BigGameHoundsmen.com

Are these dogs any good on bear do they have a decent nose to them?

They are good on about anything you put them on. I have one now and hunt with a couple guys that have a couple and they are top notch dogs. They handle very easy, they are fast, great noses, and tree great. We hunt lions, bears, and bob's.

Now were u get ur hopman dogs from?

I've hunted with one and the only good thing I can say is that it didn't want to run trash. It usually showed up but never really did anything, just tagged along. The guy paid a pretty good price to Weldon for it and was told it was a well started dog. Last I saw it I wouldn't have even called it started and its probably at least three now. Below is a copy of an old post written by Greg Anderson (RIP) that I thought you might be interested in. If you search Weldon Hopman you can probably find the whole thread.


After moving to Arizona about four years ago my daughter Nikki and I wanted to go for a drive and visit more of the Mogollon Rim. I had seen Weldon’s ads with some mixed emotions. But we were bored and craving knowledge so I called Weldon, “Yes, I will be here”, so we drove over.

Well we got there and were met by a man that apparently did a lot of hunting with Weldon. Weldon would be here in 30 min. So we listened to this guy excitedly tell us stories about lion hunting and the hounds. There were a lot of dogs! I mean a lot! Did I say there were a lot of dogs? In any case, Weldon arrives and he welcomes us and starts to give me the Walker Hound dog tour of my life. Let me say he had some of the nicest dog pens I’ve seen out West. It was kind of like a zoo. Anyway, Weldon starts us through this maze of pens. I honestly can’t say how many hounds, 40-60 because in these pens are 2-3 bitches with 2-3 different sized litters and pens with 2-3 one to two year old males. And Weldon is giving Nikki and I one of the best hound speeches and I can tell that it is a good one by his body language. But I can’t hear it (the speech) because 40-60 Walkers are baying and I mean the big puppy pens had some of the best UFC fights in them I have ever seen. But more amazing than the fights is the fact that Weldon does not miss a lick with that hound dog speech. And Mike Leonard knows me. There are two facts: I was not born with a long fuse along with another part of my body and the older I get the shorter the fuse along with…

In any case, by now I am in need of some help (mental). We are standing in front of a pen that the pups single out a little female in a corner. And it gets ugly until. That little lose wire in my head slightly touches that other lose wire in my head. And I end it!

I looked at Weldon and waved him off of the battle zone to where for the first time in 45 minutes I could hear him speak and he invites us up to his house on top of a hill to look at some pictures. He showed us a lot of beautiful lion pictures stuck in cardboard boxes. All or most were from ‘70s but what surprised me the most was all the lion rugs he had.

Well, in any case, I finally built up enough nerve to say “Weldon, what the %$@^ is up? Why would anyone make so many crosses?” He tells me that he had a large construction job out of town and he told some folks, Free rent if you feed and water the hounds. So Weldon did the smart thing, he put 1 or 2 males in with 2 to 3 females. HELLO DOLLY! BING-BANG-AND BOOM!

What makes this story funnier is two pups, one male and one female end up going to Dave Carlson’s for training for a few months (Sorry Dave) and then end up at my house place owned by a local man, who paid $1,200 for the pair. Dave tapes the pups on mule back hunting and is constantly cussing about how slow and awkward the pups are and always having to go back and get them.

I get them to train at 13 months old. Dave was right! They could not run a straight line. I introduce them to game along with the guy that owns them, and two Plott pups that were seven months old. It is his brand new live trap; we just want to see if there is some prey drive. We drop the tailgate and the Plotts ruin the trap. The Walkers run off scared. The owner of the Walkers catches the male who is 85 pounds and has a mane and head like he is half St. Bernard. He pulls it over to mangled trap and the dog does back flips in an effort to escape.

The funniest part of this is I asked Weldon what he wanted for the pups and he said between $800.00 and $1,200, AND HE GOT IT!

I say, moral of this story is “The power of the pen is truly mightier than the sword”

If Weldon has a Walker that can run 25 miles on soft ground in slight hill country in 4 hours I’ll eat a bite out of my old sweaty hat!

And Mike, Nikki and I got to thinkin’ about that question, “How far can you stretch a lion?” and a strange look came over her eyes as she eyeballed the only lion I have ever had rugged out on the wall. And with a smile on her face she pealed the lion off the wall, as I followed her and watched her soak this lion in a tub of water murmuring over and over “Start the quads, grab some chain, 11 feet ain’t shit!” LOL!

I say well done Weldon.

Thanks.

69er

We got the dogs from Weldon, and I would run them with anyone that wanted to see them work. We might have got lucky on the dogs we ot from Weldon but I would gladly buy another one or recommend him if anyone needed a good pup! Like I said, if you want to come see them catch something you are more than welcome.

