DRY GROUND HALL OF FAME

[BEARCLAW]

LETS HEAR IT FOR THOSE COLD NOSE POUND IT OUT GETR TREED DOGS. WE DONT HAVE MUCH FOR A REGISTRY OF FAMOUS DOGS OF THIS SORT SO LETS HEAR WHAT YOUVE GOT. IT CAN BE DECEASED OR ALIVE, YOURS OR A DOG THAT YOU HUNTED WITH. IT CAN BE ANY BREED OR ANY SIZE AS LONG AS IT CARRIES THOSE RELENTLESS COLD TRAILING ABILITIES.

I WILL GET THE BALL ROLLING I MUST ADMIT I HAVENT HAD A LOT OF THESE DOGS THEY HAVE BEEN IN RATHER SHORT SUPPLY. THEIR IS THREE OR FOUR THAT STAND OUT, BUT MY BEST WOULD PROBABLY BE MY OLD HONDO DOG. HE WOULD GRUB A TRACK OUT WHEN THE REST WOULD HAVE NO IDEA ITS THERE. MANY TIMES HE WOULD BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVEING A RACE AND GOING HOME EMPTY HANDED. WE WOULDNT ALWAYS GET CAUGHT BUT WATCHING HIM WORK AN OLD TRACK WAS SOME TREAT. ONCE STARTED ON A TRACK HE WAS RELENTLESS AND WOULD NOT QUIT UNLESS PULLED OFF OR HE RAN OUT OF JUICE, WICH USUALLY WAS A COUPLE DAYS LATER. HE WASNT PERFECT, BUT HE WAS DARN GOOD WHEN IT COME TO COLD TRAILING.

ONE TIME A FRIEND AND I WENT BEAR HUNTING. EVERYTHING THAT COULD POSSIBLY SET US BACK HAPPENED. WHEN WE FINALY GOT TO OUR BAIT IT WAS ALMOST NOON. WE TURNED HONDO LOOSE AND HE COLD TRAILED OUT OF THEIR. ONCE HE GOT OUT AWAYS WE PACKED TOO HIM AND HAD A NICE BEAR UP IN ABOUT AN HOUR. MADE FOR A PRETTY MEMORABLE DAY WHEN THINGS LOOKED PRETTY BLEAK.

HONDO CAME OUT OF JEFF ALLENS STOCK IN KANAB UTAH. HIS MOTHER WAS JEFF'S GOOD CINDY DOG AND HIS DAD WAS SLIM. BOTH DECEASED NOW I BELIEVE.

THIS IS HONDO GETTING HIGH ON A BOBCAT TREE.


HONDO ON A BEAR TREE


HONDO WITH A LONG TAIL



MY SON HOLDING HONDO'S TROPHY


I KNOW THEIR SOME GOOD ONES OUT THEIR . I WOULD ENJOY HEARING A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THEM.

[U.R.E.]

Awesome Post!!!

This is my dog of choice. I would rather listen to a cold trail job all day than drive around looking for a hot track anytime.

I had a bluetick named Sally who was out of Lonnie Smiley's stock. Top was Rambo bottom was Heather or Mattie? She was the best strike dog I have ever hunted behind. Cold nose was an under statement. This dog was not the fastest dog in the pack but she made few mistakes. I was blessed to have had such a great dog in my pack. I miss her as I had to put her down because of heart failure last year.

Don

[Mike Leonard]

Great post to some worthy canines.

I have been blessed with a few good bare ground cold trailers how about I take these in the order of what I felt was the coldest track movers.

Smoke- He was also out of Jeff Allen stock on the top his father was Jeff's old Ace dog who was the father of so many good ones including old Hank who was Cindy's Father and also my Jiggs dogs father. On the bottom side was a dog named Sally that came out of Wiley Carroll's last dogs. She was a redtick dog that was bred up out of Giles Goswick and Smoke Emmit's line of dogs.

