What's the deal guys?

[az_gogetem]

I'm gonna tell you right now this might be a bit of a rant.

But I am starting to understand why the general public has a bad opinion on hound hunters. Hell we can't even get along with each other. Everytime you get on this damn board somebodies picking on somebody or calling somebody a liar or a cheat or saying somebody ain't the legend they make themselves out to be. It happens all the time. Why does it matter if somebody thinks they are king kong? The only person they are fooling is themself. Think about it. It's not just on this board, hounders out in the field, I met a young guy that hunts 7 days a week 12 months a year and he caught a few bear in our bear hunt down here this last month or so. A certain someone that I hunt with asked me how many bear they caught and I told em and he got all defensive WELL I ONLY KNOW ABOUT 3. SO WHAT? Why does everyone have to be the top shit in this sport? It is not about numbers, if you're in it to rack up the numbers and drive around town or sit in the coffee shop letting everyone know you caught 12 bears or 5 lion or whatever then you are in it for the wrong reason and frankly I don't want to know you.

Another example, I was lion hunting recently by myself and found a kill. another hounder I had briefly met pulled into camp to say hi, he's just getting into the sport so I asked if he wanted to tag along the next day and we trailed a lion and had a good time. I ran into him last week looking for his dogs and he said none of these bear hunters would even stop to talk to him. Why not? Afraid he's gonna follow them around and learn all their secrets? Here's the thing..... THEY AREN'T SECRETS. PEOPLE have been running hounds and catching game for over a hundred years. If you think you're doing anything that is truly unique and never been done before you are probably wrong.

What I'm getting at is why is there this ultra competitive cloud hanging over the hound world? Everybody has to have the best dogs, everybody has to catch the most game, everybody else has to be full of shit. Again it ain't about who is the best, it's about the dogs and getting out and spending a day playing a game with a kritter that knows it's being chased. If you catch em GREAT. Congratulations, lets go have a drink and talk about good times. If you don't catch em, there's always next time, lets go have a drink and talk about next time. Just for god's sake don't take yourself to seriously. It's pretty sickening and right now I'd rather hunt by myself than hunt with most people because someone always has to talk shit about somebody else. It's like this, if you know you have great dogs, and I know you have great dogs, do you really need to tell me again?

Last weekend we caught a bear that will go in the P&Y top 5 for Arizona, I could've cared less if he was 100lb sow. Because a little 2 year old bitch and 2 year and half old plotts smoked the old dogs and MADE that bear climb a tree I was more excited about the dogs than I was the damn bear. When I got home I realized I don't have many pictures of the bear in the tree because I kept taking pics of those youngsters. THAT IS WHAT I WAS TAUGHT THIS SPORT SHOULD BE ABOUT WATCHING A DOG MATURE, GROW AND LEARN. Maybe the sports like this because too many people try to jump in and buy finished dogs right away, maybe they don't get the pleasure of making a dog. I don't know, I wish I had an answer but the truth is I'm just a dumb 23 year old kid who likes to go chase my dogs and is pretty fed up with peoples EGOS. Maybe one of you older, wiser, fellas has an idea as to where this all started. I'd love to hear it. But I can't imagine guys like the Lee brothers sitting around talking shit about other hunters. Nor do I EVER remember my dad sitting around chatting with CJ Prock bashing other peoples dogs.

Well take this little rant however you'd like. I'm going hunting see you all next tuesday.

[doug]

GREAT POST

[NWKemDawg]

GOOD POST Very Well Said!!!

[Spanky]

Like it has been said...Hound Doggers will be their own demise. Ego is everything anymore, competition is right in their at a close second. I do not have enough fingers and toes so I can not tell you how many times I have stopped and rolled down the window to say good morning or "hey" to a passing houndsmen to have them either keep driving, look cross eyed or stop to ask what I was doing on that road Its sad to say but as the sport and heritage gets more popular and more people get into it the worse the problem gets. Their is no such thing as strength in numbers just competition.......

[J.R.]

