Mountains to Swamps to Corn

Casey Stutzman joins Houndsman XP Podcast host Chris Powell for this face to face interview. Casey drove from the Rockies in NW Montana to Wisconsin Swamps to chase bear and then through the corn mazes of Indiana to have this conversation at the Houndsman XP Base Camp in South East Indiana.

Chris and Stacy talk about the differences between bear hunting in the Rockies to the Wisconsin Northwoods and swamps. This podcast goes deep into the different cultures of bear hunting in different regions of the country. It is packed full of straight talk about hunters and hounds.

Topics discussed:

- Hunting alone vs. hunting in a group

• Beer first Bear’s a bonus
• Straight talk about dog training and behavior

- Getting the most from your hounds

www.houndsmanxp.com

[00:00:00] This is the Hounds Man XP podcast.

Good dog. Get that burn. Get that burner.

The original podcast for the complete Hounds, man. Get your.

The podcast that represent our lifestyle of extreme [00:01:00] performance. Asked you? Yeah. Good boy, ranger Uniting Hounds across the globe from east to west, north to south. If you're gonna catch a cat or a lion, you have to have teamwork. We take you to the wildest places on earth. Yeah. So how many days a week can you spend on that?

As much as I can, to be honest with you. Anytime that I get I'm out there. Join us for every heart pounding adventure on Hounds Man xp. I'll tell you, like I tell everyone else, I'm gonna hunt whether you're here or not, so you might as well be here.

Welcome to the Hessman XP podcast. I'm your host, Chris Powell. Just like every other week, when you see the real thing, then there's [00:02:00] no mistake in it. And it's so true when you see a true hounds man, a guy that just excels at being a good human being. And that's Casey Stutzman. Casey joins me on this episode of the XP podcast.

He was in Wisconsin bear hunting. He spent a week up there. Hunting and then traveled down through the corn mazes of northern Indiana, central Indiana, and then finally to the foothills of Appalachia down here on the North Bank of the Ohio River. And Casey made the trip. He'd never been in this country.

We hung out for a couple days, showed him all the boring things that are in this country. It's hard to show a guy cool stuff when you come from someplace like Northwest Montana and you make your living in the Rocky Mountains. Casey's a helicopter logger. He's a custom home builder.

Everything he does excellent and outstanding, [00:03:00] and his hounds are just in the same category. He's very meticulous. The cool thing about Casey though is he is an objective thinker. He's always trying to learn new stuff and he's very humble about his hounds and his hunting, and I. The cool thing about Casey is he is always trying to find the good in people, and we're gonna get his whole story.

We're gonna compare bear hunting and the rocky mountains to, to bear hunting in Wisconsin. We're gonna talk about the culture there. He is gonna talk about all the things that he saw that he appreciated from a great group of bear hunters up in Wisconsin, the way they helped each other out. And we will discuss those differences there.

We're gonna talk about dog work. We're gonna take a deep dive into dog folks. It's gonna be it's gonna be a good discussion on our philosophies on starting pups, to introducing pups, to, to keeping Hounds rolling. [00:04:00] There's a lot of good dog talk in this podcast too, so buckle up. It's gonna be a good one.

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Folks, this is a box shaker. It's recorded live in person right here from the Hounds man XP Base Camp in Bear Branch Indiana with Casey Stutsman. Let's get the tailgate down. It's time to dump the box.[00:06:00]

So you're gonna get locked. Y'all, now that the recorder's going no we're in the right frame of mind, I think. Yeah. Move your move your mic up a little bit. I might need to turn you up just a tad Tadd too. Now. Now gimme some right there. Yep.

The mouth. You gonna be a mouth breathing, mouth breather? Yeah, for sure. All right. Good deal. Casey Stutzman's in the house all the way from Montana here at the World Hounds man. XP Base camp in Bear Branch, Indiana. It's the first time you've ever been this far east, isn't it? Yeah, it is for sure.

It's been it'd been an interesting trip. I've never been on the other side of the Old River. So you called me yesterday and you're like, is there a fire or is your air OIS hazy? I just started laughing. Yeah, you gotta. It's like eating pudding, trying to breathe down [00:07:00] here. But yeah, we were climbing those steps and you were struggling down there at Markland Dam.

'cause the air was too thick for you. Yep. Yeah. A lot of difference. It's always good to get outta your own little comfort zone a little bit and see what's out there. Yeah, for sure. Your dogs look good, man. They're look hard. You've been chasing bears in Wisconsin. How many days were you up there?

I think I only hunted four days, maybe five days. With up there. Yeah. Yeah. I decided to come on all the way out here and meet up with those guys and bring girl out here to you. But we it wasn't totally planning and it was never a good time, to break away from home in the summer.

