BigGameHoundsmen.com

Ike,

Thanks for your advice. I never felt pushed off. I just wanted to Know or have a direction to go for light weight and quality pictures, on a hound dog budget. The topic was hunting solo, so I thought I would use something that I have been affected by when being alone it might help someone else out.

sourdough

Yea, I remember how it felt to be younger and pack a thirty pound camera pack into the tree or while chasing big game. This image was taken with that Nikon F-4 on slide film back in about 1995, and was one of the highlights or dreams that pushed me northward. I use to think the trip was worth the effort, but there are lots of great things to say about a pocket camera these days.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/contr ... goryid=113
One of the pocket cameras I pack these days is a Power shot A2000 and it works great for family and tree shots if the lion isn't too high. If they are I just use the 100 power zoom lense on my G-2 and take it into photoshop........

ike

Great site Ike, slide film can produce some great photos, so can slow speed 35mm film but you have to have a good flash and a sold hand. Thank you! I would not of asked if I did not feel that you were the go to guy. You have more knowledge than anyone else on here that I know of, about the subject.

not color blind, sorry I don't have a vomit bag for you there bud. You will just have to suck it up!

sourdough

I choked my vomit back down after ole Ike, thankfully, edited his one post.

not color blind wrote:I choked my vomit back down after ole Ike, thankfully, edited his one post.

Yup, did that just for you color blind cause I'd hate to see you choke to death on your own vomit--I mean shit, that would probably make the evening news for CNN.........

ike

Thanks bud

Ike wrote:

not color blind wrote:I choked my vomit back down after ole Ike, thankfully, edited his one post.

Yup, did that just for you color blind cause I'd hate to see you choke to death on your own vomit--I mean shit, that would probably make the evening news for CNN.........

ike

Too many great rockers have died that way :'(

Some of you are confusing "handling" with heart and desire. Dogs loading from kennel to truck, unloading, free casting behind horses which is most of our hunting down here, that's handling.

But Ike's initial boast that he can call any dog off a tree or a bayed bear from up close or from a distance, that's lack of heart and desire. I called a full time outfitter I know well and read all this to him. I won't use his name since he asked and he's well known.

His take was very simple, any dog of his he can whistle at that is looking at a bear or lion and it leaves and comes to him, that dog is gone. His direct quote was, "that dog would be sold the next day to one of those idiots on the computer."

You can type until your fingers bleed and you will never convince me it's a good thing if you can whistle at your dog across a canyon and he leaves a lion or bear and comes to you. Lack of heart and desire. I have never seen a single TOP HOUND in my life you could just holler at and he'd leave a bear he was looking at. I can only figure I'm seeing a different caliber of dogs than some on here.

You can have your "handling" as you call it, I will always require my dogs to load in the truck on command, unload, come when I call, and cast with the horses. That's my definition of handling. But leave a bear or lion he is looking at and come to me, time for a new dog. Give me the dog that isn't going to take his eye off the bear or lion until I'm standing at his side under the tree. And he'll stay there until I make it. I will take heart and desire over your definition of "handling" every time.

My outfitter pal made another interesting comment and I guess this sums it up for me. He got on his wife's computer and looked for awhile and then told me, "I don't think that Ike guy has left the computer in over a year. He's got something to say about every day on there. Pretty easy to get a handle on a dog when it's sitting on a chain every day while his owner blows smoke on a computer."

He kind of wondered why I would argue with a guy who doesn't even hunt, but sits and yaps all day on a computer. I guess I'm kind of wondering that myself now.

I'll leave you folks to your internet talk and boasts of "handling" and I'll probably listen to guys who make a living off their dogs on a mountain, instead of guys with 2,000 posts a year on some website talking about "handling."

Sorry to pick a fight Ike. I just didn't realize when you were talking about handling, you meant hollering out the window at your dogs while you sat glued to a computer. With dogs like you got, you must pile the game up from that keyboard.

I'll leave you people to do your thing. But tonight when I lay down to sleep and I picture my best dog down the hill looking at a bear on the ground, and imagine me hollering, "Here Smoke" and have him come running up to me, well forgive me if I just burst out laughing at the thought of that.

One man's junk is truly another man's treasure. Old Mexico beckons in the morning and I must answer that call. Happy hunting. Oops, I mean happy "handling" Ike.

For a man who claims that he is a hunter you sure have alot of wind hickey. I've long since learned that arguing with the likes of people like you are a waste of my time, so I'll only say don't choke to death on jealousy!

I'll also say that if a guy can't come after a hard day's hunt and slap people like you around a bit a man is either working to hard or worn out!

The Real Deal,
ike

You can have your "handling" as you call it, I will always require my dogs to load in the truck on command, unload, come when I call, and cast with the horses. That's my definition of handling. But leave a bear or lion he is looking at and come to me, time for a new dog. Give me the dog that isn't going to take his eye off the bear or lion until I'm standing at his side under the tree. And he'll stay there until I make it. I will take heart and desire over your definition of "handling" every time.

What a pile of crap!

Handling has NOTHING to do with hunting ability or desire.

The main government hunter on Van. Island would always walk his dogs OFF LEASH on a track until it was go time at which time they would HUNT.

One thing that comes to mind was a show of a large pack of fox hunting dogs in England that drove a fox to ground. Now there had to be 30 dogs there and after they were commanded to get back the fellow whose job it was to get the fox pulled it out with the help of some small terriers and dispatched it while the entire pack quietly sat back and watched.
Now I sure couldn't do that with my dogs but then I have never tried to teach them that particular trait but if was important to me I would. Dogs will do what you want them to do if you put in the time and if all you want is for them to go in one direction when you drop the tailgate and stay there until you come to get them or they starve they will do that too.
Doesn't mean you couldn't give them a brain if you were so inclined.