I never owned Smoke until he was quite old and his owner the late Glen McCarg could no longer care for his dogs due to illness and I took care of them after his death. Well Smoke was a very shy dog and had not been socialized I guess as a young dog and wouldn't allow anubody but me to handle him. He was not a large dog mabe 65 pounds and had an odd looking head, very long nose and medium saddle blanket ears. He had an absolutley HUGE bawl mouth. I mean deep, loud, and long. I was doing some late spring lion hunting and it had already got pretty dang hot and dry and I was having some trouble keeping those old tracks going when it got up in the day and hot. Well I started taking this old dog and the first time he did it I thought he had trashed on a coyote on me because the other dogs and some of them pretty good dogs were just not able to do a thing and this old son of a gun roars and leaves out of there moving. Well his mouth was such that he sucked all the rest of them in with him and all I could do was ride after them and hope to stay in hearing. I cut around and caught them coming down off a bluff into a narrow drainage in a sandstone canyon. I saw them coming and old Smoke was well out in front. I blasted up there on my horse and slid to a stop and was ready to go to work on him when I was sure it was a coyote, and I looked down in the sand and there was that old lion's track and this old red dogs just came chugging up it, shied off when he saw me and swung ahead grabbed it again and ROOAAAR! away he went. Man what I would have given to had him when he was younger, cuz at this time he was over 11 years old. We did breed him to my old Josie dog one time and got some really good looking pups out of the cross and several that were hunted went on and made good lion dogs.

So number one wasn't the best lion dog I ever hunted with or caught the most lions for me, but he was in a class by himself when it came to naturally moving a very bad old track on bone dry ground.

I will think about some more and check back in now it's time for some of the rest of you to weigh in.

[Ike]

My old LionHeart dog was certainly a stand out hound on a cold track. She was a crossbred hound that loved the cats. That ol' hound was silent on track and wouldn't open until she jumped the lion or bobcat, then let out a roar that would probably scare a cat half to death. Shawn Labrum and I watched her jump a tom lion one day laying up under the rocks over a two point buck that he'd killed. She trailed around the ledge not saying a word, then there laid that lion and she and the big cat were nose to nose. LionHeart let out that war cry and the tom was instantly on his feet taking swipes at my dog. That ol' tom jumped up on a ledge with LionHeart baying below and what a picture that would have made, then here came the cavalry and that lion ran past that dead buck and me to the tree.

We watched LionHeart trail out on a bobcat track one day in a couple inches of fresh snow. Most of the other dogs were dimpling the track along and she had trailed out in front of them two or three hundred yards in a short distance, so I watched. She'd dimple a track then run thirty or forty yards, stop and check the track then repeat run. Most of the time a bobcat or lion didn't know what hit them until she screamed in their face...hell of a way to wake up!

I had three or four dogs after a large tom lion down in the Bok Cliffs one spring with Labrum. I got in behind the dogs in the dirt and he drove around and cut the track a couple ridges over and waited for us. While unloading the hounds, I stepped off the truck and turned my ankle pretty badly and was ready to quit when I met up with my truck. I'd short cut the trail and was ahead of the hounds and started gathering them up as the track came past my truck. My LionHeart dog knew what I was up to and ran around the truck the other way hoping to get around me and strike the track past where I stood. I often think she thought she was pretty smart as well.

Most of the dogs I'm hunting these days are out of that dog, and she would have been proud to see how they have turned out..........

ike

[Mike Leonard]

Great Dennis I love it!

Come on guys tell us about them.

I spent most of today doing what many would think foolish. I left my trailer on old Gus with 5 hounds. Two solid broke dogs, two sorta kinda coming on type that on fresh look really good and one who treed her first own last week on dirt at 14 months. Well it was pretty warm here today 65 deg. and muddy in spots, but it had froze a bit last night. Well I went to some sweet spots where tome walk and mar, and yes they had been there but minumum 4 days on this one maybe one more.Well what do you do? Going that way maybe he will kill, lay up or lightning will flash from the sky and show you the way! Well not that lucky but still good training because as the 2 older dogs picke3d it off rocks and brush the others followed their lead and before long from scrape to scrape we had a fashion of work. Nothing fancy, or fast just smelling very old lion scent and working thru the country in the general dierection of travel. Well we never got lucky and even with 6 horse miles and probably a lot more dog miles we came to a big grass flat and there the lion had kicked it in to overdrive and went into the jog trot of a traveling tom lion and they just adios and leave. But being this old we were just practicing anyway, so I whistled them in, and we had a talk. I told them they did good, and made their ancestors prud and it was time to ride the 6 miles back to the trailer or so, and then drive two hours back to the place. It all went well but on every ledge I saw in my mind some of the dogs that I will talk about later in this post. Yes they had been there before and made me proud. Would they have caught this track? Ofcourse not too old but they would have been in there like there prodgeny doing what they could.