We try to get a lot of our work done and we just got off of our spring season up there and, yeah. And yeah, I'm glad I did. It's been fun. Like I said, really cool to get to hunt with those guys in Wisconsin and see see what that's all about. It's a Larry always told me, he's you gotta go see it.

Just once. It's a at least once you gotta experience it. Yeah. Yeah. Really an enjoyable time though, for sure. Yeah. Way different. I didn't [00:08:00] know what to expect. And do you have a radio in your truck? So I do. Yeah. Actually. So you were already wired, you were already hotwired into the whole culture.

I was, yeah. No, we jumped right into it. They had to move their channels around a little bit to make it work with mine, but but yeah. Yeah, that that's definitely a part of it is communicating with everybody when you're working in a crew like that. Breaker. Breaker. Yeah. That's what Larry used to say.

Yeah. Yep. It's like Tim for good buddy got one rolling. That's right. He's coming towards the hard top. Cut 'em off. We hunted the weekdays and it wasn't terribly busy, but there definitely was a, it was a game changer on the weekend. Showed up by pile of folks and lots of guys and but good people.

Like I a big part of that experience to me was seeing that culture that kind of surrounds Yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about, 'cause it's cool and that's one of the benefits that I get doing the podcast Yeah. Is I see the difference in the culture from, Appalachia all the way to the Rocky Mountains and up and down the [00:09:00] Rockies even of the different, the way different ways people hunt.

And it's one of those deals where it's the first time you go do something, it's completely different. But you realize that there's a reason why things are different Yeah. In different regions of the country. Yeah. No, that's just it. Like I, like I've, I told those guys a lot, I asked them lots of dumb questions and, but I told 'em a lot though.

It's it's a pretty special thing where you've got, because you're just hemmed in there is an unlimited country and there's a lot of folks, a lot of bear hunters, which is awesome. That's really a good problem to have until they're all right in your backyard, yeah. But it is, there's such a culture surrounding bear hunting that's so strong in Wisconsin that that it's seen in a positive light on a community level, yeah. For the most part, we were in rural Wisconsin. Sure. And you just really see it in, in billboards and you see it in, in the towns.

But I thought it was just cool like it's just a unique thing that [00:10:00] everybody's. Willing to put up with each other and help each other out and let that guy's dogs be a part of this race. And I'm sure there's some real selfish guys that, you know, that kind of abuse and use all the young guys for their own.

For themself. I'm always a little jealous of my time alone hunting all the time, 'cause I get to a hundred percent focus on my dogs and my agenda and but in the, in turn I'm, I obviously don't have anybody to help me. And when you dive off the mountain, you know you're hiking all the way back to the mountain.

It sure be awful nice to jump on the radio once in a while and say, Hey, pick me up down here in the bottom and have somebody rip around and pick you up. 30 30 or 40 mile road trip around to pick you up. Yeah. I can just, there's just a lot of value in that and helping each other bait, and everybody baiting together or being unified in their plan on what they're doing, because that's a key component in being successful in those small, smaller areas is keeping those bears in those smaller areas so you don't always end up down in, in the private or [00:11:00] something.

That's new to me. I haven't ever really jumped into the baiting thing ever I've ran a fair bit, but, it's always just, yeah. 'cause Idaho's right across this hop, skip, and a jump for you. Yeah. And I've, been fortunate enough to draw a non-resident Idaho quite a few different years.

I spent quite a bit of time helicopter logging over there on the road, camped up in the woods, and. And so got to know a lot of that country. The years I was usually camped though I didn't have a non-resident hound handler, I was unsuccessful those years. So I was up there but my dogs were with me 'cause my family was with me and Everybody thought, I'm sure they knew I was running bears 'cause I had bunch of blue ticks all staked out and Dale.

But but to be quite honest, I wasn't hunting those years, but wishing I was. But regardless be, I never did jump into running any bates over there, even when I was able to legally mostly just because of a time factor, it was a few hours for me to get over there and I. Was working pretty much, worked for myself, but I was working plenty enough that I'd blessed over there for 2, 3, [00:12:00] 4 days at a whack.

And, so to keep bait steadily working, it just wasn't really that, feasible. And I was always able to use some rig dogs so that, and, it worked out good enough for me. I was always a little jealous, starting young dogs, getting them on a lot of 'em. Those baits are sure beneficial.

But another challenge I found though is that being over there you can't really go anywhere without rigging off of somebody's bait. And I'm just some dumb kid from Montana rolling down the road and get a strike, dump dogs and, then you end up bumping into some guy a week later and he's you're the one who's been running off my bait.

