May 2010 Florida, updates I and II
Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 8:20 pm
Hello Folks!
If you all read our report on Our Florida Hunt last May, this year is a repeat of last May. It has been Feast or Famine here as this time of the year the Bobcat are not having to move much to make a living, and Scenting conditions are terrible when the Cat are walking.
Last May I titled my report a Tale of Two packs as when things were good they were very good but most of the time they were BAD! This year has been little different except for lots more RAIN. It was wet when we got here and the northern Clubs are wetter now than then. The southern Clubs not so bad, but still you do not have to look far to find a place to get stuck!
We arrived on a Monday Morning and slept till dark thinking we would Hunt….NOT, the first of two days of Bad rain.
Finally Wednesday afternoon we could go…we left early as Dad needed some Cathound Therapy real bad. We arrived at the road where we start emptying out the Hounds before rigging. As we did a Logging Company service truck turned into the road ahead of us. We blew the horn to keep the Dogs that were down from following it and waited a minute or two then proceeded on down the road.
We had not gone 200 yards when Brandy and Choctaw threw up their heads and left the road on the right. All the other Hounds followed them out into the jungle that was growing in the ten year old Pine Plantation. The Garmin showed the Hounds moving quickly away from the road, and then Brandy opened with Choc not far behind, then every Hound that was down opened with that fervor that says the Game is jumped.
I bailed out and tailgated the others…..for the next Hour the “Cat Hound Opry” played a concert that any Houndsman would have loved! The Race never was over 300 yards from the truck, which I moved only one time, then it was lean up against it and SOAK up the Music.
All the Hounds were doing well…Cimarron was putting on quite the show and Texas (the Irish Pup) started his huge bellowing Chop (this was the first Race where Texas really showed what Mr. Ben Hardaway and Tony Leahy said that he was bred to do). Rivers, Chic, and Ole Rip were making the Cats life very difficult as well.
Up and down the Cypress Pond the Race would go…one set of Hounds singing as loud as they could…then the Cat would squat and double back allowing the rear group to take over the chorus…Corky’s base, Princess’s soprano, Cherokee’s Tenor…wow what a Race! Dad said that he was going to need borrow my pockets as his were getting full.
The Race came to the road we were on…the Cat went down the ditch then back out the side he came out of…then back to the Cypress pond. We discussed that it was soon to be “Fly-Climb-or Die” time, when Texas and Rivers bellowed that the decision was out of the Cats control!
View My Video
The retrieve was not bad until I realized that I had lost the MP3 recorder….OH Sh-t…how am I going to find something so small. It had begun to get dark so looking then was not an option…I told Dad that I thought that I could come back in the daylight and take the Garmin and follow my exact tracks into the Swamp and maybe find it. Sure enough the next afternoon I was able to walk in on the same track as the day before and walked right to the tiny little object….wow another Coup for the Garmin!
Dad with 17# Sow after Great hour long Race.
Thursday more RAIN and no Hunting.
Friday we loaded the B-team and headed south. We rigged over 5 hours and 43 miles in as good a Bobcat country as god has created with out a strike.
We headed home but turned and hunted through the Home Club.
We had not gone far when the box exploded….every Hound inside and on top of the box were telling us that here was where a Cat had exposed itself to the perils of the Clay Hounds. It took Rita a minute to make sure which way the Cat had gone…then the Race was on.
This was our old Runaway Tom Cat. When you jump him he heads East as fast as he can go, sometimes by road, sometimes he elects to swim; it depends on how high the HEAT is turned up on him. Cheyenne and Sandy turned it up to HIGH this night. We had a hard time keeping up with the Race as the ole Tom was headed home as fast as he could. When we caught up with the Pack, Rita was baying in a big Cypress Lake. We waited five minutes or so and when no other Hound could open Dad said to blow them in as Rita must have him out in the water on a Tussock or Log.
I was able to load all but Rita and Brandy. The Garmin showed that Rita was coming, but Brandy was determined to root the Cat out. A Tri-tronics phone call to Brandy started her our way…the problem was that the Cat tried to leave the water the same way and the Race was back on. Rita got to Brandy then the Hounds that I had turned back loose joined in and for twenty minutes it was good. Then this old Tom crossed a road and it appeared that he was headed to a Highway….oops, I started blowing and loaded all the Hounds in about 5 minutes.
