Hunts I remember. Al Baldwin.

[al baldwin]

You are one tough man, never in my wildest dream would I attempt that with two good arms. You hog hunters are a special breed. Guess it must just be you like living dangerous. Take that 30-30 away from me and I would never got anywhere near a bay up bear. Here is another true story. Robin Sell & I hunted quite a bit together when Belle was young dog, Up the south fork of the Coquille we head early night for a coon hunt, recall we had hunted only a short time when our light started getting dim. Belle struck a good track and made a fast run them treed solid couple hundred yards up an old logging road we knew well. We found her treed, right on edge of that road in a big Tanoak. Shined that dim light and found a set of eyes thinking coon I was holding the light, Robin was fixing to shoot with 22 When I realized those eyes were too wide apart for a coon. Belle had treed a few bear prior and as always was packing my 30-30. We study the situation and could make out we had a nice size bear treed. Being young and foolish, Robin held the light and I placed a 30-30 bullet behind a front shoulder. That bear came out down the tree breaking limbs and bark flying, hit the ground and belle was after him. Lucky for us we soon heard belle chewing & growling at the bear and realized he had only gone a short distance and was stone dead. I would not tell this story if robin was not still alive and able to back me up. Thinking back game was plentiful, very few hound hunters, I was the only one living in Powers. No tag or bag limits on bear or bobcat. There was a 4 dollar bounty on bobcat scalp at the Coos County courthouse, 4 dollars bought at least 20 gallon gas & my first hunting rig was an old Nash Rambler that I paid 75 dollars for got fantastic gas mileage. I removed the back seat of the Nash, threw in fresh straw, Belle road in comfort and was eager to go hunting when I got off swing shift at about one am and if I had not worked a sixteen hr. shift. belle and I often headed up the south fork to tree a coon. Those were great times, why my wife of 60 years put up with me, I will never know, but she is still with me and we live a comfortable life with a few acres in the woods. Despite the fact that since I started these stories she had open heart surgery in early march & I had gall bladder surgery on April 5th. Wife is doing very good & I am trying to get some pep back in my step. True story Al

[lawdawgharris]

I’m glad y’all are doing better. 60 years is impressive to say the least. The hog hunting isn’t as hazardous as it sounds, most of the time. If you have dogs that perform their duties correctly it’s actually pretty controlled. I don’t shoot very often just because I have seen too many good dogs shot by accident, either because they jumped in front of the shot for one reason or another or on a pass through or deflected bullet, or just because the shooter wasn’t very good.

I remember once hunting with a guy that was by no means a dog man. He had a little money and thought hog dogging sounded macho. He went out and bought a bunch of registered Catahoulas, and they were very well bred as I knew the man that raised them. He had a big hand in creating a lot of dogs that are staples in a lot of pedigrees. He also bought this catch dog that he said was pure red nose pit bull. He wanted to hunt with me so I agreed to take him. We made a handful of hunts but he never brought the catch dog. She was in heat or something each time, but he never failed to tell me how awesome she was. Finally we make a hunt and I should’ve known how it was going to go when we drove in the gate. This place was in East Texas, Neches to be exact. It was one more nasty piece of property. The only clear spots were oil wells and oil pads, everything else was a jungle or overflow ponds that hadn’t been used in years and were shin deep in water with scattered brush in them. About 50 yards inside the gate I noticed some tracks walking the road and told him to step out and see what it was. I got back in and said oh man that is a HUGE hog track. So I get out to look because of how he’s just ranting about it. I said man that’s a cow track. He said ohhhh no, there aren’t any cows on this place. I said man that’s a cow, they may not have put it in here but somebody around here has a stray. Had it been a hog it would’ve weighed 1000-1200 pounds. We finally cast and started catching hogs. After about number 3, number 4 checked out and went about 1.75 mile down to the Neches River. My ole Clyde dog was there bayed solo. It was hot summer already and daylight was in the upper 80’s. By this time it was sure enough hot and Clyde was bayed in a really bad briar thicket on top of the River bank. When we get there he says he wants to send his “pure red nose” in to catch it. If you can imagine a red, red nosed Rottweiler, docked tail and all, you would have a good visual of her. My bulldog had caught the other hogs, so I said ok and away she went. As soon as I thought she should be about there I got on my belly and started army crawling in, it was the only way in. I get in about 20 feet and round a corner and I’m wondering why I only here Clyde barking and no hog grunting or squealing. Now mind you it was 20 feet of bad stuff and even crawling was picking and choosing through it. I looked up to see the hog about 10-12 feet from me looking right down her nose at me. Clyde was on the opposite side of her and the worlds greatest catch dog was laying off to the right of the hog panting and out of air making no effort to catch this 180 pound sow. I stayed still and tried to coax her into getting up but she wasn’t going for it or she didn’t understand but the sow did because I saw the look in her eye when she decided she was coming to me. About her third step, Clyde hammed her hard and she stopped to turn and get him. I dove out and grabbed both hind legs and started crawling out backwards with her. When I got out, I did let him know that the worlds greatest catch dog was in fact the worlds greatest dud and that he could crawl in there and get her. I told him NEVER bring her again. If it hadn’t been for Ole Clyde, I’d have been in a wreck because there was no getting out of the way in any direction.