Very well said Spanky i have done the same around here and get nothing for being polite

[azcoondogs]

I grew up in sothrn ca. runnin fox and bobcats. Now the way I was taught to hunt was more the guys the better it was, we didnt care if the dogs treed or not it was about the sound of the chase. When I moved to great falls mt. it took me 1 year to find someone to go huntin with. I didnt have a dog at the time I just wanted to go and listen to a race. I think they didnt want to show me there huntin spots and so forth. Alot of hunters got there private acsses to there huntin grounds, and I just hunted the public lands I trapped alot of coon to stock that piece of ground and some hunters would go in there and shoot the coon out cause they didnt want to kill any on there private piece of ground

As for lion hunting, I went every winter for 4 yeas and never saw a lion up a tree. It seemed like it was daytona 500 of hunters tryin to be the first on the mountain.

Now I live in az. the coon huntin here is bad only got one spot to hunt, but I take my dogs out just to say I tried. There are not to many hunters near me to go with, but have talk to some who said I could go with them, but they never call back. Its not about if my dogs can tree the mos game or if they are the fastest, as long as my dogs bark on track and trail thats all I need, like I said I rather hear a race if its with my dogs or someones elses dogs thats is what I enjoy.

Everyone says take a kid hunting, keep are sport alive, well that cant really happin if everyone is afraid to show a new person how to get started, cause it mite cut into there catch of the game

[Mike Leonard]

Oh yes I am still here and very much alive. Splendid post and I concur, however I also must say that it is most disturbing when you get into what the most of folk feel about this sport.

I sayFORGET IT!
\
That's right , forget it and them. Operate under the guidance of the state laws and take you four footed friend to the woods. It is not such a complicated matter as many small thinkers would have you believe.

I sat many years ago on an old couch in Payson Arizona before a man who was a legend in big game hound hunting. We had spent several days together and he looked over at me as he rolled a bull durham smoke and slapped me on the knee and said. Well boy you have everything you need to be a successful lion hunter. I said I do? He said Yep. You have a good hound or two that will trail and tree, two strong legs to carry you, and two good eyes to see, and a whole great gig gob of the American west that has a few lions in it, so get after it.He said, by golly I wandered around out there till I thought my feet would fall off. I asked questions from everybody that knew what a hound was. Then one day I guess the stars lined up and them old potlickers got in on one and ran it up a pine tree. Heck I felt like I was 10 feet tall, and after that the confidence started to build, and me and my dogs had a lot of fun. You can do the same.

No numbers, no competition, just good, clean honest fun in the American outdoors. Enjoy

[pete richardson]

I'm just a dumb 23 year old kid who likes to go chase my dogs and is pretty fed up with peoples EGOS

well thats the only part you got wrong - your not so dumb at 23 ---

takes most a lot longer to learn what youve written

great post --

[Teun]

I am not young (40 years old) and just getting into hound hunting. I have absolutely no desire to competition hunt...just want to be in the woods with my kids, my sister, some new friends and some dogs!! I have a young pup who is too young to hunt and have been looking for a lightly started dog to work with. I must say that most people are very helpful when I call about a dog, even when I know they think I am a moron with the questions I ask. However, there are those that make me feel like a complete idiot when I hang up. It is very discouraging. Luckily for me I have found a few great folks in my neck of the woods that are willing to be "mentors" to me and hopefully future friends!! Like I said, I have no competitive spirit when it comes to hunting with dogs...I just want to have some fun!!

This is a great post..and maybe some day we will be friends!!

[Lynxhunter]

Thanks, for a great post!
I couldnt agree more, but this is not only a hounding problem. As I see it the whole western world got this problem.
Life sems to be about having the flashiest car, biggest house and best hunting hounds or what ever, so you can go and be a "big" man in town.
- It makes me sick! The reason why I keep more and more to my self.

Hans

[Ike]

Well az, you've touched on alot of good issues to which there are no answers. More than anyone on the NET, ol' Ike has caught hell for sharing simple hunting stories about his hounds and the game they chase. And he has been called a liar by about everybody on this board. It is kinda fun to sit in the background and watch some of the rest of these guys catch hell, cause it seems to be the nature of the sport or the people in it.

