Florida Curs

[crackerc]

The other post about Fla curs was getting long so I thought I would start a new thread. I know this is a Texas board, but I just like talking dogs and know more about the Fla curs than any others. I have tried some of the Weatherford Ben YBM dogs and they just didn't suit me. Maybe I just didn't hunt with any good ones. I have a friend who has one. She will go hunting, hunts medium to wide, is silent and will bay a hog but will NOT put her mouth on a hog. He kept talking about having 5-6 hour long "races" with her. I couldn't understand that as the dogs I am used to will usually stop a hog pretty quick if they can ever get close to him. We went hunting on a 16,000 acre lease my friend has. Turned her and another of his dogs out and she left, the other dog didn't. It was windy so after 20 minutes or so we went to tracking her. Drove closer to her and she was bayed, or at least barking, down in a swamp. We drove around the swamp to get closer and she had moved but was still barking. Then she quit barking for a while, then bayed some more in a different place. We drove closer and you could tell the dog was moving and barking, but not running. Well, we did this for about 6 hours, got off the lease onto a private ranch. I slipped into a swamp to try and catch her before she got too far in and saw her walking next to a boar hog just baying as she walked. The boar wasn't paying much attention to her, was just going where he wanted and the dog was walking next to him barking.

Thats why he was having long "races" with her. A more aggressive dog would have stopped and/or caught that hog way back where they first got on him.

This isn't saying all YBM's are this way, this is just an example of the ones I have hunted with. There was a woman here in Fla that had some and they say hers were real gritty, but I never got a chance to hunt with hers and she has since passed away.

Any of you guys hunting any that are gritty, post them up. I would like to see some .

[cetchdawg]

There was a woman here in Fla that had some and they say hers were real gritty, but I never got a chance to hunt with hers and she has since passed away.

Any of you guys hunting any that are gritty, post them up. I would like to see some .

Are you takin bout michelle mears If so, I have had the chance to hunt with her and anthony a few times !! Anthony has some really good dogs (a lil different line) and so did michelle .. Michelle's dogs were not my type of hog dog but they got the job done for her  .... they hnuted good. but i am with you they were not gritty at all.. A buddy of mine bought one as a finished dog $$$$$ (not directly from michelle) and when we hunted it it just was not on AT ALL !! he left the dog with me and i had it for about two months and just could not do much with it .. It had some really bad habits !! Quiting, and something similar to what you said just not giving it all she had while baying !!! walking beside the hog while baying instead of running and cutting it off !!! or putting a tooth in it to stop it!!! also not to mention that freakin dog was whodini !!! i have some nice, sturdy, stout pens. and she would get out every day !!! i just had enough with her and had my buddy come pick her up... a week later he said she got out and he never seen her again.  again  Like you said i have only had a couple chances to hunt with her dogs they did not do what i would like them to do for me... but they caught her hogs and she liked them .....

now that i am thinking about it she did have some pretty long races when she came and hunted with me we had several hogs caught and tied while she was trackin two of her dogs !!!! But everyone likes different things in dog her dogs just were not gritty enough for me !!

I am not one to talk crap about someones dogs so i hope that this does not sound like that !!! I by far do not have the Best dogs !! i guess i am just try to say that everyone has their own style , choice of dogs !!?? I say if the dog does what you want it to do who cares what it looks like or what someone else says about it.. All heck i gonna shut up now !!!!!!!!! LOL

and ninja yer buddy has a damn good lookin dog and im sure it works as good as it looks !!!!!!  i think those partin dogs are some of the finest dogs around!! but like you said good luck finding one !!!

[crackerc]

Yes, Michelle is who I was referring to. I never hunted with her but she caught hogs with her dogs. I heard they were pretty good and gritty too, but thats all heresay.

Here are a couple of pics of my Partin dog and a few "blind crippled hogs... " he managed to catch on public land this past winter. He is 4 years old now and we find hogs with him about every where we hunt. He isn't real rangy or real cold nosed, but seems to be able to find and stop hogs anyway. To me thats the name of the game........

[crackerc]

A few more pics......Most of these hogs Monkey (my Partin dog) was the only dog out on the ground until he bayed. We would then turn another cur to him and we would have a caught hog!! The smaller hogs he caught by himself.

[pig snatcher]

Ok OK, yall have talked them up enough.  Ill bite, box one up and mail it to me.

[ninja]

Michelle is the first person that ever coined the term Enduro Dogs which were one out running catch dogs.  She sold a lot of foundation pups but I believe her best dog was Jimbo, a dogo/leopard cross, the white dog in this picture.  On this day years ago I saw Jimbo find and catch five hogs, some up to 1/2 mile away.  I offered her 2,000 for him and she turned it down.  She had some real nice pit/leopard crosses that were jam up too.  Everyone will be talking about Michelle for years to come.  She had the same philosophy as the australians, no bark, no bay, just find and catch.  I remember she told me on this hunt, "This isn't a bay competition, we're catching hogs."  You don't argue with michelle. This was years ago and the pic isn't too good but I'll throw it out there.   

[crackerc]

I remember hearing about the Jimbo dog. If I remember right, Michele got that dog from the Young's who own the Bayed Solid magazine. I think he was a Catahoula/Dogo cross...I think. I know a lot of people hunted with Michele, I just never got around to it. I have a friend whose lease adjoins the one she had and he hunted with her some, but I never did.

Seems we have another convert in Pig Snatcher...LOL Wish I had one to send you as I think you would like them.

