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This is a coonhound story, but it is a good one. You guys are houndsmen and I think you will enjoy it. I need to get it written down, my memory isn’t what it used to be. It’s a long story, it’ll take me a while to get it all down. The hardest part is deciding where to start. Every time I think of a good starting point I think of a hundred stories that led up to that point. I guess I’ll go with when Doug Simmons talked Pete LaDue into breeding his good treeing walker female, Gr. Nt. Ch. Credit River Cody to Rock River Sackett Jr. Cody was an outstanding female from a long line of hounds bred by the LaDues and others. She was heavy in House’s Clint blood and also had a good shot of Pete’s old dog Sonny Boy. Cody was fresh off of winning a pile of money in one of the first money hunts UKC ever had.

Frank Giddings from Michigan owned Sackett Jr. Frank is kind of a legend in the coonhound world. He is about the hardest hunter there is or ever was. If it was dark, Frank was hunting. Every night, all night long, all year long. Probably still is. His dog Jr. was a legend in his own right. With very little advertising, he turned into the top producing stud dog the walker breed has ever known. But that is a whole story in itself.

Now, Pete tells about the day he and Doug drove to Michigan to breed Cody. They stopped to call Giddings when they were getting close. When Pete said they were almost there Frank said “What! You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow!” Pete said “I know when my dog is ready to breed and she is ready right now!” Pete still gets mad when he tells that part. You need to understand, Pete is an old houndsman and set in his ways. He doesn’t take kindly to being told what to do!

When they pulled in the yard some coonhunters from Kentucky were there with a female that wasn’t ready to breed yet. They fooled around for a long time trying to get the Kentucky dog bred while Pete waited. That didn’t improve Pete’s mood any. They finally got around to breeding Cody. It went quick and easy and produced a good litter from one tie.

Pete and Doug stayed and hunted with Frank’s dogs that night. Pete said Sackett Jr. was one of the best coon dogs he had seen. They hunted down a river out of a boat and Jr. treed coon one after another and just made it look easy. Before they loaded the hounds in the boat, Frank had gotten out a young dog, pointed him to the woods and cut him loose. When they got back with the boat several hours later the young dog was treeing hard a half mile from the truck and had a coon.

Most stud dogs, when they start earning the kind of money that Sackett Jr. was, get locked up in a kennel and never turned loose again. But that isn’t how Frank Giddings operates, he is a houndsman first and Jr. got hunted every night until he was killed by a car at a young age, not too long after this breeding took place.

This litter produced a lot of good dogs. Pete kept two males, Bronco and Herbie. When they were pups Herbie barked himself out and his voice never came back. It was just as loud as ever, but he ended up with a real deep, funny sounding bawl, almost like a loud bull frog or something.

Pete hunted Bronco on bear his whole life, one of the few dogs that died of old age at Pete’s house. He sold Herbie to Richard Turchin as a young dog. Richard trained Herbie in the hardwood covered hills and tamarack swamps around his farm. It was a tough place to tree coon, a hound has to work for everything he gets in that country.

Lisa and I used to go and hunt with Richard some at “The Ponderosa”, Richard’s hunting shack back in the woods on his farm. Herbie would go hunting hard when you cut him loose. He could take an old, rough track and move it out fast. Every time he opened he was closer to the coon, before you knew it he was treed way back in there. Richard would always drive us as close to the tree as we could get so we didn’t have to cross the big swamps the dogs went through.

I remember one hunt when Richard had lots of company. He took us back in and we turned about six dogs loose. Richard had us cut them right into a big cat tail swamp. I always try to avoid them cat tails, a coon can stay ahead of most dogs all night long in that stuff. The hounds hit a track and had a rough time in all that water and mud. About then I heard Herbie pull away from the other dogs and just leave out of there fast heading west, out of hearing. We drove over to the next road just in time to hear Herbie fall treed a mile from where we started and 15 minutes ahead of the next dog.

It was on one of these hunts that our son, Cody started talking about “that dog”. Lisa and I just looked at each other with a shocked look on our face. Cody was born with severe hearing loss. Now, my wife Lisa hunted just as much as me back then. She grew up hunting with her dad and wasn’t about to stay home while I was out hunting all night, so our kids had spent a big share of there childhood in the woods with hounds. I used to think Cody spent more time sleeping in the truck out in the woods than in his bed.

