My first hunt

[Unreal_tk]

Well I'm bored so I thought I'd try my luck at writing a little story.

Well the day of this hunt was something else, I had been trying to get them damn pups of mine to catch a cat. I had bought them in July. Soon as the snows began, I was hammering the snow looking for tracks! Little did I know how much effort this was gonna take just to find a track they would take. It took me all winter to get to get them on a good track! I didn't have any real trash problems as one would expect but I had a hard time getting them to just trail! Up to this point I had done the drags all the time and I had thought they would transition no problem, how surprised I was. I'd get them finally to take a track, but they would quit it after awhile and come back. I didn't know my head from my ass on how to age a track or how to use time of day for my advantage. I also didn't know a lot of the road systems well yet in my area. I just went when I felt like it and keep hammering. Each time out I would get more progress to the next. My buddies kept rassing me about it, one day it finally clicked! It was in the last week of the season. I had taken the day off work to hunt, it was a fresh snow. About 10 inches of powder, perfect blue bird day. I had a old 93 Arctic Cat ext with a junker of a sled pulled behind it for transportation. I was cutting around, boom only track in sight in this reprod thicket, going across the road. I collared up Rose and Ruby, let them out. Soon as I let them down on it, off trailing they went. These were 10 month old pups, open as all hell on this track. Man was I excited, I didn't honestly think they were going to catch this old cat, but man just they had a different attitude about this one than all the others they had ran. They faded down off the hill into a gully near by, I fired around on that old sled and got perched up to listen to the race. I watched the GPS as I listened trying to make sense to race. At this time I was really scared about loosing them pups. I didn't know the area that well, and knew they were close to going into a area I was unfamiliar with. Cat kept on heading that way, I was really starting to worry!
Finally the dogs made a loose, it took them a good 10 minutes. Rose figured it out and Ruby got hung up. I raced down the gully after Rose... It didn't take long and she settled into treeing, I thought to myself... No way! As I got my way down to the tree, Ruby had made and started treeing too. I got into there, I was hot, sweaty and trying to find that damn cat! I got myself fabblergasted because I couldn't find that damn cat. It took me awhile and I finally found it in the very tip top. I was hooping and hollering like a son of a gun. That darn old cat screwed up, she ended up being put up terribly but I sent her in and had her tanned. She still hangs on the wall in my house along a coon I had caught with them pups.

The end.

[BrandonCombe]

Great story brought back memories of the first cat my pups caught on their own no better feeling in the world!

[mark]

Ya Thomas, thats what its all about right there!!!!!! Nothing else ever comes close to that whooping and hollering.

[al baldwin]

Great story Thomas, you are a true houndman. Al

[CRA]

A hard earned hound hunting education is what really makes a true houndsmen. Your determination to catch and train your pups paid off and now look at all the memories your hounds have given you. That pride you felt that day is burnt into you and you will never be the same, because that day you became hound addicted! You will spend the rest of your life chasing that feeling toward every pup that you train. Good job Thomas!

[mondomuttruner]

Thanks for the pick me up. Good to hear a great story in this hounding lull.

[1bludawg]

Thomas that story awakens many old memories.A man or boy that is willing to hunt by himself with no nothing pups will usually make a good houndman .The ones who won't go alone or want someone else to train their dog don't last long.Good story!