A lot of my old dogs would bark 2-3 times then catch. But, one year we had about $2,200 in vet bills for things we couldn't staple, sew or fix ourselves....so you pay the price for these rough dogs at times. This was back when I was running 2-3 dogs on the ground at one time and they would catch ANY hog, often away from you. By the time you got there, the dogs were cut to pieces if it was a bad hog. I have since wised up and like to hunt one dog by itself or one old dog and one young dog...no more than that out at one time.Course, it took me years and no telling how much $$$ before I figured out how to do it right....LOL

Everyone I ever knew that hog hunted, hunted packs of dogs. I was kind of different hunting one dog at a time....but proof is in the pudding!!

A few more picsof hunting one dog at a time.....

Young boar found and caught by my Monkey dog.

Sow found by my Spur dog, caught with Monkey and Spur.

Another sow bayed by my Spur dog caught with him and Monkey.

Young boar hog 110 lbs bayed and caught by Monkey.

Monkey got in this group of hogs and caught all of them within 20 minutes. He caught the first shoat without ever barking, we heard it squeal and went to him. He relayed and caught another before we could get the first one tied, I went to him legged it, he relayed and bayed the sow, we caught her, he then left and caught the third shoat. You talk about going wide open.....LOL

[ninja]

Yeah crackerc, luv that monkey dog.  My buddy stacy says he's got a friend that's hunting a 1 year old dog out of monkey and J.J.  and is a hard hunting machine.  I've got a super female, the pup being held by my daughter in the previous fl cur post and she's already striking and baying her own hog at 8 months, real gritty, out of one of the best fl cur lines I've seen, Maybe down the road we could get her and monkey together. 

[crackerc]

I have talked to several guys that have pups out of the Monkey x JJ litter and so far all seem to be pleased with them. Course they are just now a year old so time will tell how they will turn out.
I have a hunting buddy that has a male out of that litter and he absolutely hates a hog....
We took him and Monkey hunting back in Feb for that pups first trip to the woods. Monkey bayed not 10 minutes out of the truck, the young dog went to him and got wrecked. It was a 205 lb boar hog and when the dust settled the young dog had to be stapled in 4 places and had holes and pokes in several more. I was afraid it might set him back , getting cut up at 9-10 months old, but it hasn't.
I wouldn't mind breeding Monkey to a good female once more. He has only been bred twice. My Spur dog is out of the first litter that only had five pups. Two of those pups are dead now.
I bred him to JJ and had eleven pups and they are scattered all over.
I would like to see how his pups do as they get older before I breed him much though. Monkey is 4 years old, so he has several years left to hunt & breed .
Course, last August I got him cut down and bled out, so you never know.....

[JSEAY]

Cracker looks like some of those pictures were taken in the Hilochee WMA am I right?  Some good hunting in there I tried getting a permit last year but no luck maybe I'll get lucky this year.

[Wmwendler]

From the few I have seen in action and what I've heard, the W. Ben bred BMC dogs are usally pretty gritty.  There was a good thread on here not too far back discussing W. Ben bred dogs.  I would say as a general rule, they are more similar to the Florida Cur than most others are.  Problem is, as with anything that becomes popular,  junk dogs got bred just because they had W. Ben in the pedigree.  Then junk starts to pop up with the name attached and probly had more soup hound in them than W. Ben, but that name and yellow fur sells dogs, so thats what they were called.

crackerc......how are those florida Curs when it comes to finesse?  I am assuming since they are used on cattle allot also, that they have good finesse, but have never actually seen one work.  In my opinion a dog can have all the grit in the world but that does'nt always result in bayed hogs, and allot of times can cause races and broken bays.  Its the combination of Grit with finesse, knowing when  and when not to use pressure to stop hogs is what gets hogs and cattle both bayed.

[crackerc]

I know EXACTLY what you are referring to Wmwendler. I have never heard it called "finesse", but I know what you mean. There is often a very fine line between being gritty enough to get a hog stopped and bayed and keeping it bayed, and being too rough and causing it to break. I can't tell you how mnay times I have seen 1-2 dog have a hog bayed and as soon as another dog or two got there, the hog breaks. Or when one dog gets too agressive and bites the hog after its bayed, but doesn't catch. You can't "fight" a bayed hog and keep it bayed.

To me, thats the beauty of a dog like my old Dixie female. She could bay a hog like no other dog I have ever seen. She could keep a big boar hog bayed, by herself, for hours. We rarely had a hog break with her baying it. I don't know why she was different but she could keep a hogs attention on her. Many times the hog would never even look at us when we led the catch dog in, it was totaly focused on her. She had a way of going back and forth in front of a bayed hog that just seemed to keep their attention on her. Even if the hog came to her and she had to get away from the hog, she would go right back, stop the hog and start again. Whatever she did, worked. We caught, cut, and released 43 boar hogs with her as the only find and bay dog, and her littermate brother Rock, as the lead in catch dog in one two week period. We usually averaged 100-150 boar hogs a year with those two dogs for about 6 years. That doesn't count sows and barrs.

Monkey is not in the class with my Dixie dog (but Dixie is 11 and retired) but he has the same ability to keep one bayed by himself. Thats why I hunt him a lot. He usually isn't going to get overally aggressive on a bad hog by himself, but will put teeth on one to stop it and is very fast. If a hog breaks he can stop it pretty quick.

So, like I said, I have seen the "finesse" or what ever you want to call it, work. I have also seen bays broke and hogs get away by dogs that didn't have it too.