This was the second time that this Cat has gone into this block, so the next day Dad and I explored the area better and the next time the Cat goes into this block we will leave the Hounds after him as the Highway is further away than we thought and there is lots of open country between the block and the highway.
We cooled the Hounds off and put the Rig Dogs up to hunt on the way home. Just after we turned onto the road that runs right by Dad’s Camp another explosion. I found the Cat’s track going behind us and put the Rig dogs down. They hit the Cat right off the road with the rest of the Hounds right behind. Twenty two minutes of intense music…I call these kinds of Races “Acid Rock” concerts as the noise is just a ROAR of Hounds; it is hard to pick out individuals. This Cat could not fly, and it did not want to die so it took option two and climbed. It was too far from the road in too bad a Swamp to try to find the Tree by marking the place where the Race ended with the Garmin, so this Cat was there to run again.
So far it sounds like we are having a GREAT Hunt, and we were….then nothing…over the next six days and nights we hunted an average of 16 hours a day and drove over 80 miles Rigging each trip. While we struck several Cat during this period we only ran one and it was a road runner who we put into a Brush pile beside the road.
On the seventh day our luck was much the same except for a Sow Cat sitting right beside the road who did not realize who we were until Rita screamed from the truck top…she ran as fast as she could right to her Den which was only several hundred yards away…end of that one. (yes David, Lactating Sows do leave scent! Ha Ha). We wished her luck with her babies and marked this area not to hunt until Fall.
The Game in our area was moving during the middle of the Day…it is just too damn Hot to Run Hounds during the Day…you can get away with early mornings but by 9AM you better be headed home!
Friday was upon us….we do not hunt on weekends as the Deer Runners are usually out in force, so we got up early for a short hunt with the A- team (Corky, Choc, Chic, Chero, Rivers, ole Rip and the Pups). We had made a short round when we hit a cold Cat going down the road. We trailed him 1 mile down that road then 1.3 miles down the next road, Corky and Choc turned up a third road, when Brandy screamed out that she had found the Cat just off the intersection.
This turned out to be another Race for the archives. We moved the truck twice and just soaked the Music up. For an hour and 15 minutes Dog Feed got cheaper and cheaper! Texas and Cimarron would hush every now and then so we could hear the other Hounds, but not for long. They really put on a show! Only problem was the Pack bayed 293 yards from the road in some of the most “Pleasant” Swamp around. If I can get the video to load you all can see what it is like!
Video of what it is like, the Cat breaks, but the Hounds soon corral him again!
View My Video
Dad with Road Running 24# Tom, BAD Swamp just to Dads right.
We did not hunt Saturday but Dad could not stand it, so we went Sunday morning and evening and no Luck at all.
Monday afternoon we decided to leave early and head down to the Southern Clubs. I loaded the B-team and Cricket, who is Big N Blue’s Nance bred 18 month old pup. Dad decided that we would head out the back way as we might see a Cat on the way South. Well we did not see one…. but the Hounds in the truck sure smelled one as we thought the Truck was going to blow up the strike was so hard.
I put Rita, Penny, Brandy and Sandy down and they soon had the Cat lined out. The Pups did not take long to get there and Cricket was soon into her 1st Bobcat Race. (Oh! poor Big N Blue…this little girl is going to cost him lots of money….when he gets her home, it won’t be just a yearly trip to the Blue River….it will be weekly Bobcat Hunts with Mr. Jim Moore. She sure likes how these Shorttails Smell!)
I left Dad in the road while I turned the truck around; when I got back he said that he had seen the Cat cross the road (this was the 1st of 6 times that we saw the Cat). We pulled down a little ways and then were able to SOAK the music up for about 30 minutes. Then it was into the woods for the 1st of 3 bayups. This old Tom was too bad, in too bad of a place for the Pups to end it. This was OK as I was able to goose the Cat and we had another 30 minute Act of the Opry!
At the next bayup, it was not as much fun for me, as the Jungle was worse with lots of Bamboo Briars to tangle and poke me. I was able to get the Cat to run again but as he passed Texas, Texas hit him like an NFL Linebacker…thus ended another great Concert. All the Pups had done a great job, and little Cricket participated in the whole Race in some BAD country. (who says these Nance Dogs are open “DRY” ground dogs. Cricket handled the water and briers like a pro!)
