"Possumwalk Bandits"... Randy Bumpers's Tournament

IT was a LONG, LONG weekend, for all of yall that have hunted in these type competitions it can quickly become lots of work getting some of these hogs out. The team members were: Marshall, Van Dorn, JJerell, and Cole Savage… Their dogs did amazing this weekend, all of them showing out at times. JJ’s dog Bess is still a beast, she bayed hogs by herself for hours at a time. The helpers were Marshall Mims, Colby, Jim-Ed, Jason Thompson, Nickshu11, David Delasandri and myself. It was super dry and hot on day 1..

Theres too much to tell individual dog heroics so I’ll just tell yall the story about our catchdog named Willey! So its gone and gotten about 2pm hot, dogs been on hogs for a while and we have stuff tied everywhere. Well we got to the last puppy bayed 300 yards down a creek and we have to walk into him. Well we get there with a few more of big e’s pups and send the CD into a briar patch and boar hogs are coming everywhere out of it. The CD finally get one caught and almost overheated. Well as Im dragging the hog and JJ out of the briar patch the pups start baying again 50 yards away. We get around and send the CD again; it hits and gets both bottom teeth broken out and not to mention the near heat stroke.. and now we here the most dreaded bark of all!! A bulldog baying or shall I say yapping. This big ol barren sows proceeds to whoop and torment theses puppy’s for 4 or 5 minutes as we were all screaming for another bulldog and running around almost catching here a few times. Finally Marshal Willey shows up, high steps it through all the cur dogs, straddles the bulldog baying in her face and flanks her. Marshall’s about 170 soaking wet and everytime she threw her head up his feet went flying in the air…. AND as quick as it happened they disappeared over the bank 15 feet down into the creek. Marshall in the meantime had held, rolled, spun and flipped around until he was on top of the hog when they both went under water. The next thing we here him screaming SOOOEY as he stands up with the sows back legs in check and gets her flipped. Handsdown the hardest we’ve ever laughed in the woods. We layed around with the dogs for 45 minutes just laughing and waiting on a 4 wheeler.

It was a great weekend. We caught 28 hogs total.. weighed in 18 with a weight of 2976 lbs. Our top 10 weighed 2001 lbs was good for 2nd place..(trailing first place by 38lbs as team Thunderbird Ranch had 2039 lbs) Our top 4 weighed in at 948 lbs and was good for another 2nd place (Trailing1 st place by 33lbs) we tied on the stringer with 18 hogs but won as our total weight was higher The team won 12 bags of Victoe dog food, a catch vest, cut collar, 8 buckles and $2000 cash. A mix up in our understanding of the rules most likely cost us the tournament as we thought you had to designate your top 10 and 4 BEFORE they walked across the scales, so we were hesitant to take our hogs in Saturday night. As a result most likely the hogs we already had in the trailer lost a water weight and drew up. It was an awesome hunt, I ve never seen two stringers come in over 2000#’s. The competition was stiff and the event was set up very well. We are certainly looking forward to it next year, as there are already rumors it’ll be around $10k guaranteed next year. Congratulations again to all the members and other winners, take care and Enjoy!

Big E

Marshall mims

Marshall Willeys Sow

Nick

Big E, JJ, Marshall and Cole