I remember a good friend and mentor helping me along the way with where to find tom lions, where they crossed and always being there to lift me up when things went well or didn't. With his continued support, mainly through conversation, I was catching big tom lions with my first yearling pup. He'd been guiding and running hounds for twenty-five years and told me that I had taken to catching tom lions faster than anybody he'd ever known, but the truth was he'd been a big part of that because of the advice and information that he'd shared with me as a long time lion hunter.

He also told me when you start killing those big toms you'll start pissing off these other lion hunter. And he was correct in that statement.......

I stay to myself as well and don't drop dogs with anybody, and the hounddoggers on the Internet were most likely the people who caused that................

ike

[Hunter]

I grew up with a guy, known his since we were knee high to a grasshopper and hunted every possible moment we could. He's had good dogs when I didn't have squat and vise versa. When he get's into a rut and can't seem to tree one he's downing everyone else's dogs and you think he owns every inch of public land. He only wants to have the best dogs that do it 100 % of the time everytime he goes out. I tell him that if he would spend as much time working with his dogs when they are in a rut as he does bitching to me on my front porch about Jo Blow treeing all these bears and how Jo's dog's aren't really all that good he would be better off. These boys are only treeing these easy "pop up" bears he claims. I still hunt with him some but I tell him often I don't want to hear his bitching and moaning. I go hunting to get away from all that stuff.

[twist]

great post as it has been said you find this in every sport someone that is always unhappy with someone else doing a good job at a sport from hunting dogs to who shot the biggest buck deer. It has been my experience that these guys come and go in every sport, they truely dont have the heart to keep it up year after year, if you are one of the TRUELY DUMB houndsmen that has had hounds for years you will out last these kind of people and keep following that four legged friend around the hills.

[Earl Hickey]

I hate to tell you bud but it's not just hounding that is ultra competitive. It's life in general, everything is that way now.

Just look at the world of big antlers, hell those deer and elk hunters are worse than hound guys and the guys killing big horns are called everything under the sun.

It's the same in sports, in fishing, in hunting, in hounding, in business, in the relationships between men and women. Hounding is just a small glimpse into what it's like in the real world.

I disagree with the notion people have a low opinion of houndsmen. People don't care, we aren't even on the radar of 98% of the population. Most of my neighbors couldn't tell you the first thing about hounds or the guys who hunt them. And I can't count how many times I've had people say, "Oh you run hounds? Do you know 'ol Jake Monson? He's a good friend of mine and a great guy."

Sure a few people don't like hound guys, but that's true in any walk of life. Fact is we are barely a blip on the radar screen of most people and we rarely cross their minds.

Hounding is just a glimpse of the bigger world, in business, sports or anything else in life it won't change much. You'll have those who are successful and just go about their business quietly and do their thing. You'll have those who are loud mouths and will brag and talk non stop about how great they are and expend terrific time and effort trying to put themselves above others. You'll have those who are dishonest, unethical and will do anything to get ahead, and you'll have those who are helpful to others and might never be the best, but they don't really care. They have other motives.

And interestingly, often the very people who are part of the problem believe they are part of the solution. You can see that if you read this very thread! So it doesn't matter if it's hounding or the NFL or the business world.

You will always have the Ocho Cinco types who just want attention and want you to know how great they are. And with them will come all of the people waiting for them to fail so they can point it out. And you will have the guys who quietly go about their business and do it without fanfare or talk. You can see it in sports, you can see it on this website, and you can see it out on the mountain. It's life, you can't get away from it.

Great post by the way, but hounding won't get fixed until people get fixed, and sorry bud but I just don't see that happening. Part of the problem is, people never view themselves as the problem. They always think it's someone else. Look no further than this site for proof of that.

And it's easy to get sucked into the negativity and ultra competition, hell we all let it get to us from time to time. The trick is trying to learn from it and move on. Maybe the next time we'll handle it differently.

But sometimes sadly the biggest offender we'll ever run across is looking back at us in the mirror.

Ultimately, at the end of your life when you look back, if your legacy is tied up in a pack of dogs to me that is pretty sad. I watched a new mother bury her first born 2 day old child yesterday and I got to tell you, hounding or how great a rig dog is seems pretty unimportant to me right now.

[mihunter79]

very well said on this post....i've only been hunting a handful of times with hounds on diffrent species. I love to listen to the hounds worka track thats for sure...