Cody can hear low pitched sounds, but he can’t hear higher pitched sounds. He could always hear the hounds, but he could never tell them apart. It was just noise to him. So when he started talking about Herbie while there was a bunch of hounds out there we couldn’t believe it. I think Cody could hear Herbie’s odd voice while he couldn’t hear much of the other dogs. It must have been just the right tone. Cody was only about 9 years old then.

Riverbottom,

I smell an awfully good Book hiding right behind your eyeballs!

Great start to a Story! Get it finished as it is not nice to leave us hanging!

CJC

Hewitt RQE

That spring our local coon hound club had their annual qualifying hunt for the world hunt. I’m about the least competitive person I know, I don’t even like to play cards, but Lisa and our kids liked to go to the club and socialize, and since I have belonged to this club since it started I went to help guide and judge if they needed me.

Richard was there with Herbie. He entered him in the show since Herbie was already a show champion and only needed one more win to be a grand. He was a natural show dog, all you had to do was put him on the bench. Herbie won the champions class and finished his degree.

Turned out they didn’t need me to guide so I went along on Richards cast that night. In the RQE’s all dogs are drawn out together, registered, night champions and grand night champions hunt against each other. Herbie had some points but he was still just a registered dog. He drew a tough cast, three grands. There was Tucker, a local stud dog that made it to the top producers list for the whole country. A black & tan named Gunner that was one of the best black dogs around was in the cast along with another black dog named Jake that had done lots of winning. Richard told me he didn’t think he had a chance. Pete’s brother, Cliff Ladue was the guide and judge and he put us in coon. It was a shoot out.

First drop was at The Hollow. The tension between both men and dogs was so thick you could cut it with a knife, The handlers lined those four dogs up and when Cliff said “Cut ‘em loose” they threw dirt getting out of there. They hit a track and it was an all out race to the tree with each handler concentrating on calling their dog. Herbie got the first tree. We saw the coon and Herbie came away with a slight lead.

Next drop was a repeat of the first, only before we got to the tree we heard some pushing and shoving going on in there. No way to tell who was at fault. Herbie held on to his lead, but not by much. The competition was tough, both dogs and handlers.

The next drop we went behind the turkey barns down by Browerville. We cut them loose and they hit a tough, cold track. All four hounds moved that track out fast, out across a big swamp and treed on the other side. The dogs were all called treed and we drove around to the other side. Cliff got us close to the dogs and we started in when a hell of a fight broke out. We ran in there in time to see Tucker take Gunner down and roll him on the ground. Herbie got out of the way and came up treeing away from the fight, and Jake had climbed up a tree leaning into that one, he was above the trouble.

Tucker and Gunner were scratched, Herbie and Jake were left to finish out the hunt. The next drop, Herbie took a track out across a black top road and made that coon climb after a hard run. Jake was a good dog, but he was past his prime by this hunt and it was starting to show. He made it to the tree and we drove the half mile to where Herbie had the coon along the road.

We had time for one more drop and this time Herbie put on a show. It was getting late and Herbie hit a cold, feeder track. He lined that track out like it was a hot one and got it treed with just a few seconds on the clock. Jake never made the tree.

Herbie and Richard came in with over 1000 points and won the whole hunt. The win was enough to finish Herbie out to a Nite Champion. It sure was good to see a nice guy with a good hound come out on top. But this story is just getting started…

Anticipaaaation!!!!!!!!!!!!

CJC

Pete is a good guy. I bred my female walker (only walker in my pen) to his male, Bronco (Herble's brother). That was a TOUGH litter of dogs! Wade Englbertson of Amery has a male out of that cross. I think he still calls him Crook. I named him that after one of Ben Lilly's favorite dogs. Crook was a looker. I hunt Leopards now off of Wick's old Jug dog and am still lovin' that batch of dogs but those Walkers were really something to look at...in and out of the woods. I found a Walker dog that is every bit as good as that bunch named Rock Creek Ring. Ring is pretty tight on Sackett Jr. and bred well to my Molly dog. I keep getting e-mails to make that cross again. I just breed the Walkers for some extra dog food money but if I wasn't into these Leps., I'd be all over that line of Walkers. They have just about as much brains as these Leopard dogs and that's always been hard to find in the Walkers. Can't wait to hear more.