I am not sure Hickey, but I happen to work my hounds alot, even make my living at it in the winter. I have one hound that I have to leash up walking from a treed bear or cougar, my other three go to the truck or sled when I tell them. The one I have to leash up I got when he was a year and a half old and had no manners what so ever. Now he is three and is coming around. I am sure a hound can have both desire and handling like your buddy claims can`t happen, but my one dog stayed treed for 24 hrs on a lion last year at 7 months old, he has never once been leashed up, but obviously thats can`t be desire.

Well chilcotin hillbilly, if a hound (or dog) will tree for twenty-four hours a guy should be able to get to him I'd think. And like me, it sounds like the training that you have done has not harmed the desire in any dog that you hunt. In my opinion, a dog wants to please the handler and is useless if it's nothing more than a wild renegade. I've given several examples as well of good reasons to train a pack of hounds to listen, and it's too bad there are hounddoggers on this board that are as hard headed as their renegade hounds (the last comment was directed at hickey)......

Hell sakes, some of of the dogs chilcotin hillbilly is hunting weren't even bred to run and tree lions and bears if I remember correctly. The fact that a man can getrdone with something less than, or different than, a dog that was bred for the task speaks and shows what a good hunter can accomplish...........

ike

Ike wrote:I have a pack of hounds that I've worked with since they were tit weened pups, and I can pretty much walk them anywhere I want, call them off a tree or a track, from close range or a distance, then send them back to eat the bear. ike

Lot of interesting comments about handling and this is an interesting quote, but it's too vague. Too many scenarios on the mountain to just ignore.

You can call your dogs off a tree or a track from short range or distance. OK, most people probably can. But what about a smoking hot track? Or a lion in a little juniper with the dogs up in the tree battling?

So a bear runs across the road 300 yards ahead of you and the truck explodes, you dump the box and they are roaring down the track. You can holler and your entire pack will flip a U-turn and come back to the truck? Yes? No?

Or they are in a little juniper tangling with a lion, you can holler from up the hill and your dogs will all leave the tree and the lion and come up to you? Yes? No? Or you can holler them off a jumped lion when they come screaming across the hillside?

Or the dogs looking at a bear on the ground, working him front and rear, and you can holler from across the canyon and all your dogs will leave that bear and come to you just like that? Yes? No?

Handling is a bit of a vague term with dogs, because there are too many variables on the mountain to just throw out a blanket statement like that about how well your dogs handle. Most dogs I've seen, their ability to hear their master is dependant on how hot the scent is they are trailing or how wild the action is at the tree.

But to just say a dog handles and you can call him off is too easy. How he handles in a variety of different situations is what I'm more interested in. One thing to whistle your dog off a cold lion track that ain't going anywhere. It's an entirely different matter to whistle a dog off a jumped lion that is 200 yards in front of him.

To be honest, I don't have a dog on my place I could whistle or holler off a jumped lion or bear track when they come smoking past. So do my dogs not handle and they are renegade hounds?

I must be from a different school, but I don't know any old hunter around here who wants a dog that would leave a smoking hot bear track and come back because he whistled. That goes for me too. If that makes me one of the hard headed ones, so be it. I demand handling from a dog, but only up to a reasonable point. I mostly want a dog that will catch game, I don't care as much how he gets it done.

But keep in mind I'm just a mere mortal, not a legend. So don't put too much stock in anything I say. Hell, I don't have anywhere near 2,300 posts. What the hell would I know?

I went back and re-read all this... I think I can see where the confusion is coming from...

I am just speaking for the dogs me and my dad raised and trained, I can not speak for anyone else's.

I didn't mean to sound like my dogs had no heart... Because they have a lot of that. I didn't mean for it to sound like from 4 miles away I can holler their names and they will leave a tree.

What I meant was, after I get there, see the animal, take pictures or the hunter kills, whatever the case, when we are ready to go, we don't need to drag our dogs away from the tree with leashes. We might have to pick up a stick and give them the good bashin most hounds need, but they get the point. Sometimes they turn and try to sneak away, back to the tree, but a god dose of Tone on the shocker fixes it.

Yeah, sometimes you might need a leash just to get them to pay attention and for them in their heads to say "Ok, I need to follow Ninny and that mean guy who holds that button that shocks our necks (I spoil the dogs, dad kicks their butts! LOL)" But after a few yards and crackin Dirty Deeds in the head, we can slowly take them off, put the leashes on our shoulders and walk hands free and talk.

I would kick my dogs butts if they wouldn't stick to a tree till I was ready to leave.

My dad was one of the very few people who DID this for a living... 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for 30+ years.

So he wouldn't except dogs who couldn't stick to a tree, or a matter of fact do everything to his standards... We didn't sell our culls, we got rid of them!

My dad expected each of every dogs we owned to be an equal, full circle.

If they did everything but something that "BUT" in there got them out of our pack.

You can make any dog to handle, come when you say to, not bark, load up, stay in the box till his/her name is called, those kinds of things.
We can't make a dog hunt if it just doesn't have it in them.

Sorry for the confusion, I can kinda see how things got a little confusing.

~Nikki~

Sorry Nikki but there isn't anything confusing about what I said cause it looks like the only thing or person that is confused is dawg. I don't need to modify, change or clarify anything that I've said about handling my dogs cause plenty of people have seen it. My dogs listen, period! And like I said, if a pack of hounds are running a track backwards or running a sow and I'm standing on a boar track they damn well better listen, stop and come to dad.

There was a time when I handled dogs just like hickey and dawg did--drag them around on a leash. However, I have continued to work with the same dogs over the years (rather than looking for the silver bullet) and they leave a track, the tree or a bayup when I want them to. If you (dawg and hickey) beleive that your dogs have more heart or drive than mine then dream on boys............

ike