Video of the 1st bayup of the 27# Tom
View My Video
Dad with 27# Tom that Pups and Cricket bayed three times!
The rest of the week has been back to frustrations as the Cat are walking between 11 and 2 during the day. (We had 4 different reports of Cat seen during this time frame.) We hunted 6 or so hours each morning and night and treed one Wednesday night and another Thursday night.
The highlight for Thursday morning was finding this Big fresh Bear track.
Friday night we made a sashay down to the East end of the home Club with the A-team for a short hunt. We had been rigging for an hour when Choc struck cold. Dad said to drive a little more and see if he could bark better. Choc and Brandy did, but only slightly better. We came to an intersection and proceeded straight…no barks….so back up and turn left….go 100 yards and box explodes.
I put the Rig Dogs down and they could smell the Cat both ways but could not bark. I walked back the way we had come and found a fresh pile of Scat (this is what had provoked the hard strike) and tracks that showed the Cat to be heading ahead of the truck. We pulled up a short ways and Choc turned out to the right side of the road. While we were waiting on him to search, Corky and Brandy (the Garmin showed them to be 300 yards ahead and to the left of the road) sang out that they had found not only where the Cat had gone but that he was there waiting on them.
Wow! What a Race we had…it did not last long…it could not last long! Another Acid Rock concert, not an Opry at all. Just a solid ROAR, Dad said that if Cimarron and Texas would shut up we might be able to hear the other Hounds. For just over 15 minutes this was the most intense Race that I think I have ever heard. The Pack circled less than 200 yards from the truck the whole time…again WOW…the only thing wrong was it just did not last long enough before this Cat used the Gopher Hole trick to save its life.
Florida Gopher Hole Cat went down!
Florida Gopher! A Federally protected land Terrapin!
Well that has you all brought up to speed on what we have been up to. It has rained off and on all day today and is forecasted to shower all week…just what we need more water….
Good Running to All!
C. John Clay
Dads Dogboy
PS I am having trouble loading video on tinypic so I will edit them in tomorrow...sorry!
If you all read our report on Our Florida Hunt last May, this year is a repeat of last May. It has been Feast or Famine here as this time of the year the Bobcat are not having to move much to make a living, and Scenting conditions are terrible when the Cat are walking.
Last May I titled my report a Tale of Two packs as when things were good they were very good but most of the time they were BAD! This year has been little different except for lots more RAIN. It was wet when we got here and the northern Clubs are wetter now than then. The southern Clubs not so bad, but still you do not have to look far to find a place to get stuck!
We arrived on a Monday Morning and slept till dark thinking we would Hunt….NOT, the first of two days of Bad rain.
Finally Wednesday afternoon we could go…we left early as Dad needed some Cathound Therapy real bad. We arrived at the road where we start emptying out the Hounds before rigging. As we did a Logging Company service truck turned into the road ahead of us. We blew the horn to keep the Dogs that were down from following it and waited a minute or two then proceeded on down the road.
We had not gone 200 yards when Brandy and Choctaw threw up their heads and left the road on the right. All the other Hounds followed them out into the jungle that was growing in the ten year old Pine Plantation. The Garmin showed the Hounds moving quickly away from the road, and then Brandy opened with Choc not far behind, then every Hound that was down opened with that fervor that says the Game is jumped.
I bailed out and tailgated the others…..for the next Hour the “Cat Hound Opry” played a concert that any Houndsman would have loved! The Race never was over 300 yards from the truck, which I moved only one time, then it was lean up against it and SOAK up the Music.
All the Hounds were doing well…Cimarron was putting on quite the show and Texas (the Irish Pup) started his huge bellowing Chop (this was the first Race where Texas really showed what Mr. Ben Hardaway and Tony Leahy said that he was bred to do). Rivers, Chic, and Ole Rip were making the Cats life very difficult as well.
Up and down the Cypress Pond the Race would go…one set of Hounds singing as loud as they could…then the Cat would squat and double back allowing the rear group to take over the chorus…Corky’s base, Princess’s soprano, Cherokee’s Tenor…wow what a Race! Dad said that he was going to need borrow my pockets as his were getting full.