And you're like, gosh, I've I I didn't know they had bait down in that drawer or whatever. Sure. And. I know you feel bad 'cause it's but every bear in the country's on their baits 'cause their baits are pretty rocking and Right. Whether they're outfitters or whatever and got a bunch of bait sitters or they're bait sitters.

And so that was a little bit of a challenge to try to find a little corner of the world that I wasn't bothering anybody, but [00:13:00] also I was able to. But that actually still had some bears in it. 'cause those, a lot of those long-term historical bait sites are pretty effective at keeping everything dialed in those places.

They get 'em established and man, there's so much work and maintain and ab bait. Yeah. Especially out in Idaho because regulations say, what is it, 200 yards from vehicle access? Yeah, I think so. So that means you're packing, you're packing bait up the mountain or Yeah. You're going up or down one one direction or the other.

For sure. Yeah. I remember one bait Larry had out there that was down the mountain. And it was a pretty good walk, decent walking. It was good. It was easy walking. It was a general slope down. And I always liked that bait, yeah. If we're gonna run a bait's one of, let's do the one on the one coming back empty.

Yeah. I think, back to the whole, to wrap up that thing about bait and I I had intentions, but there's also a sense even now where our season there in [00:14:00] Montana that we got, which we can get to into a little later there's no baiting obviously in Montana. And we have this short little season that's really early, but it has been a I don't really wanna build dogs that.

Are dependent on bait in any form or fashion. It's imperative to have good strike dogs to, to hunt at home. And so even last year I did draw it on a resident Idaho. I just, and I was thinking about throwing a bait in and, it's better to just, and you thought, no, I'll just run off somebody else's face.

That's a challenge, like I said. And I can see though, like back to, we're talking about challenges in different places. It does get hard when you got a whole crew that always hunts this area and they've got a lot of good baits and, guys start, you kinda get outta your own little neck of the woods.

You start ruffling feathers, I'm sure. That'd be a challenge for sure. Where I'm pretty spoiled. We've just got unlimited public and And not, there, there can be a lot of guys, but there's plenty of space. And that's the main thing that I try to explain. Like I, I'll run into guys in Virginia or whatever and you're hunting,[00:15:00] they'll talk about the Jefferson, Washington, Jefferson National Forest being millions of acres, but it is a huge, chain of public land, but it's narrow and it's broken up.

And so it, it's not unusual to, to run a bear out of that area and end up on private or something in that, something like that. Whereas in the west, the, it's unbroken. There might be a small little piece of private and, but the space is just unbelievable. You can drive for seven or eight hours in.

The North, north Fork country down there in Idaho and never worry about being in any private the closest private is 25 miles away. Yeah, for sure. And all that's changing out west. It's just amazing, little chunks that [00:16:00] we were able, we've been able to use as pri as public for years that were maybe big blocks of timber company land and stuff.

And those places are selling off and they're building houses and, we're seeing, there's a lot of fragmentation mining claims and somebody ends up that's never been a deal. It's been there for and you might trail a line through this little strip of gravel down in some C creek draw, but now all of a sudden it's all, we got signs on it and but it's the only way to hike to the other side of the drainage or something.

So you almost that dumb little strip down the bottom might ruin a whole C creek drainage. 'cause you know you're gonna end up over there. But some guy builds a little house in there and he's protecting his little lady foot strip of gravel down the C creek. It's it's some sort of precious gold and, it's his land.

He can do what he wants. I'm respectful that but you do start seeing, it's amazing how a small 20 acre parcel in the middle of a whole bunch of public can still ruin that piece of Publix. It's like you still are afraid to get in there. Oh man. We found a spot [00:17:00] and it, Larry Anderson was a common friend between them, both of us.

He was just, we're referring to Larry being here today. Yeah. We'll be referring to Larry a lot in this podcast. But, Larry was the guy that, that he introduced me to. The Western hunting in a way that nobody else did. I got to see all four seasons of the Rocky Mountains because of Larry Anderson.

And it was a valuable thing. But anyway, we found this spot west of where Larry lived there and Larry started calling it Hoosier Holler because it was just so easy, and me being from Indiana, it was a dig on me. It's oh, I even Chris p can hunt in here. That's right. This is Hoosier holler.

And so we're cruising down through there, there were always signs in there about being controlled by so and so gold mining company and the understanding was always, never had no trespassing signs on it, but it was always a deal where, It's not public [00:18:00] property, but nobody, there was no expectations.

We even ran into some gold mine employees there one time, and they're like, yeah, if we're not actively mining just hunt nobody. It's no big deal. And so we're cruising down through there. We hunted in a couple springs, and then one fall before the fall season, all of a sudden there's people in there surveying and everything.

And so Larry being a people person, he pulls up and he rolls one today and he's Hey man, what's going on? The guy's wearing hard hats out in the middle of wearing, the bright green traffic vests Yeah. Out in the middle of the woods. And it is like, what are you guys doing? It's oh, we're surveying.

