Yea, yea, we had a hunter down south a few years back that had bought a conservation deer and bear tag out in the Book Cliffs. This guy didn't want to run or tree any bears that he wasn't gonna kill, so I was stuck with rigging and putting a killing size boar track to that rig before dumping hounds.
A buddy of mine had an elk tag on that unit and wanted me to hunt his dogs as well, which is always a plus as guy can rotate the hounds and give them a day off--not something my hounds were use to.
I had a landowner tell me he had a boar on his ground that had whipped off a pack of hounds a week or so back in less than an hour, but I didn't believe that story for a minute. We did load up seven hounds on that boar about the fourth day and they fought him most of the afternoon.
My hunter wanted to use a muzzleloader to kill his bear, and we tried to cut that fighting bear off several times over that afternoon. We did get nearly close enough for a kill shot at one point, and we got to see why this bear had ran the other hounddogger's dogs off so quickly. That bear would back up against a rock ledge or tree and single out one dog at a time, them run that dog fifty to seventy-five yards before the other dogs turned it. When the bear made us it blew out like it had seen the devil......
It began to rain pretty hard so we went to the truck and sat the storm out, leaving those poor hounds of mine to do battle with that mean boar. After the storm we started in on the bear and the first two dogs quit after only four or five hours. Then two more, leaving only my Ike and Rowen dogs to finish the battle.
That bear came around through the oak at about a hundred and fifty yards, and had those two dogs only feet behind it. I was pissed about then and grabbed my backup .300 Weatherby from the back seat and handed it to my hunter. Shoot that damn thing I told him!
Well, the hunter laid over the hood of my truck and never squeezed the trigger....then raised up and told me he was afraid of hitting the hounds. By then it was late afternoon and nearly evening and when the bear crossed the road my last two hounds quit as well.
My outfitter had a camp trailer and wall tent back in camp with a wood stove, and I stayed up half the night feeding the fire and biding my time til morning to take another crack at that bastard. Come morning, I loaded all eleven dogs and we went bear hunting. We went back to the same canyon and rigged that bear, and sent out three or four of my best hounds to strike. When they did, I opened the doors to my dog box and all eleven of those hounds were on the move for bear..........
Wasn't much of a fight this time, as that boar ran like I'd turned hell loose after him and up he went after a mile or so run........and we killed that bear!
My outfitter laughed and told the hunter about how I didn't hardly sleep all night the night before, and how little I thought of an ass whippin, and how when I set my mind to finishing something it usually got done.....
A couple years back a buddy of mine gave me one of those bear killing plott dogs. My idea in taking that hound was to see if he'd run with my dogs and help provide a little more teeth action when needed. Only seen one bear stay on the ground with those dogs since I had the plott dog, and that bear had a leg shot out from under it and couldn't climb--not that it didn't try, but three or four dogs would pul it out when it did try.
But like they say, you gotta love it and we do (my hounds and I).
Keep'em treed,
ike
I'd love to have another just like her