Let’s talk.

[Rowdy Fitz]

Oh man, that sounds super unproductive and against all logic.

[Rowdy Fitz]

Mornin gentlemen!

Had a bit of a rough day yesterday. My oldest, Reylynn and I went hunting like normal. The dogs struck a lion track first thing in the morning which was fantastic! There was a couple inches of snow and I was able to walk around to see the tracks. It turned out to be a female with 2 maybe 3 kittens. The tracks went straight up the side of the canyon. That’s where shit went awry….

The dogs split treed, the two youngest dogs Lester and Blue treed on the first ridge while the two older dogs Buck and Sam went up the ridge, through a saddle and off the far side of the mountain. 7 hours later I would get to Buck and Sam’s tree. I never did make it to Lester or Blue. I had to drive like 15 miles around and through a bunch of washed out, shitty roads to within half a mile of Buck and Sam. As I parked, Buck and Sam left the tree which isn’t acceptable and came to the truck. I hiked into the tree anyways with the 4 fresh female dogs. Luckily the lion stayed in the tree so I did a little training with the female dogs. They made a lot of progress by time I left!

​Back to Sam and Buck. Buck ended up going to the truck while Sam missed the truck and went 3 miles down to a main dirt road where some old crazy tweaker lady found him. She called my wife thankfully and told her that she had found him. I had to put “It’s a felony to pick this dog up” along with our phone numbers.

I had to hike back down the mountain to the truck and then drive 20 minutes to find her and get Sam. Then I had to drive back up the mountain to find the other two which had split up at some point. Blue was bayed up in some bluffs a mile and a half away from where I was, in the nastiest country for miles. Lester went back over the mountain and I had no clue where he went. So I started the mile and a half hike which would have been over a thousand foot elevation gain, around 4:00pm. I made it about half way there when Blue finally decided to quit and head back the way he came. (This was not good for me). I started calling to him and thankfully he heard me just before he went over the mountain! By that time he was 1.1 miles away lol. So thankfully I got him to come to me and I headed back to the truck!

I left Reylynn in the truck this whole time because it was cold, steep and rough country.

So we drove all the way back to the highway this time, to go back to where we originally cut the tracks, to look for Lester. It’s now dark by time we got to the highway. I turned off the highway and made it about 3 miles when I hit a rock popping the sidewall of the driver rear tire It was my fault because I let too many airs out in the morning. That tire was at 8psi when it should have been at 15psi. Luckily I had cell service and was able to text the wife to bring me the spare. (I was too lazy to load it) I limped down to the highway and waited the hour and a half for her. I handed Reylynn off to Breeanne, changed the tire, put 10 gallons of gas in and headed back up the mountain. Lester ended up being 6.5 miles up that road. Thankfully he wasn’t the 3 miles further up the side road, where the lion tracks were. That road is washed out bad and it would have taken me another 2 hours go get in and out. I was able to grab him and be back to the highway in 45 minutes or so then head home. I got home about 10:00 last night.

[Beebout-it]

If it was easy everyone would do it brother!! At least you caught something for all the headaches lol. Tons of times that happens only to go home with nothing treed at all!

[Rowdy Fitz]

Ha ha ha thank you! Yes it has happened too many times and ended up with me going home with my tail between my legs lol.

[lawdawgharris]

Man I’m tired and frustrated just reading that lol. But as they say, alls well that ends well, and it did. You got all your hounds back safe and healthy and you and the youngin were ok. Catching game was a bonus. How old is Reylynn? One of my favorite dogs is named Raylynn. There was a series called Justified on TV about a U.S. Marshall. He was my kinda guy and his name was Raylynn Givens so I named my gyp Raylynn and the male Givens. I named Raylynn’s daughter Ava and her brother Boyd after the Marshall’s ex girlfriend and her outlaw husband. Anyway, didn’t mean to side track your story, it’s just a cool name and the first place I ever heard it was on that show. He may have even spelled it like y’all did, I don’t know. I knew who I was talking about lol.


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[Rowdy Fitz]

Lol thanks, Reylynn is 5, working on 25…
It was a good day all n all. Just frustrating and expensive lol.
I haven’t seen that show. I have heard it’s a decent show though. We watch movies but don’t watch too much TV.

[Beebout-it]

I miss my boy being that young, they are still fun all the time and actually like doing things with ya lol mines 15 and so busy with school and sports that its not very often we get to go play in the woods together. He gets his provisional drivers license in 9 days so I'm sure I'll be seeing even less of him from that point on. Lion season starts Friday and it was almost 50 at my house today, definitely not feeling like lion season to me but all I gotta do is load a box and I'm ready to roll tomorrow for a little pre scouting.