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[al baldwin]

Hard for me to understand this catch dog business, but I know hog hunting would not have been for me. Good luck to you. Seems to me that knife killing would be very dangerous. Al

[lawdawgharris]

The catch dog thing has as many different styles or methods as the bay/strike dogs do. I think it’s one thing that makes it so attractive to different people. Terrain, climate, hunting average, and the tendencies of the hogs themselves has a lot to do with the methods people use. We cast our dogs and when they get bayed we go to them. Our dogs are silent trailing dogs except for maybe a little yipping for the first few yards after a hog breaks. I want dogs that really drive a track hard and fast. Hogs can trot for hours but they can only run hard for short distances. So if they run out of air, they stop or they make a mistake. Once we get them stopped I want dogs that bay from the ribs forward and have sense enough to know how tight or loose to be to keep them there, the right amount of pressure. This is usually referred to as stock sense. If the hog tries to run I want them to grab not pinch the back end where there are no teeth. Hogs are direct opposite of cattle in the sense that back end pressure turns a hog and pushes a cow. As for catch dogs I want a linebacker type dog, big enough to handle the physicality of a good hog but athletic enough to adapt to situations such as a hog breaking bay as it’s coming in to catch. The dog has to be agile and catty to bend and cut and run a hog down if need be. I want my catch dog to be able to think on their feet. If they have to run one down I want them to ham it until it squats or turns and then move to the ear. I want them to get that ear deep in the jaw where they have the most holding pressure. When I get the hog under control I want them to have an off switch so that while they are waiting on me to dispatch or tie a hog, they are recovering so that we can go get the next one. If they are acting like idiots and screaming, chewing leads and tree branches and what not then they are just burning energy they are going to need. This is especially important in the hotter temps. I expect them to have a willingness to please too. If they are the type are gonna do what they want to do whenever they want to do it then they won’t work for me. I walk my catch dogs off leash. They stay with me until I say go. If they are going to do whatever they want then they aren’t able to be taught to walk off leash. I also can’t trust them around livestock and such should they get out away from me on a busted bay. Smaller dogs can catch well but can’t always control the hogs head which is the purpose of a catch dog. Small catch dogs get beat up way worse than bigger catch dogs. Think about it in terms of boxing. Little guys can fight and hit a heavy weight 2 to one. His shots though don’t phase the heavy weight like the heavy weights shot does the small guy. So if the little dog is caught but the hog runs off with the catch dog on his ear, and I’ve seen it happen numerous times, it doesn’t matter if it caught him. It also is a detriment if the little dog is caught but lacks control because most bay dogs are gonna try to help and they get hammered because the caught hog isn’t under control. A big catch dog that is accurate and gets his front legs down for leverage or that can tuck those front legs and lay beside or against the hog can hold a bad hog for a good period of time because he is forcing the hog to do most of the work. Not everyone thinks like I do and that’s fine. I do what works for me and I’m successful doing it. There is no sure fire method that works every time.

Don’t quit with your stories Al. I love them and they are sure interesting to me. Do you think Belle preferred bear over coon or cats?