Dan, I think my wife, Lisa sent you Pete's way if I remember right. Pete is here now, chased rabbits all day and just got in from treeing a few coon with my daughter, Kila. Pete has been telling stories steady, I even think I heard some new ones. Don't think I'll get much time for typing

I was kind of thinking that was the Lisa I got my dog box from. That's a nice beagle pen. Lisa told me about putting out salt blocks to increase the rabbits' litter size. That same year, I started breaking up salt blocks and putting chunks in every brush pile within a mile of my place. Within a couple of years I started hearing folks talking about the rabbit population and how they had never seen so many rabbits. I'm doing the same thing here where I live now only I moved here a year and a half ago so it will take some time. It seems to work just about as well for the squirrells too. I start my dogs on whatever kind of small critters I can find when they are little. I live right in the middle of some decent cat hunting now and have gone to hunting mostly cats year round. To bad you can only draw a kill tag about once every four years here. I miss getting five tags for each year in MN. Do you guys do any cat hunting? I would figure that with all of that rabbit hunting, you would know of a couple of good spots.

Minnesota Youth Hunt

The youth hunt for kids 17 and under was coming up. Daughter Kila had hunted this hunt and really enjoyed it. Lisa and I decided to ask Richard if Cody could borrow Herbie and give it a try. Richard was happy to let Cody hunt his dog.

Cody hunted with the 12 and under kids and drew out with a good cast of dogs. On the first drop the dogs ran and treed quickly. Herbie was slow to come in to the tree and got last tree. The tree was empty and all the points were minused.

On the next turnout the dogs all left in a dead run and let out a few barks before they settled in to looking for a coon and it got quiet. As the silence stretched on I could tell something was bothering Cody. Suddenly Cody yelled out Strike Herbie! Everyone looked at Cody, he shrugged and said “Well I couldn’t remember his name”. We all got a good laugh, but then Herbie did open on a track and made Cody’s strike points good when we looked up his tree at a coon a little while later.

We made several more drops and treed more coon. One spot I remember was down a long farm lane. We parked by the woods and got the dogs out when a pickup drove up. It was the landowner wondering what was going on. Our guide went back to talk and spent a while visiting while we waited. Herbie knew it was time to hunt and he was pulling hard against the lead. I helped Cody hold him. Herbie was a big strong dog, it was like trying to hang on to a race horse after the gate has been opened. Herbie gave one more jerk and broke the lead! He was gone hunting, it was all I could do to run him down and drag him back.

Late that night, as the time was running down there were only two dogs left, Herbie and a good Bluetick handled by a real nice young man. Cody and Herbie had a comfortable lead when we turned them loose in a woods along a lake. Herbie struck and treed a coon that the Bluetick didn’t even know was there. Cody had called Herbie struck and treed perfectly all night. They had the cast won, but there was still a little time left on the clock so we turned him loose again.

Herbie hit an old cold track. He was grubbing it out and threw out a long bawl that sounded like a locate to Cody. Cody called him treed, it was the only mistake he made in calling the dog all night. That cost them some points, but they still had enough to win the cast and take second place in the hunt. Not bad for a hard of hearing kid on his first Nite Hunt.

The time ran out in the hunt as Herbie kept moving that old track out and was soon out of hearing around the lake. We went back to the trucks and drove around to find him treed across a busy blacktop road and right behind a house, nearly a mile from where he started that track. He had the coon.

Lisa sure got excited when we got back to the club house and they handed Cody that big trophy. First thing she did when we got home at 5:00 that morning was call Richard and give him the news. Cody never showed much excitement about winning, he was just happy to be out hunting like one of the guys.

Dan, we go cat hunting a couple times a year, but we don't really try very hard and we don't have any full time cat dogs. Seems like there is always some cats hanging around eating our rabbits, until you want to find a track to run.