The Race came to the road we were on…the Cat went down the ditch then back out the side he came out of…then back to the Cypress pond. We discussed that it was soon to be “Fly-Climb-or Die” time, when Texas and Rivers bellowed that the decision was out of the Cats control!
View My Video
The retrieve was not bad until I realized that I had lost the MP3 recorder….OH Sh-t…how am I going to find something so small. It had begun to get dark so looking then was not an option…I told Dad that I thought that I could come back in the daylight and take the Garmin and follow my exact tracks into the Swamp and maybe find it. Sure enough the next afternoon I was able to walk in on the same track as the day before and walked right to the tiny little object….wow another Coup for the Garmin!
Dad with 17# Sow after Great hour long Race.
Thursday more RAIN and no Hunting.
Friday we loaded the B-team and headed south. We rigged over 5 hours and 43 miles in as good a Bobcat country as god has created with out a strike.
We headed home but turned and hunted through the Home Club.
We had not gone far when the box exploded….every Hound inside and on top of the box were telling us that here was where a Cat had exposed itself to the perils of the Clay Hounds. It took Rita a minute to make sure which way the Cat had gone…then the Race was on.
This was our old Runaway Tom Cat. When you jump him he heads East as fast as he can go, sometimes by road, sometimes he elects to swim; it depends on how high the HEAT is turned up on him. Cheyenne and Sandy turned it up to HIGH this night. We had a hard time keeping up with the Race as the ole Tom was headed home as fast as he could. When we caught up with the Pack, Rita was baying in a big Cypress Lake. We waited five minutes or so and when no other Hound could open Dad said to blow them in as Rita must have him out in the water on a Tussock or Log.
I was able to load all but Rita and Brandy. The Garmin showed that Rita was coming, but Brandy was determined to root the Cat out. A Tri-tronics phone call to Brandy started her our way…the problem was that the Cat tried to leave the water the same way and the Race was back on. Rita got to Brandy then the Hounds that I had turned back loose joined in and for twenty minutes it was good. Then this old Tom crossed a road and it appeared that he was headed to a Highway….oops, I started blowing and loaded all the Hounds in about 5 minutes.
This was the second time that this Cat has gone into this block, so the next day Dad and I explored the area better and the next time the Cat goes into this block we will leave the Hounds after him as the Highway is further away than we thought and there is lots of open country between the block and the highway.
We cooled the Hounds off and put the Rig Dogs up to hunt on the way home. Just after we turned onto the road that runs right by Dad’s Camp another explosion. I found the Cat’s track going behind us and put the Rig dogs down. They hit the Cat right off the road with the rest of the Hounds right behind. Twenty two minutes of intense music…I call these kinds of Races “Acid Rock” concerts as the noise is just a ROAR of Hounds; it is hard to pick out individuals. This Cat could not fly, and it did not want to die so it took option two and climbed. It was too far from the road in too bad a Swamp to try to find the Tree by marking the place where the Race ended with the Garmin, so this Cat was there to run again.
So far it sounds like we are having a GREAT Hunt, and we were….then nothing…over the next six days and nights we hunted an average of 16 hours a day and drove over 80 miles Rigging each trip. While we struck several Cat during this period we only ran one and it was a road runner who we put into a Brush pile beside the road.
On the seventh day our luck was much the same except for a Sow Cat sitting right beside the road who did not realize who we were until Rita screamed from the truck top…she ran as fast as she could right to her Den which was only several hundred yards away…end of that one. (yes David, Lactating Sows do leave scent! Ha Ha). We wished her luck with her babies and marked this area not to hunt until Fall.
The Game in our area was moving during the middle of the Day…it is just too damn Hot to Run Hounds during the Day…you can get away with early mornings but by 9AM you better be headed home!
Friday was upon us….we do not hunt on weekends as the Deer Runners are usually out in force, so we got up early for a short hunt with the A- team (Corky, Choc, Chic, Chero, Rivers, ole Rip and the Pups). We had made a short round when we hit a cold Cat going down the road. We trailed him 1 mile down that road then 1.3 miles down the next road, Corky and Choc turned up a third road, when Brandy screamed out that she had found the Cat just off the intersection.
This turned out to be another Race for the archives. We moved the truck twice and just soaked the Music up. For an hour and 15 minutes Dog Feed got cheaper and cheaper! Texas and Cimarron would hush every now and then so we could hear the other Hounds, but not for long. They really put on a show! Only problem was the Pack bayed 293 yards from the road in some of the most “Pleasant” Swamp around. If I can get the video to load you all can see what it is like!
