Hereford Arizona

[TomJr]

I can't realy call myself a "houndsman" but I have a couple of good dogs on bear. And they have treed a few Lions in the past. Here is a link of our website's pic section has a few pics of my dogs and some bear pics from last year. The two black and white dogs are the real hunters a BlacklabMix and a Bordercollie. Those two light colored labs are my brother's dogs. He gave them to me last year and they did acualy do well on the bears. We have an orchard so use the dogs to run bears off that want to steal some apples and wreck the trees in the process. They can follow trails that are a few hours old but are by no means super trackers or anything but they get the job done.

http://users.wildblue.net/beattysguestr ... galley.htm

My old dogs are not hounds but I do have a new pup 9months now that is 50% treeing walker and 50% black lab. So far he is just tagging along with the other dogs and learning but did open up on the last bear we chased. My old dogs run silent and are real hard to keep up with so I just have to wait till they have it treed then follow the barking. So am hoping the hound will come out abit more once he gets realy going on tracking.

Last year we had alot of bears and the Game and fish opened a depreditation hunt for bears so I was acualy able to use my dogs for real hunts. We took 5 bears out of Miller last year. Hunting with dogs for bear is not Legal here, because the seasons are over before august when its legal. I think some parts of AZ have longer seasons.

[southwestwalkers]

great to see another southern AZ hunter!
Robb

[Josh Kunde]

wow does anybody know the story on those human bonbes on your page? looks pretty interesting, something I'd like to hear about. by the way nice pics.
Josh

[TomJr]

The bones made the paper a few times. Last I heard they are trying to reconstruct the face from the skull. The skull was found about a month and half later by some forest service fire fighters, it was about 1/4 mile away from the body and had a bullet hole in it.

Paper said body had been there aproximatly 10 years. We do get alot of illegal traffic through here... both people and drugs. But acording to the paper this was a male caucasion don't ask me how they can figure this stuff out. There was a one of those mexican blankets under the body and it was in a shelterd place like he had been trying to sleep so I just assumed it was an illegal that had died of exposer.

[Josh Kunde]

hmmm that is kinda different, but anyways, how to those black labs do for you? Do you pic one of them? I would really know what to look for out of a lab,
Josh

[TomJr]

I don't think I would try to train a pure lab to hunt big game on purpose. But I have had good luck with the dogs I ended up with and they have all had some lab in them mixed with who knows what. Except Buffy, who is a bordercollie, my dad got her while I was away at colledge add said lab mix free to a good home, but I don't see any lab in her. All my other dogs up until Jake (new lab pup 9mounths now) were just dogs that came into the property lost or turned loose in our canyon.

My first 3 dogs where yellowlabs mixed with I think sheperd all from same litter droped off with thier mother a mile and half below our place. With no training they treed lots of Bear Bobcats and Fox, as well as other junk like rabits, possums, Cuatimundi and ringtail cats. This was back when I was still in highschool 20+ years ago. Two of them lived 16 years and the female died early to cancer at 9 years. Still miss those guys but they never chased any lions like my current dogs do and these guys don't chase foxes like my old dogs did and we have plenty of grey foxes around. Then there was Buck a big 120lbs blacklabmix he was the first one to tree lions.

Last lion I saw was early march of this year. I had Buffy(bordercollie 12 years) and Buddy(blacklabmix 4years) with me. We had walked up 1/2 mile from the house because a guest at our ranch had seen a lion at a spring( they told me about 4 hours after seeing it when they were checking out). I got up there and the dogs didn't seem to interested so I sat down on a rock to see if they would pick anything up. Buffy is 12 years old now so she was not doing much just staying close to me while Buddy was working the area over predy good he went out of sight below me and a few mins later I hear what I thought was just him since Buffy was not to interested I figured the lion was long gone. It was the Lion with Buddy 20 yards behind in hot pursit. They flashed between me and Buffy, who was maybe 20 feet from me at the most. Buffy was uphill from me so the lion turned downhill and went even faster. Poor Buffy pulled up lame at the bottem of the hill and Buddy kept going. Chasing it up the other side of the canyon into the rocks. I was still checking out Buffy's leg when Buddy started barking his treed bark. So I made as much haste as posible to him. Found him at the bottom of a rock cliff looking up and barking like there was a lion up there... but it had gone out the top. I was tired and to get him back on the trail would have taken alot of climbing plus Buffy was out so we went home. I decided time to get a new dog.

When I went looking to buy a new dog I wanted one with some lab and some sort of hound. This is the first dog I have acualy payed money for. Jake is 9 months old now. I didn't pick him since he was the only one left out of 6 when I saw the add. Guy that sold him to me breeds Walkers that he uses on coons and the father was his gun dog, I never asked if it was a purposeful breeding... I am going to try training Jake on Lion scent soon as my order arrives. He is just now starting to show some interest in trailing and I want to give him something good to look for.

I think one of the reasons I have been lucky is where we live at the end of a road 2 miles from nearest neighbor and next to a wilderness area. So there is lots of exposer to animals. Plus I live and work on the property so the dogs are with me 24/7 and that helps since I can stop them from running bad stuff like deer and show them what I want them to run.

[Josh Kunde]

welll seems like you have been doin good with them, good luck with your new pup.

[jokerredbear]

Hey tom,Your story on the bones reminded me of a huntI was on.I lived in Elfrida Az. was hunting lion in the winter in the Chiricahua Mts.I turned a pretty broke dog out at a large pond she made just about a half a circle and started baying at a brush pile.From where I was at I couldn't see anything.Upon arriving where she was at I could see a body.It turned out to be an illegal who got sick and left behind,died from exposure.That ended my hunt for the day.Chuck