Damn wouldn't it be nice to find more people like these hard working hounds!

[Catman]

It would not be right for me not to mention my Burnette dog in this post. She'd go down tracks that to me were unbelieveable. She came from Dan Lay and to this day I haven't hunted or hunted with something that I thought had her kind of nose. I wish I could rewind time and hunt with her again. She caught me more game than any other hound outta catch a guy. She wasn't a large dog maybe 55 lbs...red/white. Everytime I turned her loose I knew she was gonna give 110%. She had a personality to boot.....she hunted for you and not for herself and she felt proud when you made it to the tree....she'd look right at you and bark as if she was telling a story about the hunt. She will always have a special place deep inside.

Had a bluetick female named Lacy. Not sure what her breeding was, but she was a nice dog.

I had a dog named Luke.......don't think he had the coldest of noses, but he had the brains to make up for it in the way he hunted. He wasn;t a pup trainer as his intentions were to ditch those around him. He treed alot of cats, both bobbers and lions by himself while I was trying to train young dogs.

Have a dog that I call Tom now that is doing some pretty neat stuff. Time will tell.

Good post, thanks
Catman

[Ike]

Good story and thanks for sharing Mike......I sometimes wish I still had horses and the opportunity to hunt that way, but living in town, and not having the associated equipment just doesn't make it logical. I still like to hear the stories though!

If I didn't mention that old blue Ryan dog of mine on this post he'd probably never forgive me ha! He and his sister Rowen will both be twelve this summer and are still doing it. I don't hunt them much anymore because I always promised myself that I wouldn't run them into the ground like Dwayne told me I would. I will say that I have beaten that old dog up for alot of clients, and that he ran everyday the other dogs did and sometimes a day or two beyond.

Ryan was blessed with tough feet and a tough body and cursed with a big heart to boot. In eleven years of hunting he's never slipped a pad and been under several lion and bear trees all by himself so some hunter could take home a bear or lion. I don't know what else you can say about a dog like that except I wish I had a backyard full of them. There was a time when Ryan was in his prime that when he opened on the rig it was time to catch a bear; likewise, when I put him on a two day old lion track that seemingly had no end he never complained and pounded down that track all day and most of the night.

I told a story about starting him, LionHeart and Ike on a lion track at noon one day in April and walking in and pulling them off the track around noon the next day. That story hurt alot of guys feelings on the net and they laughed and laughed, added to the story and before I knew it those dogs had been trailing a week when I pulled them. But I laughed the hardest because I knew if they didn't believe that story it was only because they'd never had a dog that would do that themselves.

I was plugging a well with a guy the other day who had owned a couple dogs out of that same litter that Ryan and Rowen came from. He told me somebody took his dogs off the chain one day and he never got them back. This young man told me he tried several other dogs from other houndsmen but got out of hounds because he never found any more hounds like those two. I told him I still have my two hounds, and that I'm hunting them and three younger dogs out of them, so he wants a pup for his boys next time I bred.......he also told me he was putting his boys in for bear and wanted to know how much I'd charge to hunt them on a bear. I suppose if a special hound doesn't bring a guy back into the sport his boys probably will.