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[al baldwin]

That is an interesting read on what you like in your hog dogs. The part about how you want your dogs to apply pressure, but do so with sense, fits the description Tom Barnett wanted in his bear dogs. Some may have not liked or been able to kill a bay bear with his type dog, but, Tom said anyone who thinks dogs can eat up a decent size bear and live very long is kidding them self .Even dogs such as belle who would bay a bad bear all day up close, using good sense is going to get caught eventually, as they age and slow down, just as people do. I recall Leon Elliott taking a bear head and snapping it/s jaw at his dogs, they would spook and run, Belle would just stand and look at him with a confused look. Leon would say you better sale her to me, she is going to get killed. George Nelson, possible, the most famous bear hunter in these parts, warned me belle would most likely get caught in her later years. For sure belle preferred bear over bobcat and coon, I started her on coon but later had her to a point where she seldom started a coon. She would pull from a decent bobcat track and go tree a bear by herself. Fact is that got to be a bit of a problem as I tried to bobcat hunt in the winter months. Here the weather is warm enough in the winter causing bear to venture from their den at times. Maybe at a later date I will write a piece about George Nelson, I never got to go on a real bear hunt with him. I do have an interesting story on my experience with him. He was legend in this area, lots people wanted to get a dog from him, but he was very private and very few ever got any of his breeding. Al

[lawdawgharris]

He sounds like an interesting guy. My Clyde dog was bred to be a cow dog. A local family had a family of what everyone just called old leopard dogs that had gotten too tightly bred and were losing too many good traits. They getting funky in nature, poor bottom, inconsistent working abilities, etc. So they decided to breed some competition treeing walker into them as an outcross. They wanted to put some motor back into them and hopefully regain those traits that they were losing. Well Clyde was a result of that cross. The guy that kept him had some domestic hogs that he let free range a small pasture close to the house. He came home one day and Clyde, a big pup at the time, had killed a couple of shoats and had the rest of the hogs bayed up in the corner of the pasture. He said he gave him a good thrashing of it and put him on a chain for about a week only to come home to find him bayed up again. He put him back on the chain and my father in law showed up over there. The guy asked him if he wanted a hog dog? He said he wouldn’t leave his hogs alone and wanted nothing to do with cattle. The father in law took him and did nothing with him. Sister in laws boyfriend and his dad hog hunted and he took him to try out. Clyde wouldn’t hit a lick at a snake for them on hogs and wouldn’t hunt. He brought him back and I came along and he told me to take him. I did and man was it ever the best thing I ever did. I convinced him that it was ok to get after the hogs and that was all it took. He turned out to be one of the 2 best dogs, possibly the best, dog I’ve ever hunted with. He never trashed and was a magician. He preferred hogs to anything. He knew he was born to be a hog dog. Sounds like Belle knew what her passion was too those type dogs are the ones that set the bar for their respective discipline.


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[al baldwin]

i arrived at Tom/s early AM for a Sunday hunt, Tom stated George had called, he had been trying to kill a bear that was killing not only his neighbors sheep, but also George/s sheep. George/s dogs were pretty beat up and ask if Tom would come help him kill that bear. I had never met George, but thru Clarence & Tom knew for sure he only hunted with a very select few people & 99% time he hunted alone. I immediately told Tom I would just go back home and to let me know how things went. But Tom insisted I go with him, I said Tom are you sure George will allow this, tom said to hell with him if you can/t I want help him. George had instructed Tom to pick up a redbone hound at George/s brother place to help with this rank bear. When we picked up the dog a couple of George/s teenage nephews climbed into the front seat of that jeep with us. I WAS thinking O boy this is not going to go well. We met George and he immediately ask, where have you been, what so long, in a very gruff voice. But, got in his bronco and headed off. We had traveled a very short distance, George slammed on his brakes and walked straight to Tom/s window and demanded Tommy, what in the hell are you thinking, you know I don/t hunt like this. I could feel the tension in the air, here was two big men who looked they could play linebacker for the Green Bay packers and I knew Tom could explode at any minute. Some how I found the nerve to speak up and say. George what if I take these young men in Tom/s rig, go up the road and wait for you and Tom to go kill this bear. George calmed right down, would you do that, yes I will, George said man I like that. George then said, Tommy are you willing to help me under that condition? Tom never spoke a word, he just got his chalk boots, gun, couplers & dogs and quickly threw them int George/s Bronco. Those nephews & I spent a few hours shooting the 22 and visiting. I ask them is uncle always like that, O no he was very pleasant to them and they really liked him. Tom & George finally arrived, I don/t recall a word being spoken, as Tom loaded his dogs and stuff into the jeep and we were off to deliver the nephews, in total silence. After the boys got off aia finslly ask Tom. how did it go? Tom stated it was quite a chore but they killed the bear and got no more dogs hurt. A few days later Clarence stopped by to tell George wanted me to know how much he appericated what I did and to tell me he thought that Baldwin kid might be alright. George would later breed his best bear dog to belle and that cross produced deacon and the chub dog was out of a sister to Deacon. That too was interesting experience with George and maybe will get into that later. Al

[Beebout-it]

Al I hope you continue to share your stories, love reading them! Sounds like a blast!!

