different vest manufacturers systems will look like when you've added your stuff to them:

http://www.vestbuilder.com/launch.html


.

Awesome Kelly! Nice hog

There are different ways to cut, some cause quite a bit of bleeding, some cause little to no bleeding. Same goes for pulling the vas (the tube)... if you just pull on the testicle until it gives it will probably bleed, but if you choke up a bit on the tube and give it a firm quick snap off, the connected portion usually draws up into the cavity and "pinches itself off" so there is little/no bleeding. The point is that it can be done without bleeding either way, it just needs to be done correctly.

I know guys that do all of the things suggested... cut low, treat with sulfur, give a penicillin shot, etc... but I don't know anyone that sews them up.

[The Beagler's alliance and several other hunting advocacy groups just successfully won a major battle against the anti's on the proposed ban on coyote dog training pens in Indiana. They won the battle by being SMART, by being DIPLOMATIC, and by using the system to their advantage.]

Well you go do it your way and i'll do it mine, Lord knows the Deplomacy is working GREAT so far

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THE TRUTH,TALKING,OR COMING INTO A AGREEMENT. THEY WANT YOU TO STOP KILLING ANIMALS THEN EATING THEM PERIOD .OPEN YOU EYE'S AND SEE WHATS GOING ON AROUND YOU. THE MEDIA IN LARGE IS THERE BEST WEAPON

I think this misses the point. I gave a real life example where the diplomacy HAS worked What major inroads have been made, what hunting methods or opportunities have been saved by hunters being arrogant, antagonistic, or acting entitled? None.

The NTA has made major legal/political headway in keeping trapping related issues off the chopping block, and that video they made exemplifies why their approach actually works, not in theory, but proven in real life. TBL is right... thumping your chest and proclaiming "I'm not gonna take it anymore!" might make you feel better for five minutes, but it's self destructive to our way of life, because long after the "I'm not belly crawlin' for no one" rhetoric was worn thin, the anti's will still be playing to win, and we'll be too busy blaming them to look in the mirror and realize it's our own @#$% fault for not playing to win ourselves.

The Beagler's alliance and several other hunting advocacy groups just successfully won a major battle against the anti's on the proposed ban on coyote dog training pens in Indiana. They won the battle by being SMART, by being DIPLOMATIC, and by using the system to their advantage.

Nothing is 100%, you'll always win some and lose some. But the diplomacy appraoch has and does work for hunting issues more often than not when done right, it's a proven fact.

And I am not throwing any hunters under the bus!!! I'm a licensed hunter, a licensed trapper, a field trial judge, I've worked in conservation professionally, I've taught hunter ed, I've taught National Archery in the Schools programs, I've worked with law enforcement, political bureaucrats, journalists and with media consultants. I'm a dogger that has actually seen the machinery... from the inside... I'm just telling you how it works, and how we can win using that machinery instead of always assuming it's a lost cause and that it's always the "enemy".

Both the media and the political process CAN be used as tools for our side. Why? How? It's simple, again TBL is right. We and the Anti's are both very small minorities. We don't have to eat tofu, and we don't have to convert the Anti's to our side. All we have to do is focus on the MAJORITY, on John and Jane Q Public and the politicians that 'represent' them.

The obvious truth is that the average person isn't a hog dogger, but the average person does eat meat. They're not hunters, but they're also not anti's... most people are just reasonable folks just trying to get by... meaning they don't have strong feelings for or against either side. So if we do what the NTA has done, and instead of simply throwing up our hands and saying, "we can't use the media, the media is the anti's weapon against us" we should realize that a good knife cuts both ways. We CAN follow the example of the NTA and use the media to support our cause and win the battle of ideas for average America.

We can beat the anti's, but we'll only beat them by turning it around on them, by fighting smarter than they do on both the public opinion and legislative fronts. If we're going to succeed on those fronts, we're going to have to stop with the posturing and shallow "don't tread on me" rhetoric. Obviously, we're inevitably going to have some blowhards among our ranks, and it's a free country and anyone can choose to go that route. But the blowhards won't be the ones saving our heritage and our way of life. Instead it's going to be those of us that have the wisdom to look around, and see the societal landscape for what it is (not what we wish it was) and actually get to work on learning how to use media campaigns, political lobbies, and grass roots popular support efforts to OUR advantage. That's how it works. You simply have to make a choice. Choose not to fight to win, and be left holding the (empty) bag. Or choose to accept that you don't have to like it and you don't have to agree with it, you just have to choose to be willing to work the system.