It's probably the bond we all get when we raise and hunt a really great dog that keeps us in this sport. Some of us are lucky and those dogs last longer and some are not. But in the end we are all faced with saying goodbye to those really great hounds and it's damn tough..................

ike
http://www.ingramwildlife.com/picture.htm
(my old Blue Ryan dog in his glory days)

[Big Horn Posse]

Hands down of all the dogs I have had I would have to say Ozzy fits the bill in this catagory. Even though I sold Ozzy last year to "Onza" I would say he is the best hound I have ever owned. Ozzy is a son of Charlie a Piute Mountain Redbone, who was undoubtedly the most outstanding hound I have ever seen and out out of a female owned by Shawn Labrum that is out of Hal Meacham's line that goes back to Jack Butler's hounds.
Ozzy was an early starter and I have a video of Ozzy at 5 months working out a bobcat track in the dirt ledges along side Sandy, Red, and Lola. His first lion tree he was right there chewing off the branches to try to get to that lion. He took to bear instantaniously and rigging came natural for him. He truly is a multi-pupose hound and even though he will run an elk on the occassion he is has all the qualities a hound hunter and breeder look for in a dog.
I bred him 2 1/2 years ago to Lola and the pups are proving to share his same qualities. I am hoping to breed him to his half sister Scarlett this summer to keep that strong Piute Mountain blood going. I miss Ozzy, and know he has the best home possible with Onza who has been able to hunt him on bear and cat..... and the occasional elk. We all know even the best dogs have their flaws.

I have to mention that Ozzy's sire Charlie, even though I didn't own him deserves top honours in the Dry Ground Hall of Fame. He proved himself time and time again as a lion and bobcat dog. He was killed by wolves 3 years ago at the age of 10. He is the sire of all my best dogs, Sandy, Scarlett and Ozzy. He was truley a legend amoung hounds.

[hunt14]

This dogs name is Linda and he belongs to Jim Bundrick in Kanab,Ut. Jim named this dog after his mother in law. Linda is 10 yrs old and he came from Travis Hatch in Panguitch, UT who's dogs came from Stan Mecham. If ever a dog deserves to be inducted into the Dry Ground Hall Of Fame, in my mind its Linda. I have had the opportunity to trail behind this dog quite a bit in the last few years and he very impressive. Ritchie Jeffries and I have decided this dog is a freak of nature. I have seen linda start a lion track at 3 in the after noon on a pretty warm day with a decent wind and trail out. I've seen him trail on a track all day then go back the next and trail on the same track and catch about mid-day, all in the dirt. I have never seen a dog like him and if it were'nt for him I'd have gone home alot with out a tree or without seeing a lion. I've heard many guys say they cant stand a dog that'll sit there and grub out a track moving at turtle speed, Ive seen Jim tell a few guys to go on and look for a track there dogs can run if they dont want to sit and watch Linda. Many times he'll trail all day and never see anything but many times he'll keep workin until that track heats up enough to move out on it and catch. Truely a remarkable animal.

[Brady Davis]

Awesome stories...Let's hear more....

I haven't ever had a dog like you guys are talking about. I have had a couple good ones but hopefully my new pups can learn to work one out in the dirt.

[Ike]

Rowen was the worst tree climber I had, and she wasn't happy unless she was face barking a mean ol' bear or lion
http://www.ingramwildlife.com/russianolivebear.wmv
That little black and white dog jumping and trying to bite the bear is my Rodo dog........

I haven't said much my about little Rowen dog, but she has as great of love for the cold track, the chase and the tree as any dog I have ever owned. Most of my family call her little Rodo, and she is a littermate to my blue Ryan dog. She to will be twelve this summer and has done it all, from hammer down an old lion track and be gone for a week to tree tom lions and bears all by herself. This little dog was under used most of her life because I hated the tree climbing part of her and because that little dog is happier on the mountain than in town any day. All you have to do is follow that little girl to the tree, shoot the tom, and walk out after dark without leashing her, cause with a cash like a fresh lion in the woods she'd keep for weeks! She was is as happy laying under a sandstone ledge with southern exposure as a little hound can be!

Four or five years ago, my son and I were after a good big tom but everytime we cut his tracks they were several days old. Anyway, I promised myself next time I got a two day old track I was gonna send some dogs. We cut that tom one morning but the track was old, so I sent my three aces, LionHeart, Ryan and Ike down those tracks keeping Rowen and a six month old pup in case he crossed fresh.