It was interesting to see what mike leonard, had said about them, from the old post, I guess kickermall didnt quote that one Not saying weldon and his pen idea's are right.

I am probably one of the few on here that has hunted with Weldon and his dogs, and I will state right up front that when he came and stayed with me and hunted he had some of the finest looking walker dogs in the country and also they would flat cold trail and you had to drag them off a track.

I think some folks need to lighten up a little and enjoy some humor and maybe they would find they might even enjoy their life a bit more.





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MERRY CHRISTMAS....

I can assure you that I hunt the feet off my dogs and like I said before you guys that want to see a white cloud catch a lion or a bear, come on down. I hunt five to six days a week, so domt say that I do most of my hunting from a keyboard. Come to colorado and see. Hell, if you want bring some dogs, maybe they will teach mine something. Since all they do is fight and sit on a chain.

Mike,
No offense intended, and none taken. Sorry your dealings with the w.c. Weren't good, and I admire someone that will do what you did by getting rid of the dogs instead of selling them to someone else. And. Yes we did get directly from Weldon. The offer still stands if you make it my way to come hunt some new country.

Today i spoke with Mike about his knowledge with these dogs, and enjoyed the conversation. As I told him, what he says is an opinion, I love to listen to one, its just that an opinion, seems he had plenty of facts to go with it, which I respect also. I have, listened and tried lines all my life, most didint fit me, a few did, which is basically what I have today. I'm not missing nothing in this line, that I'm trying to better it, I'm trying to maintain it, a big difference. If it does add qualities, wonderful. And I can assure you of one thing, i dont make excuses for dogs, pups or anything else. They are graded tough in my kennel, and i will cull in a new york second, if they dont fit me.

With that being said, keeping an open mind, If you said my dogs of twenty years ago weren't the caliber, compared to what i have now you would probably be correct Keeping an open mind, I feel the right decisions, has got me to what fits me today. So when you say a mans name and experiences, is it in his current line, and new outcrosses, he has made? Perhaps better or worse then before? Again, what works here, thats the challenge.

I have a male and female off wendals dogs, I feel a fair test. They were 10 months old when i got them. I hunted the hoppman dogs right away down in Ok, in the mountains on hogs, and got them trailing decent, then The hoppman male I hunted hard, out every cold trail and on every race. this summer and fall on bear. He was there everytime. Seems he backed off a little after a really rank boar, tore the piss out of all of them and three went to the vet. A lot to ask from any young dog, at a year and one month when he went to the woods for bear. I had a bobcat race this summer, and his eyes turned different colors, he loves that scent, he is a fast, head up, run to catch type dog, I also found him twice with his own bear, and took them out of the country. He is not a coon dog type tree dog, decent, stand back type dog. If the bear was low, he chewed on the tree, which i dont care for. He is not mean in the box, or anywhere else. The female I crossed, she also tree's and both think they are watch dogs around the kennel. I broke her , he is more adimate, but understanding, My dogs will have manors. They both seem intellegent, handle well, good feet, hair between toes, good hair for the winters here, so time will tell. We all have at least a top ten list of what works for us in our style and area we hunt.

As mike and i discussed, for me, nose and grit, I cant live without nor catch game here. Well, the pups, from this cross I'm trying, two bayed the horses across the pen, the other day, and three bayed a deer carcas I threw in the next day, before they figured out it was lunch. Five pups were in the kennel. So, I'm guessing they will have grit, especially when they are only ten weeks old. But I seen that off my male in the other two litters , this line will start young, ten weeks being an acception , If you want to call me out pm me your phone number, got video of it on mine :lol .I'm far from an opinion on these dogs yet, but qualities I require, seem to be there, and they will get hunted hard this winter, so time will tell, but you will get a straight answer, as I've bred to a trigg bitch and got some six month old pups I'm liking, Fun trying a few things, with what I have now I love to train pups

