TELL ABOUT THE BEST BIG GAME HOUND YOU HAVE SEEN:NOT YOUR'S

[Mike Leonard]

Let's hear a little about a great hound you have seen, (not heard about) in the woods that you did now own.

[houndcrazyfool]

the best hound ive ever had the pleasure to hunt with was a walker with a little trigg in him. He was my buddies dog, he got hit on the highway about three weeks ago on a night hunt He was one that never will be able to be replaced... I got two little females that are ass kickin for pups right now though

[papa]

A coon huntin buddy of mine in Arizona, years ago, had a blue-tick that made fewer mistakes than any dog I have seen. Never saw him slick tree, and when he struck, you could get ready to go to the tree. I had the privelege of starting some dogs behind him, and it sure made life easier. Only time he ever messed up was one night when about 7-8 of us were standin around listening to the race. Melvin proceeded to tell us how old rusty never ran anything but a coon. About that time, the race shut down, and in a few minutes rusty walked into the circle and proceeded to drop a skunk at Melvins feet! Never saw better timimg in my life!..the only mistake I ever saw him make.

[J.C. Call]

Cindy of Jeff Allen's was the best one I've ever seen. All of his hounds are bad to the bone, but Cindy was a notch above the rest.

[Kevin D]

A couple of stand outs come to mind. One was a plott dog named Buddy owned by a guy in Salmon, Idaho. I had hunted bear for 10 years before I met up with him, and he showed me what a real bear dog was all about. This dog could cover the country like nothing I had ever seen before and could run down even the fastest bear or stay with even the meanest. As far as bear dogs, I've yet to see anything like him.

Another standout was HoundDawg's Sam dog. Sam was probably the best combination cat/bear dog I've been around. Most hounds tend to specialize in one species or another, but this dog taught me that it was possible to have a top tier dog that could handle both with ease. This dog was all heart and you knew when the chips were down and the pressure was on he'd come through. He was the Tiger Woods of big game hounds.

I feel privileged to have seen both dogs in action. They set the standard that I can only hope for in my own dogs.

[R Severe]

The guy that got me started with hounds had a plottt dog that was a sure nough bear dog. Walt Williams was a timber feller by trade but is a bear bear hunter at heart. He's retired now and can't follow the dogs but still lives the hunt in his albums and probably dreams of the dogs baying while catfishing on the columbia river.

He had a dog named Blackjack that time after time caught bear for us by himself. This was before tracking collars and we hunted dogs about as much as we hunted bear. If you didn't pay attention while letting blackjack off the strike pad after he struck a track you'd be in a single dog bear race. If the track was to old to run he'd just hunt till he found one he could run. He sure wasn't a easy handling dog but he knew how to tree bear and was a artist at getting a bite of bear butt without getting swatted.

I can still remember his strike and tree bark in my head after all these years.

[Big Horn Posse]

Hands down I would have to say Charlie. Boy, what a hound he was. He was an outstanding hound for all game, he especially loved bobcats. Nice melodic bark on trail and chop on tree. He was very good tempered and would not start fights with other dogs, but would not be bullied if one started in on him. This hound put up more lions and bobcats than probably any other around in his 11 years of his life. He was always consistant and had a huge heart. His offspring carry the same outstanding traits. The ones I had that he sired, Sandy, Scarlett, and Ozzy, were my all time best hounds and the ones I based my breeding line on. Unfortuantely Charlie was killed by a pack of wolves a few years back whilst trailing a lion. Very upsetting to lose such a fine hound that way, but at least he went out doing what he loved to do.

[Roy Auwen]

Blue, no doubt about it.Bear or lion.
Not the grittiest on bear but smart, knew how to get through the woods and trailing fool.
Strike off the box and find it when he hit the ground.
Belonged to Ray Torrey, Lemhi Outtfitter.
Was a grade bluetick.
I Bread him to my redbone i got from Walt Earl ,and must say he reproduced his traits.

[FullCryHounds]

This is a legendary hound owned by a legendary houndsman. Rodney was owned by Larry Wilburn. I hunted with Larry for many years and spend 100's of nights out with him and his dogs chasing bears. Rodney was everything you could want in a dry ground bear dog. He is about 11-12 years old in this picture and was no longer being hunted, you just couldn't convince him of that. These pics were taken about 16-18 years ago.
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And here he is with a couple of his sons, Joe and Rebel after a long day.

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[Mike Leonard]

Good stuff here for sure!

I have been blessed to hunt with some great dogs over all these years and it is really hard for to pick one that stands above the rest unless I choose the game that was being pursued.

For lion I have to agree with JC on some of Jeff Allens dogs and although I did hunt with Cindy I never hunted with her enough to say if she was better than her father old Hank in his prime. Now that was a real lion dogs that was very cold nosed, very determined and very smart when it came to figuring out a tough lion, so I would have to put him right there near the top. Hank so an awful lot of game over his life as did his sire Ace and they were both about as good as bare ground lion dogs get.

Another dog that I would place right up near the top is a hound called Ranger that Bill Nelson of Apache Creek, New Mexico owns. I raised Ranger but Bill got him as a 7 week old pup. This big old time dog had the blood of Jeff Allens Ace, and Stan Meacham's old Black female on his mother's side and a double bred grandson of the legendar Big John ( Wyatt) on the top side. These dogs went back to the hounds of Giles Goswick of Mayer, Arizona and the Lee Bros. Hounds thry Dan Lay in Canada.