Those three dogs opend and headed up one fork of the canyon and we drove up the other. And yes, you guessed it cause that old tom crossed fresh and I was stuck with one finished dog and a pup that hadn't even been started on anything--I mean nothing!

Well, my little Rodo girl went and treed that lion and I killed it. She was just as proud of her catch as she could be. And it didn't hurt her feelings one bit to be in the spotlight, knowing those three aces of mine were giving up alot of energy and getting nothing out of it but scent..........

I could go on and on about this dog and her brother, but I have probably said enough already as they have stood the test of time and always gotrdone.....

ike

[justjared]

i had an old redtick named homer that i got from a pound down in southern utah that got of his chain and was to thin to the pound so they kept him and got him fatter then hell he was a hippo i got him slimmed down alot he was used as a bear dog from the guy before dont know his bloodline but was big never got on a bear with him but was a awsome coon dog think he would of had a heart attack on a bear run but showed up a few grand champion coon dogs many a nights whether the coon swam or jumped he was to old and smart to let them get away but if he got excited on the chain you where gonna get drug also had a black and tan named daisy that was an awsome prospect every time i hunted with a group no one could beleive her she was always first strike and a voice that always got made fun off sayin thats one angry dog made the hair on the back of your neck stand up she was 9 months and runnin the bears like a champ with the old dogs to bad animal control put her down because she got away from me and every time i called they said they didn't have a hound in the pound sold homer to a guy whos kids wanted to coon hunt and he was a perfect dog for them kids

[hunt14]

Bearclaw how old is that hondo dog? I know a guy that has a full brother to him that lives in Paragonah, Ut.and that dog is something else. The dogs name is Joey and he was a complete natural from the beginning and can trail a lion in any condition. Do you have any pups out of that dog if so how have they turned out for ya?

[Mike Leonard]

Stan Meacham's name came up and I thought I would mention another great bare ground dog that has a link to Stan.

My late Big Nosed Kate was a daughter of Jeff Allen's Ace dog and out of the old black majestic female that Stan Meacham had owned. This cross plus the cross of Ace's son Hank on the old black female probably created more top bare ground lion hounds than any I know of.Dog like Kate, Bones, Tick Cindy, Jazz and others.
Kate was a long earned high tan hound that looked like her mother only she was leggy built and could really travel. She was a cold nosed track driving machine. We only got one litter of pups out of her and of them some of these crossed on my Wyatt dog who was double Goswick(BigJohn) became legendary type bare ground dogs. We bred Kate one more time to Buddy Johnson's old black dog from Brushy Mountain , NM but she couldn't carry them an ended up with cancer and had to be fixed. Kate was laid to rest after a bad tom lion savaged her two winters ago. She was past 11 but could still catch a bobcat on her own. Damn do I miss her!

[hunt14]

Mike here is a dog that is closely related to them dogs you have out of that black majestic dog that you talk about that Stan Mecham had. I second your statement about her producing some of the best bare ground dogs. In fact I've debated contacting you and seeing what the chances would be of breeding this red female named Judy to your Jiggs dog. This red female is one that I picked up from Stan two years ago and although she is not yet worth of "Dry Ground Hall of Fame" status quite yet, she is proving to have the nose to get her there and from what I hear her pups are almost there as well. She has thrown some nice bare ground dogs that Stan and a few others own.



Here is her 3 gen pedigree, you can see that black majestic shows up a couple of times in there.
---------------Red(bloodhound/Phil Taylor)
-----------Moke (Stan Mecham)
---------------Lady II (Stan Mecham)
------Slick (Stan Mecham)
---------------Ace (Jeff Allen)
-----------Squirt
---------------Black Majestic (Stan Mecham)
Judy
---------------Pecos (Stan Mecham)
-----------Grizz (Stan Mecham)
---------------Lady II (Stan Mecham)
------Bess (Stan Mecham)
--------------- Unknown
-----------Black Majestic (Stan Mecham)
--------------- Bloodhound