who started from scratch?

[bigboarstopper]

Just curious who started hunting with a completely green dogs and trained em to hunt? I cant say that I have. I bought a old experienced dog to start my pack when I first started running dogs. I Cant really say that I even know a single person that has started a pack from scratch. Who has done it? How long did it take? how many times did you fail before you were hopefully succesful?

[Tom White]

I started from scratch. Still workin on it.Lots of problems and stuff along the way.

SUCCESS??--Thats when you get to do what you really like. Hunt them hounds.

[twist]

Started with one pup back in 1982 and got lucky with him, put in my time and a couple pair of boots and have from that time on I have had a dog that could always put a bobcat in the tree. Once you get your first dog trained and keep bringing good young prospects with them your chances of having a few dogs that can catch game by themselves really increases. later Andy

[Cold Track]

My dad always messed with a hound here and there when I was a kid, but never really got into it seriously. That little bit was enough to make me want it. When I got out of high school I got a walker/red bone cross and a plott as pups and put in time and more time to get them going. That following lion season I drew a tag and some locals I was friends with that had run a lot said they would go help me try to get a lion. After a long day of hunting and almost giving up the walker cross dog was the last one we had to catch and just then she opened and of course I figured my young dog had a deer race going but she didn't and we caught the lion. From then on I was hooked for life. Have never bought a dog that could already do it, and have never had the fortune of having someone to take me along over the years and show me the ropes, just listened when I hunted with those that new the game, went through a lot of trial and error. Over the years I have had the oppourtunity to hunt with some great houndsmen and have learned something from every one of them, and still learn something almost everytime I go out. In this lifestyle, hobbie, sport or whatever you title it, seems like you always feel like a newbie even if you've been doing it for a long time. If you have a chance to hunt and be mentored by someone take the oppourtunities given because it's a long road at first when you don't know squat!

[Tom White]

Just thinking back. In 1963 I went on a coon hunt with some school buddies.I was hooked but never was invited to go again .( too much of a pest I guess) Got a couple young dogs and started hunting at nite. Didn"t have a clue how to start em. After many nites of rackin my brain I decided I had to catch a coon and train with it.I couldn"t afford to buy a trap so I made one out of a 30 gallon grease barrel with a mouse trap in the back for a trigger, used sardines for bait. It took months to catch a coon after cleaning out all the skunks.I had these dogs trailen and treein these coon in a few short months but couldn"t tree a wild coon. After much contaplatin I decided them dogs must be trailen the sardines that i was using for bait. Just to test my theory I punched holes in a sardine can and drug it a ways and tied it in a tree. Them two hounds trailed it real good and treed it. I began to wash them coons off a few days and train some more. I"ll never forget treeing that first wild coon. It must have takin a year but was a real confidence builder. It took another year for the first bear, and 9 more years for the first lion.There was lots of trash running and frustration. I did get lots of info from reading every hound hunting book I could get my hands on, but I think nothing compares to getting a really successful houndman to open up and talk about the hounds and the game. If that rare occasion ever happens , listen real good , because that information is priceless.

[Ike]

Ol' LionHeart loved to trail as much or more than anything she ever did in life, and would not quit until she nearly dropped; as hard headed a hound as ever lived. And would broom her nose down raw on an old dirt lion or bobcat track. LionHeart was out of Labrum's Sqaw bitch, which was another one of those lock-down, diehard trail hounds that loved the lions.


I did, started with a tit weaned, single pup and she was treeing her own lion as a yearling; made her first bear tree at fourteen months and stayed treed all night on a super nice boar. That dog always ran her own track and treed quite a few really nice tom lions by herself. To each his own but I wanted to do it on my own, tit to the tree and did; I did buddy with a few hounddogger friends though for nearly ten years before Shawn Labrum gave my son a pup and dragged me into this sport, so I kinda understood the game and how to find it a long time before I trained that first dog.

As for the pack deal, all the dogs I ever hunted were from the tit to the tree following LionHeart, other than my Maverick plott dog which was a yearling gift from a good friend.

ike

[pete richardson]

I started from scratch. Still workin on it

yup , me too

i started from scratch,took me 5 years to get some dogs that were worth feeding-- i was lucky to have some freinds with better dogs ,that helped me get pups started - i have had freinds give me an ancient dog a few times - i can think of two of those that really helped me - a few times i sold some pretty good older dogs to make room for pups--i couldnt have done that ,without counting on my buddies dogs for awhile,

maybe i never started from scratch

i bought one well started bear dog in 25 years - . had just sold a couple good ones ,i must have been feeling rich .
i had some young pups and that dog was a help until pups got a little older. sold him a few months later - over the years ive spent alot on pups and dog food , almost nothing on broke dogs -

been several times when i lost my best dog-- even a few of my best in a short time--
thats where i am right now- i have a yard full of potential beardogs are pretty scarce out there -

if i had to depend on my dogs to eat--- i would be looking hard for a dog to buy right now

if i had to buy broke dogs to hunt-- im not sure id want to do that either -




most bear hunters i know are just one bad day away from almost starting over

[treed]