Ranger was a natural from a young age and never fooled much with trash he was all about lions, and you could bet if strikes it is a lion track. He was a large hound but moved a track quickly and was extreemly good on a very bad trail. He was also a top locater and a pleasant steady tree dog. He also reproduced very well possibly some of his get as good or better than himslef and that is saying a lot.

Bear dogs I have seen some great ones but none better than ( Chaser's) present Butch dog. This leggy blue dog is amazing, he is a top rig dog, but he can fly on a track and he can get the bad bear in the worst possible country. Chaser and Van Johnson have no shortage of top dogs and I think this Butch dog may be one of the best ever. Of course Chaser has a brindle dog and I won't mention his name but you can bet I keep my eye on that one. He is still a pretty young dog but Wow! old Butch better watch out. LOL!

Bobcat dogs? Hmm? I am going to have to think about that one for a bit. I have seen a couple that were pretty good, but I am not sure which one was the better I will think on that.

[onalimb]

KEVIN D
Would you happen to be talking about Meddock's 'GO BUDDY' in Salmon? I have friends there that say he was one of the best to ever go through that country. We have some dogs that go back to him.

[bearhntwi]

Savage,a grade plott owned by the guy I learned everything hound huntin from.This dog was a beardog all the way.Only bested years later by his son Marmaduke.

[spruce mountain]

The two best bear dogs that I have ever been in the woods with belonged to Ashley Macdonald. The one I liked the best was Joe,he was out of hardtime Gun(witch i didn't think much of) who was out of Spec.The mother came from Scott Pierce.The first ten times I was in the woods with Joe he treed every bear he was put on,it didn't matter if he was alone or with company.If nobody could hang with him he would tree them by himself.He was a great strike dog off the rigg or on the ground.He handled like a dream,he was the only dog that I have ever seen that you could call off a bayed bear,or a tree.He could cold trail as good as any that I have seen.Good loud mouth.He had the pefect amount of grit he never got hurt but he would tree bears steady.
Spec jr was also owend by Ashley.He was out of spec and his mother was the same as Joe's.He was a bear treeing machine.He had a little better nose than Joe but he didn't handle as well. he only wieghed about 45lbs but about 30 of that was heart.One day I went over to Ashley's on a saturday to hunt for the fun of it,he had been guiding all season and Spec was worn out,he went up to his house and pulled on his chain and dragged him out,I had never seen him look so bad he was skinny his eyes were buttoned up and milky colored.I told Ashley we should leave him home and let him rest.He would have no part of it.He put him up on the strike cage and off we went.I followed him in my truck and I felt so bad for that dog sitting up there all hunched up and shivering.We were driving along and all of a sudden he stood up and struck,we could tell it was a cold track but we decided to try it,we put him on the ground and he started picking and got it lined out so we fed some more dogs to him.Long story short we ended up running that bear for six hours they ended up swimming a large pond probable three hundred yards across and treed about a half hour latter,Guess who was the only dog on the tree.He was as tuff a dog as I have ever seen.

[Kevin D]

KEVIN D
Would you happen to be talking about Meddock's 'GO BUDDY' in Salmon? I have friends there that say he was one of the best to ever go through that country. We have some dogs that go back to him.

Yep, you've heard of him too............

I had a pup out of him and while she was alright, she didn't have the same magic her old man had. I knew of another son of Buddy named Sam that Dale sold to a houndsman down here. I hunted some with the dog while he was young, but I hear he developed into a top notch hound as well.

Good to know those genes are still alive.

[pete richardson]

i think benny curtises ike dog was probably the best all around bear dog ive ever hunted with-

i didnt hunt with him alot but enuff to know all id heard about him was real -

ive seen him play with a rough bear that would send some good dogs back to the truck, to the vets or worse -play is the word-- he thought the rough ones were fun- ive seen some pretty hard fighters but it was serious business with them -

ike treated a rough bear like a lot of old coondogs would a mean old coon-- tail wagging , just fun--
-if an extremely rough bear chased him , he would run, but only as far as he had to and rite back at it--very seldom seriously hurt , for the amount of bear he was on was almost a miracle , he lived to 15 or so - his attitude on a rough bear was what really set him apart from other dogs ive seen-

its wasnt a war ,, it was a game and he loved it -

benny treed around 100 bear a year a lot of years with him -i would bet the farm he was under more than a THOUSAND treed bear - it takes more than luck to survive that

- he had good speed and way more than average nose --treed the nike type as well as alot of big ones -just made it look easy ---- -ikes worse fault was he was sterile due to an injury and never had a pup -hunted with some of his brothers , half brothers , nephews that were way above average dogs - benny had another dog ,sassy , during some of ikes life , that was also a great one -

must be hard to take , to have two like that at the same time



nelson cole's musket-, ruff TW ,,, owens youngs banjo , OMG he was a plott

bill ingall's bowie dog E , rodney gonyaw's imp TW , frank harts tag ,trigg/walker , gary taylors pete, george, TW all were great dogs during their lifespan---really hard to compare dogs that you didnt hunt at same time .same place at same age-

id like a kennel full just like any of the above -