Couldn’t have asked for a better way to start off Father’s Day, only thing that could’ve topped it off is if my little boy was with me, it was his mothers weekend with him and I hadn’t gotten him from her yet, still I cannot complain a lick about how things went, went to a corn field that none of us had checked out and went there blind, had one of us gone over there and looked the evening before we probably wouldn’t have went, there was no sign of anything remotely fresh at the silage pit where we parked, my buddy chicken graham turned out his male dog Cadillac and a few younger dogs an I had gotten my Kate gyp and had her on leash along with her litter mate Mike that belongs to my buddy, we heard Cadillac open up on something and turned them to him, these two pups are very gamey and will run dang near anything that leaves scent, they make it to him and it wasn’t but just a few minutes and they must’ve got him up from his slumber, the cornfield came alive, he made a break for the woods and headed for the Bogue Chitto river, he messed up when he got in that open swamp bottom and they sucked him up fast and was forever more baying him, we had a total of 6 dogs on him and it sounded like a symphony orchestra, the kinda bay I love to hear, after dang near 14 years of not going with me my dad has here recently started going with us every weekend, he’s not as long winded as he used to be and discovered real quick that it’s more enjoyable at the truck keeping the dogs in the box quiet and in the shade whenever we have to strike out, we had about a 1/4- 1/2 mile walk so he stayed at the truck but could hear everything just as clear as if it were right in front of him across the corn field, we get in there and send the catchdogs and bail off the bluff into the river behind them, we finally get him wrestled up on a mud bar an get him tied, he was a solid 250 or so and that’s me staying on the light end, we get him up and tied to a birch tree with some leashes and head out, my dad meets us half way back and was just as giddy as a kid, saying he could hear everything and knew exactly when we sent the catchdogs because it all got completely silent for a minute, we get everything together to be able to get him up about a 20-25’ bluff bank, me and chickens oldest son are the first to get to the bluff, he has his phone out and asking me to take some pictures for him, I looked down at where the hog was tied and he’s not there, I yelled at the boy to get back up the bank because I had no clue where the hog was, upon further inspection he got to fighting and kicking the hobbles and broke the snap that was on the leash connected to the hobbles and must’ve rolled into the river and drowned, the river is wide but not very deep and I waded several hundred yards down stream looking for him, I hated to lose such a fine animal that way, he was a very good hog and had perfect teeth and was going to be one heck of a Barr hog somewhere lol, we checked a few more places and it had done gotten to hot, we made one last attempt where we knew a big hog to be in the area, we found his track and was able to move it at first but it was older and the further it got away from the creek we found it by the harder it got for the dogs to work it, I was really impressed by that Cadillac dogs “cold trailing”, for lack of better words, he kept working it slowly even when my Ben dog and a son of his name Gumbo , that I give chicken quit it, it had done got up around 11 and was already pushing 90, we got some just weaned pups off Cadillac and a nice gyp I raised that I give to billy that’s a first cousin to him, that I’m excited about now...
What made this hunt so special, at least to me, wasn’t the fact we got a nice hog, folks do that every day, along on this hunt was myself and my dad, and anybody that knows us and our past know that dogs and roosters are the only common ground that man and I have ever shared, my good friend Coltin “chicken” Graham his dad Stevie Dale Graham,and chicks stepson and nephew, my buddy Blake Loup and his father Chad, and my best friend Billy and his nephew Ashton, that is more like a son to him being as he’s been the only male role model in his life, and Billy’s always had two daughters before Jace come along so Ashton was his sidekick for years, before we went to try and retrieve the hog, I’m not sure who initiated it, but we all took a moment to tell each other happy fathers day and we all shook hands, another moment chasing these dogs I’ll never forget, with some great folks in my eyes, these days it’s more about good dog work and good fellowship to me....
Chicks step son had Ashton’s phone and made a decent video I’ll try to get sent to me and I’ll upload...