I had went coon hunting with my second cousin as a kid...When I was about 12 , I caught a fox with one of his old hounds..I was hooked from then on...I read every dog book there was in the school library...Wilderness Champion was my favorite...Years later, I watched Where The Red Fern Grows. I had to get me a Redbone...In 1982 , I ordered a pup from Frank Peck in Monson Mass... 2 months later I picked up a Bluetick pup from a vet by the name of Tom Bogess.....It was game on then...I hauled bait barrels for him and helped out everyone that had experienced hounds so I could tag along...When my blue dog was 9 months old ,I treed my 1st lion...I mean I.. I didnt have a dog with me....I was walking out a lion track in the snow and came upon a kill. I looked up and there was a lion in the tree...I ran back to the truck and got my dogs...When I brought the dogs back, they wouldnt run it. I was totally bummed... My dogs were just a year old and never chased a lion before.... I walked them on the track for about a 1/2 mile and they took off on it...They ended up treeing it in a big pine...I was in heaven...I took pictures of the lion with my 125 instamatic camera..you know the kind that you put the flasch cubes on... ...The lion looked like it was on the empire state building with the pictures I took...I still have them.

2 months later I caught my first bear . old...I saw the bear on the Apache Res when I was hunting with Tim Diehl ..I walked my dogs up to it. They chased the bear about a 1/4 of a mile and it treed...We treed 2 other ones on that trip...

After that, I thought I was Big Time...A short time later I fell back to earth, but that is another story for another time ...

All the trainers, falling off cliffs at night coon hunting , and hanging around as many hound guys as I could paid off..Im still hanging around hound guys with good hounds so I can catch game...Good luck to ya...Coop

[TomJr]

I started from scrach and by accident. When I was 14 my dad came home from work with 2 pups and told us there were 3 more and the mother down the road, someone had dumped them. So me and my brothers went down and caught the other 3 pups, we never did catch the mother These dogs where mixed muts mostly lab with some sheperd and who knows what else. We kept 3 of the dogs, one for each of us. All summer we ran with those pups.

I trapped in the forest around our house back then, when it was still legal to use leg holds in AZ. So I would check my traps before school and then reset them after I always took my dog along and he was super interested in the critters and smells, also caught him a few times... but he learned to stay away from those traps One day I found a trap sprung and bobcat tracks, while I was reseting the trap my dog took off and a few minutes later he is barking his fool head off. It was about 1/4 mile away and he would not come when called so I cussed him out and climbed up the mtn to find him treeing a bobcat! Shot it out and he tried to put holes in it...

Few days later we came home to no dogs... then we hear them way up the mtn barking so I knew they had a critter. This time it was all three dogs and a grey fox. Shot it out and they about tore it in two before I got them off, had to do alot of sewing to make that one presentable to the fur buyer... From then on they ran anything that moved and it was almost out of control. They did run and catch deer before I got them stopped.

A few years later bears suddenly showed up in our area(still think game and fish relocated some but they will not admit it) and I suppose they could have come up from mexico... Anyhow we went from zero bears to 11 different bears around our orchard that first year. My dogs were treeing several bears a day and were up all night running bears off the orchard, sometimes each dog would have its own bear treed. Game and fish relocated a few of the worst ones and we ended up shooting a couple as well when the game warden said he could not relocate anymore. He told us to "take care of the problem yourselves" my dad took that to mean shoot a few. After that we had some peace at night.

Those first 3 dogs are dead and buried now. 25 years later I still have mixed mutts with mostly lab in them and they do well for me. Although from reading this form I may try a full hound or cur for my next dog. Down to two young enough to hunt and two older dogs that still want to but don't have the stamina to catch anything but a crippled possum

[Brady Davis]

When I was about 10 I had a team of sled dogs...I was into trying to get them to race and I was going to be the next Iditarod champion...Well, one day I came home from a little league baseball game and my whole team of dogs had been poisoned...I had seen them an hour earlier and they were fine and when I got home they were all dead and stiff...I will tell you, for a 11 year old kid that is devestating, hell it would be for anyone!

