BigGameHoundsmen.com

The hunting has been tough. Persistance pays off.

I have been on vacation now for almost two weeks, and trying to hunt almost every day. I love hunting the spring bear, what a rush. I wait the whole year to be able to hunt this time of year.

Most days that I go somehow I manage to get a race. The exception to that came Monday and Tuesday when it was raining like crazy here for two and a half days. The dogs needed a day to recover last Saturday, so I stayed home and did "honey do's". Sunday of course we had Mothers Day commitments, so again I stayed home. It's alright I thought, two days rest for the dogs, whatever they chase will be in trouble. I go Monday and can't find a race, Tuesday same thing. Wednesday (5/14) isn't looking good either, but about two in the afternoon the rain lets up finally and I had already driven all the roads without a strike. Knowing they had to move soon I re-drove the best roads and finally got a strike - 5:30pm.

My brother and I look around and find the smallest of tracks . . . . a tennis shoe bear, sixty pounds if I had to guess. Because of that track we made sure the dogs started it that direction. The race is on, and it is FLYING. Down the hill and we can't keep up. Back up the hill again and over the top. Down the other side and I am just behind it.

Now would be a good time to explain the puppies. We must all have had the wonderful experience raising puppies that chew up the antenna on a brand new Johnson collar while in the box. So when the race started it took a minute to put collars on the two puppies and one dog that was in that side of the box with them. Little did I know what a blessing this would be soon after.

I radio ahead and tell my brother where to go to get ahead of them. Now they are down in the creek bottom, out of the reprod and into the taller timber where the running is a bit easier. The dogs close the distance fast and begin to bay, my brother leaves his truck running hard to get ahead of them. He didn't get far from the truck and the wind was blowing his scent to the baying dogs and bear. The race makes a turn going back the way it had come. I had stationed myself uphill of the race anticipating it may turn uphill, but had put myself in a position to witness something magical.

From up on the hill, as my brother is telling me that the race is turning back the way it had come I could hear one puppy and one blue dog coming along the trail, way behind because these are two of the dogs I had to take time to put collars on. Coming from the other direction is the front runners pushing the bear back along the creek headed right for the other dogs. I went so far as to tell my brother over the radio, "If they are pushing him back the way he come they are going to run right into the other dogs . . . . . right about NOW ! ! ! ! "

No more had I said that and all H3LL broke loose just down the hill of me. The bear ran into the other dogs and crossed the creek and hit the first tree he came to. From on the hill I could hear the ROAR that we as houndhunters so much enjoy when the dogs make that tree. My brother, being lower on the hill than me and on the other side of the ravine than me was able to get to the tree from the truck in about five minutes and confirmed that we had a good bear in the tree. I look at my watch to see how much time do we have before dark. Hmmmm. 7:05pm. Enough time to get my oldest son here to enjoy this with. Still enough light to try to get some good photos at the tree.

Hour and thirty-five minutes from truck to tree. Maybe the four days of rest the dogs had was just what the doctor ordered, they flat put it on this bear. The little bitty track that we found in the road at the start of this race, the reason we started the dogs the way we did, that was not the bear we put in the tree. In the end the bear stayed up the tree long enough for us to get some friends and family there to the tree to enjoy it with.

We had a blast training some puppies at the tree, the plott puppies that I got from DJ Mcleod on this forum, and shipped them from Michigan to Seattle. They are now about 16 months old and taking it to the bears. My brother has one of those FOXPRO predator callers and he put it up the tree about as far as he could and when that thing went off it was just what a pup needs to make him look up and go to treeing. The bear we had could not have been more cooperative for training pups. He only climbed half way up the tree and was woofin and growlin and doing circles around the tree trunk. Lots of movement for the pups to see him up there, and when the one saw him up there his hair started to bristle up and he started growling at that bear. It was priceless.

It is amazing how fast a slow day, or a bad day, can turn into one of the greatest days you have had in a long time.

I haven't looked at my photos from that night yet, but I will put some up when I can. It was about that time when the flash doesn't help, and it is too dark not to use a flash. So we will see how the photos look on the computer.



ph

Bear in the tree. As you can see the lighting conditions are not the best.



Hope this one comes out alright. Close up of his head, but the flashwas doing no good in the lighting conditions.