Video of what it is like, the Cat breaks, but the Hounds soon corral him again!
View My Video
Dad with Road Running 24# Tom, BAD Swamp just to Dads right.
We did not hunt Saturday but Dad could not stand it, so we went Sunday morning and evening and no Luck at all.
Monday afternoon we decided to leave early and head down to the Southern Clubs. I loaded the B-team and Cricket, who is Big N Blue’s Nance bred 18 month old pup. Dad decided that we would head out the back way as we might see a Cat on the way South. Well we did not see one…. but the Hounds in the truck sure smelled one as we thought the Truck was going to blow up the strike was so hard.
I put Rita, Penny, Brandy and Sandy down and they soon had the Cat lined out. The Pups did not take long to get there and Cricket was soon into her 1st Bobcat Race. (Oh! poor Big N Blue…this little girl is going to cost him lots of money….when he gets her home, it won’t be just a yearly trip to the Blue River….it will be weekly Bobcat Hunts with Mr. Jim Moore. She sure likes how these Shorttails Smell!)
I left Dad in the road while I turned the truck around; when I got back he said that he had seen the Cat cross the road (this was the 1st of 6 times that we saw the Cat). We pulled down a little ways and then were able to SOAK the music up for about 30 minutes. Then it was into the woods for the 1st of 3 bayups. This old Tom was too bad, in too bad of a place for the Pups to end it. This was OK as I was able to goose the Cat and we had another 30 minute Act of the Opry!
At the next bayup, it was not as much fun for me, as the Jungle was worse with lots of Bamboo Briars to tangle and poke me. I was able to get the Cat to run again but as he passed Texas, Texas hit him like an NFL Linebacker…thus ended another great Concert. All the Pups had done a great job, and little Cricket participated in the whole Race in some BAD country. (who says these Nance Dogs are open “DRY” ground dogs. Cricket handled the water and briers like a pro!)
Video of the 1st bayup of the 27# Tom
View My Video
Dad with 27# Tom that Pups and Cricket bayed three times!
The rest of the week has been back to frustrations as the Cat are walking between 11 and 2 during the day. (We had 4 different reports of Cat seen during this time frame.) We hunted 6 or so hours each morning and night and treed one Wednesday night and another Thursday night.
The highlight for Thursday morning was finding this Big fresh Bear track.
Friday night we made a sashay down to the East end of the home Club with the A-team for a short hunt. We had been rigging for an hour when Choc struck cold. Dad said to drive a little more and see if he could bark better. Choc and Brandy did, but only slightly better. We came to an intersection and proceeded straight…no barks….so back up and turn left….go 100 yards and box explodes.
I put the Rig Dogs down and they could smell the Cat both ways but could not bark. I walked back the way we had come and found a fresh pile of Scat (this is what had provoked the hard strike) and tracks that showed the Cat to be heading ahead of the truck. We pulled up a short ways and Choc turned out to the right side of the road. While we were waiting on him to search, Corky and Brandy (the Garmin showed them to be 300 yards ahead and to the left of the road) sang out that they had found not only where the Cat had gone but that he was there waiting on them.
Wow! What a Race we had…it did not last long…it could not last long! Another Acid Rock concert, not an Opry at all. Just a solid ROAR, Dad said that if Cimarron and Texas would shut up we might be able to hear the other Hounds. For just over 15 minutes this was the most intense Race that I think I have ever heard. The Pack circled less than 200 yards from the truck the whole time…again WOW…the only thing wrong was it just did not last long enough before this Cat used the Gopher Hole trick to save its life.
Florida Gopher Hole Cat went down!
Florida Gopher! A Federally protected land Terrapin!
Well that has you all brought up to speed on what we have been up to. It has rained off and on all day today and is forecasted to shower all week…just what we need more water….
Good Running to All!
C. John Clay
Dads Dogboy
PS I am having trouble loading video on tinypic so I will edit them in tomorrow...sorry!
i don't know why i even bother going hunting. with your skill at story tellin and audio video props along with the clay hounds cat catching ability. glad to hear you all are having a good time even in the bad conditions.
later, Andy