After a couple months of sulking and not having any dogs I was givin a redbone hound who was about 6 months old, shy as anything and never started. There was a guy in the town I lived in who kept a few hounds for lion hunting and it turned out I rodeod with his kids. So, we started coon hunting.

That redbone got culled pretty quick and I bought a bluetick pup and then my best friend got a few walker pups. After awhile seemed like 4 or 5 of us kids had a handful of pups. We were a disaster as none of us had a clue and none of us had a dog that knew what the heck it was supposed to do...But, we were hard headed kids and we stayed in the swamps hunting coons or up the canyon riding our horses and hunting lions and bobcats. We were lucky enough tro catch enough game to keep us all excited. Kind of funny looking back, we would go out LOTS without catching a dang thing and yet we never got disheartend a bit...I remember catching trainers and saying we were gonna give them a half hour or and hour...LOL, as soon as we would cut the trainer loose we'd wait and and soon as he was out of sight all of us boys would crap ourselves and let about 15 hounds go at the same time....we had no patience!

We started from scratch and as it turns out, I'm going to do it again....good times and very rewarding.

[BlacktailStalker]

I did.
2 pups, brother and sister.
They're doing well, they've put up a lot of game.
I'll say they're 90% "there" and this winter should finish them out.

[sheimer]

Several years ago my brother-in-law and a friend of his asked me to come along with them on a lion chase. I was self employed at the time and didn't have much to do the next day on account of the snow so I said "why not". Come to find out it was probably because they were out of gas money at the time, and I would soon know what that was like. We went out and drove around and found a lion track and threw the dogs out and caught the lion and looked in the tree at it and left. I was hooked. I thought to my self, this looks easy. Just open the dog box and let the dogs go on it. So I talked the Mrs. into getting a hound pup. I let him out to chase and was severly dissapointed. I was busy with my business and then sold it and went to work Monday thru Friday at a desk job. The last couple of years I changed occupations and now have the time to hunt for real. That same old pup put his own game up last year for the first time. From that point on, I was really hooked. I now have him, a yearling and a pup.

Successful? not in the slightest as far as consistantly putting up cats, bus as far as doing what I enjoy, most definately.

Scott

[Mike Leonard]

Although I had an early baptism in hounds with my Grandpa and Uncles and went to my first bobcat tree in 1958 I never had my first full blood hounds until 1970. Yes I started from scratch and boy was it a rough learning. I walked the soles off them boots and I had deer around our place that had legs like Franco Harris from all the running those wild pups gave them. Thank God and oldtime hunter finally took me under his wing and taught me a thing or two and helped me see a little light at the end of the tunnel.


Now all these years later, let's see that would be 39 years let me tell you I have this deal figured out. Why just this morning I had 4 fine hounds bust a herd of elk and let me tell you what we had some hound music. LOL! Yep I got it figured out all right.

Oh well let's just say that it never gets boring the challenges are allways there laying just around the bend in the trail.Well at least the whole pack didn't run them. Better luck tomorrow after I find the one I couldn't find today. Elk in the rocks have a way of making pups feet a little sore. Poor thing......wink!

[mtncurhunter]

In 20 yrs we have only bought one started dog and that was about ten years in. My cat dogs I completely started from scratch. I didn't know anyone local with cat dogs so I trained them the way I felt was right. So far it is working but I still have a lot to learn. Other than that one dog everything else we raised from pups.

[BOOTS]

Well I started 5 yrs ago bear hunting with other people.Then decided to put a pack together 3yrs ago I'm 45 now and the guys i hunt with are now 70 to 80 in age they taught me a lot gave me a good foundation to work with so I purchased 4 plotts and a walker and blue tick they were grade pups.Hunted 1 yr with them.Realized I was not putting enough time into it so had to find some one to put them on the game.I called Lloyd Lujan he was very impressed with what I had and he put them thru his training system that works VERY WELL.Went back to him to run the dogs for a week had a blast could have harvested a blonde bear with that pack but I just wanted to run took some pic's.Only 1 plott didn't make the cut he had to go.They turned out so good we breed the bitches to Lloyd's plott and everyone is very happy with the pup's they turned out to be fire cracker's some wish they would have bought 2.Also when it was all over he was impressed that i was a true houndsmen and he shared his knowledge with me and it has stepped me up a couple of notches on the process of how to develop a good pack.To this day i will call him and talk about different situation.I would like to go back soon and do another cross with him again these plott's came from and old timer and it was the last blood line from his hounds down in NC.I asked him what blood line they were and he replied the old stuff the boy's down there were hot I got them.They still talk to this day about that.