Mike Martell's ramble on the subject of White Cloud Walkers in general, and Weldon Hopman's strain in particular, demand correction. We won't deal with the beginnings of the strain here since that already has been dealt with in this and other forums extensively and accurately.
What recent success the White Cloud strain has enjoyed can be attributed to a gentleman named Roger Holland, a wildlife biologist assigned to manage the southeast corner of Washington State. Armed with his understanding of breeding principles, his breeding of Holland’s White Cloud King to Holland's Star resulted in two litters which not only produced the desired results in his own pack but which formed the foundation stock for several others, Mr. Hopman's among them.
In Holland’s pack, all dogs traced to King, Star, Star’s brother (Kemp’s Jimbo), and another female, Fisher’s White Cloud Sadie, a Causey-bred closely related to King.
Hopman’s Boone , from King and Star, allowed him to breed to Farrah Fawcett, a Finley River bitch and, with the incorporation of Hopman’s Bell from Gurvis Mullins’ Blackjack and Squeak produced generations of great bear and lion dogs tested and admired throughout the western states.
Leo Fisher, another Californian, obtained Fisher’s White Cloud Hawk from the King and Star cross, and bred to White Cloud Sadie, a Causey-bred female, and Fisher’s Queen, a Bawley female from Mel Gunspiller in Michigan. These three and their progeny set new standards in tough country.
Beginning with Sparky, another pup of the King-Star breeding, Fred Lewandowsky obtained White Cloud Bear Gal from Emmett Causey and Hardrock Lil from Glen Fritzer.
When Fred quit guiding, his dogs went to Bobby Lyles, who added them to the Gervis Mullins dogs he already had, and two more from Glen Fritzer to create a successful hunting and breeding program.
Holland made White Cloud Josie available to Rob Wilsey, who bred her to two of Star’s brothers with results still prominent in Kevin Brown’s excellent northern Idaho pack several generations later.
In brief, discriminating and knowledgeable houndsmen from northern Canada to southern California and east to the Carolinas have chosen White Cloud Walkers on merit- and because of their record as serious hunters of big game and as reproducers.
Any of you who have spent $25,000 in the coin of any realm on breeding, raising, training and proving big game hounds will have realized it doesn’t take long to come up that short. Anyone who spends 40 years and doesn’t have a good dog to show for it is short in another department.
I bred my own stud, Holland’s White Cloud Joe (King x Star again) to a Lyles female and it is to be admitted that while her disposition was ‘growly’ it was even more pronounced in the litter she produced. Some crosses just do not work.
As to Joe himself, he has produced litters from two other females whose pups are uniformly good-natured.
Joe and Fisher’s Star (not to be confused with Holland’s Star) have produced two litters of 12 pups total, all but two of which have passed expectations on coon, cat and bear. Once again, the model that has produced so many wonderful dogs in so many memorable packs may prevail.
It’s a model that has succeeded many times before and when you hear someone calling that idea down, consider the source.
So, as Mike Martell has invited you to do; if you want to know more about White Cloud Treeing Walkers, phone him. If you want to know the truth about White Cloud dogs, call me:

John Lastockin

1-250-447-6340

OK I wasn't going to get involved and I am not choosing sides here just want to clear some of the mud that was slung on the white cloud name The cross that is being referenced to was made with the best intentions both sire and dam are game catchers of big game and the pups were making the same but by the time this aggression was found out the second cross had been made again the agression showed up this was unfoutunate it will not happen again after some research the main problem in the cross was narrowed down to 2 or 3 dogs that was doubled up on thru being line bred that showed the trait this was information that was learned after it showed up at least on my end not what any of us want in our hounds I also made a cross that doubled up on the same dogs before this was known and it showed up also I found out in time to not make that mistake again but on a different note I had a litter of pups that are game minded easy to start pups that make you raise your eye brows but but they crossed that fine line do I just drop the whole program because of one bad turn? if all breeders that started out breeding for the good of the breed quit after a wrong turn we would not even be close to where we are today. The hounds and people that have carried the W.C. name well I dont think they walked the mountains or where ever they hunted to get excersise I have talked to some of the men that hunted them and they caught game with them and that is what we all want.. My point is we all make mistakes but the guy that keeps repeating that mistake and turns those mistakes into money for his pocket that is what is wrong but to knock down a strain that has been around for 30 to 40 years I for one am going to do my best help carry it on I have had hounds for 30 plus years and have seen the good and bad and from what I have seen from the white cloud dogs is worth putting my time into

I am certainly not joining in the fray here, but I would like to pass on my experiances with some of the people and dogs mentioned. First I wouuld like to comment on Trent, I have had the privalage to deal with and hunt with Trent Gordon and would like to say that they don't come much better and more honest. I also was able to talk with Mike Martell via this site and really appreciate him taking the time to answer my questions. he was very up front and obviusly has alot of first hand knowledge and experiance with the White Cloud dogs. As far as the dogs go I have two here that so far have worked out very well for me. The first is a year old and is out of the Mr. Baker dog. I ran him last summer and fall on bear and he did a real nice job, he was boxed with other dogs and on bay ups kills and trees with other dogs and has not been a problem. The other is a young pup born in early September he is also out of Mr. Baker and Trents Flo dog. He is barking at a coon and is a real smart well behaved pup, as of yet he gets along very well with other dogs, I have high hopes for him. I am not an expert on this breed and can only pass on my experiances. Thank you and good luck to all.