Weekend before last we made a hunt in my dads lease and ran into some other hunters that wasn’t supposed to be in there and they had already fouled it up, so we go up around Billy’s and can’t find a track to save our lives, finally Billy puts 3 of his dogs on the ground and strikes out down a gas line clearing to check some crossings on it, the dogs find a track and work it out and finally get one stood up, we got a few dogs in there including Blake Loups and Chickens dad had a few of his, he had taken his family on vacation, and we got a good race going, earlier that morning my son had knocked my gate open on my box and Ben and Smutt get out without any tracking collars in dads lease, I caught Ben shortly after, but decided to come back for Smutt instead of tying the rest of the morning up, it had done gotten up past 11 and I told my dad let’s go because I needed to try to get Smutt before it got to hot and he went and laid up in the creek swamp somewhere, I told Billy to send me pics of him when they caught him, I no sooner got down the road and my phone started going off, they wound up catching a fine boar, behind several dogs that I bred and raised and sent to them, the old hog had laid up and must’ve bluffed the one dog , Coal,that was first to him because she wasn’t baying normal and just different tone to her but had been in that same spot just making circles for several minutes, we give Billy’s nephew Ashton a dog I raised off my butter bean gyp and Cajuns Jack dog, and in honor of Cajun, Billy named the dog Mike, lol, we kept 3 off that litter close and they are some rough and tough gritty sum bucks, this boy Ashton has a troubled past but is on a good path in life and we decided to give him that male to give him something positive to stay focused on, and I got him hired on with me, so between working all week and hunting all weekend we keep him busy and a close eye on him, Mike was the first one to really get up on the hog and was baying like his life depended on it, they knew it was a good one when he never tried it, Ashton was the first to call and tell me about it and just hearing the excitement an eagerness in his voice was enough satisfaction for me, I was just as happy had I got to be there for the action...
He was a pretty colored hog with nice teeth, he lives to see another day....
And I found that aggravating a$$ black dog right at one of the places I figured, if he wasn’t such a good reproducer and literally seem to pull a hog out of a hat at times, I would’ve sent him back to the cow pens along time ago...
Billy’s stepson Jace is like a little brother to me and we have a typical brother type relationship, more than half the time I want to ring his neck or slap his teeth out of his mouth because of his mouth, but at the end of the day he’s just a young naive kid but a good kid and is slap eat up with hog hunting and only has two gyps that I give him and his 2 weeks off the rig he will hunt them down, so instead of him running them two in the ground I let him come and get a select few of mine, mostly some of the few young just started dogs I got and depending on where he’s going I’ll let him take Smutt, he texts me Monday and said he was going to make a loop by himself and was coming to get a catch dog I’ve been letting him use, and one of his dogs (he keeps his dogs at my place) and maybe one or two of mine, sorry sucker sends me this pic while I’m up on some scaffold welding...
I get home from a hard day on Wednesday and get in the shower before I went and picked my son up from swimming lessons, I hear my phone ringing and shortly after I hear my yard dogs barking and somebody pulling up, I get dressed and walk out to see him with another good hog, a good bar we caught a little over two years ago, again attributed to my feed bill, and Traces baydogs, he used my catchdog that just as well belong to him, he’s the one that’s made him what he is, I traded a cur pup for the bulldog to a little boy that comes from a troubled life and tags along with Billy, he wanted a catchdog for Christmas, so his mother, whose in and out of prison, goes to her stomping grounds, the ghetto of the hood, and gets a hot bred scatter bred street scrapper pup, I knew where she got the dog from and there’s a nice pocket of local bred game dogs that come from that area, I knew the dog was going to be to much for them to handle when he got older, so I kept sending word to his grandmother, who he lives with, that if they ever got rid of him I wanted him, when he reached about 10 months old they had enough, he was to hi strung, the boy was upset that he had to get rid of the dog so I talked his grandma into letting him have a cur pup and me and him did an even trade, and made a deal with him that everytime we went hunting that he was Demuns handler and that was his catchdog, he never matured into anything eye catching and Jace asked if he could start him and I’ll be danged if he ain’t been on a roll with him....
Hope y’all enjoy, I’m bored outa my mind waiting on 630 to get here...