With the flash I got a siloette with a couple of eyes, but you can see a decent bear.



ph

Two nice BLUES ! ! ! ! Bear treeing brothers showing their tree power.



The girls can do their part too. You got to love bringing this kind of tree power to any tree.



The Plott Puppies aren't hardly pups anymore. They are about 16 months old now. Sunny is not chewing on his brother, he is fighting the chain that you can see in the photo that he got over his neck while treeing.



The boys at the beginning of the day.



ph

Good pics and a nice story to boot, nice hunting

Great pictures, wow, thanks for sharing that great story. That is good times!!! I cant hardly wait till it opens for us.

Thanks again!

The story above was from 5-14, this story will be from the following morning 5-15. Let me know your thoughts.

The next morning was HOT. Not like Southeast hot, but plenty hot for around here. Highs for the day were going to be mid eighties, so by noon or so we were watering the dogs again. All my tree power could be seen drippin out the sides of the hounds mouth with each drop of drool. These were Hot Dogs. So we water them trying to keep them cool and refreshed.

While up on a high ridge we water the dogs in a ditch with moving water in it. As we are about finished and ready to put the last dog on the truck, my brother looks down in a green grassy spot behind "the swamp" and with the naked eye at approximately a mile and a half he says "hey that looks like a bear". He is facing away from us feeding on the grass, so even with the binocs he looks a lot like a stump until he decides to turn broadside to us. "Holy BEEP BEEP BEEP that is a big ole toad". We could see he was a good one, with a head like a basketball.

We make the drive around to get to him and drive up the road closest to him, wind is all wrong. It can't be that easy can it? We get to where we should be able to see him and sure enough we see him leaving. Gosh he is a good one. So my bother leashes a dog up and hikes a bit to get to where we had seen him leaving. Soon as the dog starts to open a bit I start turning dogs in, and as soon as my brother has two dogs now at his location he turns lose and we have us a race.

The race in its early stages is coming right back to me. The two plott puppies (I can't quit calling them the puppies) head straight to where the blue dogs are barking, and darned if the blues don't run that bear right at them. When the bear finds the pups he turns up hill, right to the road I am on and the race is only three minutes old now. I run down that road to see if I can get a look, only to hear him in the brush up hill of me and see two plotts and two blues hit the road close enough I can throw a blanket and cover all four of them, away they go up the hill and catch that bear. They are barking now like they are looking at him. The two females are shortly behind them and closing fast. Now I can hear all six dogs right there, and I know to get to the road just ahead of them I will have to drive four miles in the time they cover less then half a mile. I gamble and try it, I lose. I get up there only to hear them going down hill into the creek bottom. Darn it ! ! ! !

I head down there and can hear them moving slowly down stream baying like crazy. I hustle to try to catch up but it is thick and steep, and really tough to hear them over the creek that is rushing with the mass of melting snow. Two hours of trying to catch them and finally they pop up outta there and they are off to the races again and I am a ways from the truck.

By the time I get to the truck again, I find beeps on them and low and behold they are bayed up in another steep canyon with a rushing river at the bottom. Moving just fast enough to stay head of us and darkness falls before we can get to them. Shortly after it is falling apart and we have dogs coming out. River is way to loud to have any idea what was going on when it went to heck. Two dogs come out right at dark. Spent the night trying to catch up to the other four dogs without luck. We get three back at 830 the next morning and the last one at 3pm that following afternoon.

Now tell me what you think? I know the race could have gone better. I really feel like I didn't do my part, I should have gotten in there and helped them with the bear on the ground but he would move just fast enough to stay ahead of me . . . . for hours and hours.

I am hoping that after putting a bear in a tree one day, and then get all the dogs on a bear that they get to look at and bark at all day long, that this would have really helped my puppies come along.

Lay it on me . . . . . Help me learn. Don't hold back I can take it ( I think).




ph

Sounds like a great day. I have lots of them where I get close to dogs and bear but just can't get close enough and they turn into all dayers. And your right, that should really get those young dogs fired up and turned on!

I would have just stayed on foot and kept after them. But then we must have slow bears here. Keep hearing about fast bears that run for miles. Never had one run for more than a mile before I caught up to the dogs. I have followed some walking bears for a few miles that refused to tree but the pace was very managable.

That was darn good funn that day..twus a blast for all..dogs included.lol put standing hairs just reading the first cuz its fun to remember/