Heads up/track drifting blueticks

[cobalt]

Ya sorry, Rambo II, son of Slifes blue Rambo (I).

[Shag]

So i guess what I was asking when i asked if anyone hunted with the rambo2 stuff was....if anyone had hunted with diamond jim or half brothers or sisters? you always hear someone say this is so and so line but in all actuality its two or three times removed. i have to laugh a little i have tried to figure some bloodlines out in a month hahahaha maybe there are 7 or 8 diamond jims out there who knows??? someone correct me here or confirm... hahaha is this the right shit to be looking for to improve my odds of catching cats???

[catdog360]

I with you Gary, I believe its a genetics thing and not best to best hoping for one or two good ones.

As for blue ticks I don't know their genetics but I have seen some awesome Smokey River cat dogs.

Mic O'Brien

[Gary Roberson]

Clear River Diamond Jim went back to Rambo II and was bred and owned by Jim Smalling at Broken Bow, OK. I hunted with this hound and carried a female that I bred and hunted to him and got eight pups. I liked this hound for his confirmation and that he covered a lot of real estate and ran with his head in the air. One of the knocks on this dog from the coon hunters was that his offspring made better cat dogs than coonhounds which didn't bother me, I am not a competition hunter.
I never hunted with Smokey River JBS Chief but when I started trying to breed blueticks back in the early 90's, he was the dog that seemed to produce the smaller, quicker, more athletic dogs that I wanted in this heat. So I purchased a son of his from Gene Wolfenbarger that was out of his Speck female. While I think this dog really helped my breeding program, he was too coon crazy for me. That ended up being his downfall as he cracked a bone in his neck while shaking a coon. He was an absolute idiot over a coon.
The dog that I thought really helped me along with what I wanted to produce was Upson's Blue Boy II. I could not find a blue dog anywhere in the south that had the confirmation, speed and especially nose that I feel is so important in West and South Texas.
I looked in the Blue Book and the dog that kept jumping out at me was in Northern Wisconsin and belonged to Dennis Upson. I called and talked to Dennis on several occasions about how the Blue Boy II dog hunted, nose, track speed and intelligence. Dennis was very honest and impressed me as a guy who was a hard hunter (primarily bear), (he didn't tell me what he thought I wanted to hear for all he knew, I was just another competition coon hunter). In fact, he didn't have any dogs or pups for sale at the time. From photos of the dog, in my opinion, he had the greatest confirmation of any blue dog I had ever seen so I did not question that.
Long story short, I ended up purchasing three dogs from Dennis, two males and a female. The first male and the female were excellent dogs and the last pup didn't suite me as he was tough to break off trash so I never bred to him.
I know that a lot of hunters say that they don't care what a dog looks like as long as it will catch game and that is true to some extent. I do care how a dog is put together and find that if he/she has confirmation faults, they will be exposed when you hunt them really hard and cover lots of miles which we have to do on some occasions. Besides, it costs no more to feed a pretty one than it does an ugly one.
I just traded for a pup from Larry Anderson (last year) that should niche with my females as I am at the end of the road (every dog I am hunting is full brother and sister). He has Blue Boy II in his 5th generation pedigree three times, Clear River Diamond Jim, once and Virck's Stone Cold Smokey which is also in my dogs and goes back to Smokey River Chief and Blue Boy II.
What a mess, Adios,
Gary

[U.R.E.]

I had a female out of Slifes Blue Rambo and a female named Blue Misty or Heather. The problem was the guy who I bought the dog from had 2 shipped out here. In the transaction the papers got mixed up as to which papers went with which pup. They where both out of Rambo but which was which we will never know. The papers where never sent in so all I had was the puppy papers listing sire and dame.
I ended up with both pups but 1 was killed by a train. Sally went on to become the best cat dog I have own to date. She was tighter built but not what I would call fast. The was very cat savoy. She always seemed to know where a cat would go. She was an exceptional strike dog and cold trailer. Her locate and tree was remarkable. She rarely made mistakes. She seldom missed turns. She was tough as nails to boot. I could hunt her everyday rain, snow or shine. I have boxed her with 2 inches of snow on her back.
The mistake I made was I had her spade and couldn't even try to duplicate her. I have owned several dogs since but nothing ever panned out.

