BigGameHoundsmen.com

Amigo,

You didn't need to mention you read it in Full Cry. All you had to say was "walker dog trailing a lion 20 miles in strong wind on dry ground" and I think most of us would have figured out it came from Full Cry.

An upcoming Full Cry is going to have a story about my buddies black and tan dogs that started a bear in New Mexico and trailed it across Texas, right through the middle of Hurricane Katrina and treed it in Alabama.

You'll want to pick up that issue. Coincidentally, those dogs are for sale if anyone is interested.

I have to make a comment here because I have hunted with Weldon for over 20 years. Just like every other hunter Weldon could exaggerate a few points but taking a lion for 20 miles on bare ground is nothing, conditions being right. It doesn't happen much anymore because there are too damn many roads and guys are too fat and out of shape just like their dogs. The fact is Weldon never sells dogs unless there is an accident. He breeds only for himself. He hates other guys having his blood lines particularly in the areas he likes to hunt. As far as trash, I will tell you a story. Back when I first started hunting with Weldon, we went out one day after a whopper of a storm. He exercised all the dogs except one 8 month old pup Rosco. After all the other dogs were put in the truck we pulled off the road and chained up. Weldon let Rosco out to get some exercise. The snow was deep and Rosco was following behind the truck in the tire tracks. When we went as far as we could we turned around and no Rosco. Weldon's is swearing because we had passed twenty or so deer standing on the slope to the North. He gets out his old blue tracker and gets a hard signal up a steep side hollow full of small oak. When we get closer we can hear Rosco screaming treed. Mind you Rosco was born in the spring...never been on a lion. Weldon, a little skeptical decides not to send any more dogs. I take my pistol up and wade in waist deep snow up this deep cut. When I get to Rosco there sets a 200lb plus lion with three of his four legs in three differient oak bushes. Later we found where Rosco crossed the lion track and not far away lay a 5x5 bull elk. The lion had crept up on the bull laying in the snow and the elk never made it off the ground. You could read everyting right there in the snow. In the twenty years of hunting (at least three months a year)with Weldon's dog's, I've seen 4 elk races and 2 or three deer races, from mostly pups that were shot or sold. I can't say that there hasn't been more because his dogs are so far out in front that they could chase a deer or two from time to time, but I will say this when I show up at the tree every dog is at the base of the tree or hanging from a limb like a damn monkey. I have never seen a straighter bred pack of lion dogs in my life. If you are interested in his bloodlines they are Finley River Chief and Houses Bally...same bloodlines as Ted Fergassen ran when he bountied the most lions on record in AZ. Weldon has refined the blood and later added some White Cloud. I have improved some qualities to suite me by adding some of Gary Washburns bloodlines. I like a bigger dog (like catching an occasional bear) and one not so prone to tree climbing. Weldon complains when his dogs tree a bobcat or a bear this is trash to him!