[Rowdy Fitz]

Man, I’m not looking forward to that! I love having my kids around. I take them with me all the time and they love it. I sure hope I can get one or two to keep hunting with me!

[lawdawgharris]

My nephew is 26 and a Sgt for the police department here. He’s as much a son as he is a nephew and it seems more so by the day, one of my best friends. He’s not a kid anymore. He’s eat up with hog hunting and hog dogs. I don’t make many hunts anymore that he isn’t there. He’s been tagging along since he was about 4-5 yrs old. It makes every trip worth it. My oldest son is 24 and just recently got rid of his dogs . He’s got his own business going and that’s pretty time consuming. The only mount I have is a hog that he and I caught together. It weighed 310# and he surprised me with it. One of the most awesome gifts I’ve ever received. He will still go here and there but he isn’t eat up with it like the nephew. He goes more just to spend time with me than anything. My youngest is 13 and maybe the best eye for animals of the 3. Just about every pup he eye balls makes one of the best in the litter. Just yesterday I got a new catch dog prospect and sent him pics of it. Man he analyzed that rascals features and aged him spot on. That wouldn’t mean much to the normal person, but for a fella like me it was a proud moment. The boy is a hand in the woods himself. He handles the dogs well and he will put his hands on a hog. I took just him and a buddy of his this past summer. Myself and the dogs were pretty hot and tired as we had fought this boar hog for 3-400 yards. He really wanted to leave and the dogs really wanted him to stay. He finally took a final stance in the dry creek bed. My bull dog caught but before we could get our hands on the hog, he got away from him and ran down the creek about 75-100 yards. I was hot and winded and the dogs and hog were too. I heard them catch and hollered at the boys to come on they were caught. He hollered back and said you come on, I got the hog. You talk about proud, maaaann when I looked down in that creek bed and that boy had that boar hog legged and trying to throw him I forgot how hot and tired I was. Seemed like time stood still in that moment. I’ll never forget it! Kids are great and you can sure enough tell the ones growing up like our kids from the ones that aren’t. There’s a sense of pride and respect about them and they have a work ethic and just overall ethics about them. I makes me SO DANG PROUD!


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[Beebout-it]

Thats great!! Last season the boy and I headed out to meet a buddy to go try and run a lion at the end of the season and after being stuck for an hour just trying to get to the highway to go hunting we get one going, drive as close as possible and I look down and have a flat tire. The boy says well guess ill see you guys when you get to the tree after you fix the flat. He had a 3/4 of a mile hike up the mountain. I could see him praising those dogs up just the same as it was me and this was after he'd been there an hour by himself, I as well was a proud father.

[lawdawgharris]

That’s cool. I bet you were proud, and you should’ve been.


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[Beebout-it]

Yes sir! I went out last night,opening day. Found a few high places with some snow and found 2 tracks a female about 4 days old and a tom in another range about 3 days old. Wolves all around where I found the tom and no snow where he was headed to try and round him up. I used 2 if my new tt25 collars just to see how the battery actually lasts, turned them on at 3am and left them on garmins new dynamic setting and at 2pm they hadn't used a single bar of battery, plugged them in to recharge them and the lights turned green in under 5 minutes. I was very delighted .

[Rowdy Fitz]

I’m a little late but Joe, I can’t wait to get to that point in life where I get to actually hunt with my kids instead of taking them hunting. I sure hope they enjoy it as much as I do!

I’m back at work for the next week so I won’t get to hunt again until next weekend. Gonna be a long week!

[lawdawgharris]

That’s pretty impressive about the tt25 collars battery life. Do you think there will be any difference in their range?


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[Beebout-it]

Definitely rowdy, I've been making him help chose where we are going and what we are doing more and more. If I notice him not glassing I hand him the spotter and take a nap . Well found a small female in a patch of snow about 80 yards long and only on the road. Turned my males out on straight dirt and they never missed a beat ,rolled out wide open made it like 2.5 miles and made an odd loop back towards me still opening but the pace had slowed, I picked them up about 300 yards from where I turned out in some cliffs. Didn't catch but I was proud of their first race of the season. I only had the longer rubber duck antenna on the new 300 and I was absolutely surprised that I hardly ever lost communication with them even though I had no line of site and was below them the whole time! So far I'm liking the new setup!