[Gary Roberson]

That female would have been closely related to Clear River Diamond Jim and I bet that she was a littermate to the Rambo II dog as he was by Slife's Blue Rambo and Smiley's Blue Misti. The Clear River Diamond Jim was out of Rambo II and Clear River Curlee who was by Smokey River Blue Spud and Smokey River Be's Blue Jean. Curlee was as the best coon hound that Jim Smalling ever owned, very quick and accurate.

[houndogger]

Great info fellas.

[U.R.E.]

Guess I should clarify. I've tried dogs with some of the Rambo blood in them but none of them have panned out. I had a couple dogs out of other blood that percentage wise caught better but they didn't seem to have the nose ole Sally did. Like most of us we all have that "one dog". Maybe she wasn't near the dog I remember but she showed me a pile of cats and trained a bunch of puppies.

[Gary Roberson]

If you talk with a lot of bluetick coonhunters, they will tell you that the Rambo dogs were not cold nosed, known more for taking a good to hot track and getting treed. I think that is why they were popular with the competition hunters, that and they generally had pretty good confirmation.
Robert Hittson who owned the Clear River Diamond Jim dog for the last few years of his life always told me that he thought the Curlee female (dam) is what made him a colder nosed hound.
Adios,
Gary

[1bludawg]

Gary ,that kind of information is worth paying for.It saves a man a lot of time when he knows what strains to stay away from.That is if he doesn't like those traits.

[Shag]

Man this is all a lot to digest and dang sure priceless. I think i need to go on a couple week journey accross the country and go hunting. I know everyone has different ideas and viewpoints maybe more so in competition hunters. I do know this a dog that truly drifts a track right often gets dubbed hot nosed or silent when in fact they just hit here and there and get the slack yanked out of the track.

[Tim Pittman]

Shag, the last thing you said about dogs getting dubbed. Is very true, drifting is moving good, not swinging, and opening on what I call the high notes of the track and shifts gears everything they can as the progress the is what catches game.

[Gary Roberson]

Was hunting Unit 12 of the Navajo Rez for lions the other day. Unit 12 is juniper country and there is a big population of lions on the south side of the mountain when the mule deer are wintering there.
A friend met me one morning and I decided we could cover more ground if we split up. I took one road and he took another, plan was that if one or the other struck a lion that we would call the other. I had my five dogs and he had three others, one was an old dog that he claimed could trail a two day old track.
My dogs struck and I found the track, a big female, so I called him to come to me. When he arrived, my dogs had carried the track for close to 3/4 mile. There was about 6" of crusted snow on the ground and all my dog's feet were bleeding from running hard the day before.
When he arrived, we drove to where my dogs had just crossed a road and were in the process of crossing a shallow wash. I told him to dump his dogs as mine were steady trailing through the sagebrush where the lion had hunted the night before.
He dumped his dogs and walked them in the tracks where mine were trailing. He followed my dogs for about 150 yards and returned to where Steve and I were standing in the wash. I said, "What do you think?" He responded, "I don't know what your dogs are trailing". I said that they started on a lion and came this way on a lion so I guess that they are still trailing a lion".
He said that all the tracks he could see had blood in them and were made by my dogs. I said, "Where is the wind blowing from?" (My dogs were trailing south) He responded, "From the west". I asked how high it was blowing and he said, "A little over 10 mph". I said if you want to see the track that my dogs are trailing, walk up this wash.
After he walked about thirty steps, he said, "Is this one of your dog's tracks?" I asked, "Does it have blood in it?" He responded, "No Sir". I then asked, "Does it look like a lion track?" Again, he responded, "Yes Sir". I asked, "Which way is the track going?" He said "The same way your dogs are trailing". I heartily responded, "That is the lion my dogs are trailing".
His dogs followed him back to the pickup and never smelled a thing.
My dogs trailed this lion over 8 miles but was never able to get it jumped.
Adios,
Gary

[al baldwin]

Very enjoyable post, good to see the blues get their due. Al

[Shag]

@ Tim I agree with you. I personally enjoy hearing a dog open 30 times in an hour and get treed vrs 150 times in three hrs to get treed on the same piece of game. that is the style of hunting i Prefer and I hope my recent acquisition from back east fits the bill. @ Gary I have followed many old lion tracks that didnt pan out. Anymore i try to judge the track if i do not think my dogs can run the track (instead of walk and pick it) I always try to recut the lion. That being said I have trailed very old lion tracks and lucked out and jumped them just over the ridge on a kill. I love being a houndsmen and figuring out game as much as I like listening to a good hound.