[al baldwin]

Thank you Beebout, it has given something to think about, in some very worrisome times. Was not sure if wife would make it for a few days, but thank God she is doing great. This gall surgery has me weak as a cat, but, walked a little last couple days. Not going to hunt ant hounds anytime soon, do still have a couple hounds here but they like me, past hunting. I was so lucky to hunt with people like Clarence, Tom & got to know George a little. Clarence used to say no one really knew George very well, but he and Clarence were pretty good friends. Tom & George had respect for each others as hunters, but I always thought there was professional competition between them. Last time I saw George I was working as Park Ranger at a county park, it was a holiday week and George was there with A FAMILY member. He surprised me, look me up and had a good visit. He had a part of one foot removed and had aged, had to be in his middle eighties. But, wanted to know if I had any of that blood from the Spike x Belle cross that he could buy from me, was going to get him some more bear dogs. Had so much respect for him it humbled me. I told him I had a little but it was so watered down those dogs were nothing like his spike or belle. Have a good day Al

[Beebout-it]

Hope you get to feeling better soon Al!!

[lawdawgharris]

Man Al, I don’t know if it’s you and just have a lot in common or if all hunters share the same type of experiences. I had a friend that was a lot like George. I was just out of high school and lived in an area they called buttermilk flats. I was working for a rural water system at the time and most afternoons during the summer, my buddy and I would haul hay or watermelons until 1 am sometimes. It would be just me and him because we couldn’t find anybody to work with us over a day. Sometimes we’d have a hard time finding them to give them what we owed them because they were scared we would ask them to come back. Anyway, everyday when I’d come home I had to cross a set of railroad tracks. As soon as you crossed the road veered left and a drive way veered right that went down to a house back off the road. I could see some dog set ups down there and just knew they had to be hunting dogs of some sort. I didn’t know who lived there so started asking my buddies. They said MAAAANNN you better leave that old man alone. He’s mean as hell! I said ok but a few days later I couldn’t take it and drove down to his house. He happened to be out in the yard working on his dump truck I think it was. He came over with this ole scowl on his face and said can I help you? I said well I don’t know. I introduced myself and reached out to shake hands and as he started to reach out as well pulled back and was looking for something to wipe his greasy hands off on. I said oh don’t worry about that I just got off work too. He grinned, shook my hand and introduced himself, JT Morgan. He said is your daddy Thomas Harris? I said yes sir and from there the conversation just flowed. I found out he had hog dogs and all about them and then we made plans to hunt that coming Saturday morning. He said I’ll pick you up about 4:30 am and we’ll go get some breakfast down at the truck stop, a big ole boy like has got to eat. Everything went just as smooth and we became regular hunting buddies. That guy just about adopted me in a way. He did so much for me without me asking. None of my buddies understood it and asked why he liked me so much. I told them, I’m honest with him, I respect him, I do things without him having to ask me to, and I do what I say I’m going to do. We were sitting in the truck stop early one morning with several other old men. One of them also hog hunted with dogs. He was telling a story and saying how him and couple of other guys killed 25 hogs the day before. JT just listened and after the fella made mention of the 25 head for the third or fourth time, Jt said you know damn well you didn’t kill 25. You’re G$$ D$$$ Liar. It got quiet briefly in anticipation of what the guy would say back but he just left it alone. It was funny to see him just call the man down like that. Thing is, I bet they did kill that many. That old man had top notch dogs and was a crazy good shot.


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[al baldwin]

Wow, 25 hogs in one day, that is a bunch. One good thing I see in hog hunting, one can eat the meat. The first bobcat I seen was treed by what I now call yard dogs, I was about 12 years old and we & those dogs were in a patch of large oak trees, red hot track and immediately treed in a large oak tree. Cat jumped out & in very short time those dogs lost the track, know now they were sorry dogs, then I loved them. That was in south west Va. Fast forward a few years, Cotton Wideman & I were traveling from Powers to Myrtle Point Or. We met Clarence Berg he was going up Yellow Creek, a rancher had seen a bobcat very close to his house where he had a bunch of young lambs, called Clarence to catch that cat. Cotton ask if we could follow him there and listen to the race, Clarence agreed and we hurried on up to the ranch. Clarence turned his three dogs lose and the cat race was soon on. Two of the ranch owners were also listening as that cat put up a good race for about twenty minutes or so, dog made a lose, took a few minutes and those dogs settled on a tree. We all five made our way over to that tree, Clarence looked the tree over & said in a gruff voice, Speck, cat is not here, speck immediately went looking and soon had the cat going again, Cinda & junior joined in and after another jump, those dogs treed that bobcat. Of course, the ranchers were pleased, I can only assume Clarence was a little relieved and Cotton & I had heard our first treed cat in Oregon. I write this to show what a nice person Clarence Berg was, who else would have stopped to talk to a couple want to be hound hunters, allowed them to follow him and listen to his dogs tree a cat, when he knew very well if those dogs did not catch the cat, those ranchers who he needed to please, as that was his job to protect those lambs, would have given us the time of day. True story as I remember it Al Not a clue what strain redtick Speck was but hunted with him often few years later, he was a good one.

[lawdawgharris]

Al I remember a hunt that the fella claiming to have killed the 25 and I made. His name was Gordon. Just him and I and we turned
dogs out on a place that was farmed and right on Little River. The dogs got bayed on the bank of the river. Just as we were getting to them, the hogs broke bay. Two or three dogs would have one stopped or caught here and another couple would have one stopped or caught over there. I got off of the 4 wheeler and started sticking hogs as fast as I could get to them. Gordon stayed on his wheeler and was shooting off of it like a mounted cowboy as the hogs tried to break across the open ground. He was driving and shooting, dropping hogs and when he’d run out of ammo he through the gun on the ground and jerk another one out of a holster or scabbard and keep shooting. We ended up with 15 that were from 130 to almost 200 pounds. I cleaned all 15 by myself. That was a chore! The meat is very good eating. We do it just like our deer, we bleed it for a minimum of 7 days. No odor and no gamey taste. The meat is white and very lean. It isn’t marbled like domestic pork. My old buddy JT had lots of heart issues and even had open heart surgery himself. His cholesterol was real high as well. He was told to stay away from pork. He didn’t and started eating wild pork only. When he went back to the doctor for blood work they were astonished at how good his blood work and cholesterol levels looked. The Dr said I don’t know what you are doing but keep it up. He told him I only eating wild pork. The Dr looked at him puzzled like and simply said well if it’s working keep on doing it.


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[al baldwin]

The only hogs I ever seen butchered were domestic. In SW Va. dad would usually kill two in late fall, early winter. at that time lived in the woods in a small house, no electric, no indoor plumbing. The pork was salted and hung from ceiling joist in what they called the smoke, but I never seen any smoke. It was just a board shed that was tight enough to prevent any rodents from getting in. Dad had to depend on weather staying cold enough to prevent pork from spoiling. That pork meat was a real treat, however, those hogs were usually fat and they rendered the fat for grease and cracklings, not a healthy diet. Dad/s decision to move family to Oregon, turned out to be best decision he ever made, in my opinion. Dad soon found work as a mill wright and life certainly got better. Thinking back how hard my folks had to work, just to survive makes me realize how lucky I am to live as well as i do today. A simple life, never took a true vacation, work a lot of long shifts, but the place I live on today is better than I ever dream i would live. House means lot to my wife, but I am at a point I would like a small place in Myrtle Point or Coquille Or. Coquille has a small hospital and is about 35 miles from Powers Powers has a population of about 700 people, most of the time no police and no medical facility at all. There is a small grocery story but the prices is outrageous, No gas station, that one can depend to have gas most of the time, just saw today station has gas, but it is 6*50 a gallon for regular and regular is all they ever have. Great place to live when I was young, but not now, life goes on. Stacked a little wood today & took a one mile walk on lever ground, helped wife wash her rig, she said I did a poor job, but I tried. True story. Al

[lawdawgharris]

You know Al, that was a simple life for sure, but it was a good and honest life. A life where priorities were straight and emphasis was put on the right things. It’s a different world all together. A simple life life is nearly unattainable I you are going to make it or teach your children how to get ahead. Getting ahead is merely staying afloat. God and family are an after thought in most homes anymore. It’s really sad to me. It’s interesting that y’all didn’t smoke your meat to cure it. Did y’all can meat as well?


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