We're gonna open the mine back up. We're gonna reclaim this property and mine it again. And we got thought, and as soon as we pulled away, we were like, crap, Hoosier Holler is closed. Just totally changed. And that was such great habitat down through there. But even in the middle of that [00:19:00] big expanse, yeah, there was still an obstacle.

We've gained a pile of people at the Northwest Montana specifically. Other places always are too, but we've gained probably a th a third as many more residences were there in the last two years. Yeah. What is the population of Kalispell now? Kalispell Proper's probably, I don't know, 30,000 or something.

40,000. But with the Flathead but you've, yeah. It's a conglomerate of a whole bunch of. Small towns that are all merging together right now. So it's crazy, but I think we gained 60,000 new residents or something like that in a year and a half, two years. It was like the number three fastest growing city in the US after Covid.

Yeah. So we went from the Flathead Valley, went from maybe 80,000 in the whole area, whole area. 50, maybe more, like 50,000 in the whole area to, yeah, probably over a hundred, 120. I don't know. It's growing. It's enough. You're feeling it, you feel it. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you got big billboards all over saying, go back where you came [00:20:00] from, Montana's full, yeah.

There's a lot of resistance from the locals that are feeling it, but I can't blame 'em. A lot of them are coming from Washington and California and those cesspools. Sure. So if they, if they have half a brain I'd, I would get out of there as quick as I can too. An interesting side note on that is, our state.

It was voted pretty dang conservative this whole last couple cycle. This whole last cycle. More conservative than it has for years after the influx of people from non out state. They're fleeing the liberalism. I think. I think we are, I think we've gained a lot of that and that actually, to be honest, is a big component.

The way that they voted, our state voted was a big component in us having the right current climate to be able to, get legislation passed. Yeah. To have a bear season with Hounds. Sure. So I haven't seen it all as negative, but boy, I don't know. To somebody who's used to having a lot of space to themself it, you start feeling it when just people in the woods, just people out and about and, places I'd never, ever see anybody and have all time myself.

Yeah. How many myself. How days did you Dr. [00:21:00] Drive by MacArthur Lake and never saw anybody. And now you drive by and there's 15 vehicles sitting in the Oh yeah. And all the campgrounds are just packed all the time And people are using the woods too. We noticed that in after the whole Covid deal, a lot of these people were laid off and whatever.

That spring there was just campers everywhere. People just left town and went out in the woods and they never quit. They it's busy, busier. I complain compared to a lot of places in the country we got a lot of space and I'm grateful for it. Yeah. So it's good to go and see something like that.

So I'm, I quit moaning about my own little corner. What kinda obstacles do you think that's gonna bring down the road though? You're looking at, first generation, you got mom and dad that are like, we're tired of, whatever's going on in the city and riots in the street and the liberal agendas from San Francisco and Portland and Seattle and yeah.

We'll go to Montana and we'll, Be good conservative voters in Montana. But then it comes in, comes [00:22:00] down to, these people getting on the town boards and wondering why your water system isn't the same. And then you need green space and you need this and you need that. And before you know it, you've got a whole next generation of liberals.

They always drag what they came from wherever they go. It might not be right away, but ultimately they, that, that's just always the trend. Sure. We definitely try to resist that. But it's sad feeling the tidal wave 'cause it's. There's nothing really, nobody likes change.

I, no, and you can't stop it. Yeah. That's the sad reality of it is it's coming whether you're ready or not it's like the 4 0 6 club down in Darby. Sure. Larry and I used to stop there on our way north or our way south. We'd stop there on our way south and we'd stop there on our way north, back and forth to work in Kalispell.

And you just go in and walk in and sit down at the bar and eat a ribeye, a steak right off the bar. Yeah. And now you can't even get [00:23:00] in the place. You gotta wait 45 minutes to get in. It's what happened to this? I don't like that. No. It's, like I said, change is hard. I try to have A pretty open mind, and we've talked here all morning and last night and stuff, and I try not to moan and complain about it too much.

'cause it sure doesn't help any, I know that. Sure. And but it is really hard. Coming from what I grew up with and all the, and the culture that surrounded that area was, ranchers and loggers and, farmers and and then you know, that whole community to where it's a hundred percent tourism based almost now.

And there still is that element, but, just our landowners up there. Just lots of super wealthy with lots of extra, their third and fourth homes on all the lakes and I've been a builder a lot of my life too, and that's, I've made a living building multimillion dollar houses for rich guys too, so I can't, yeah, no doubt.

And I've gotten to be a part of building some incredible stuff that if I was building for, pole barns for farmers or something, I'm grateful I'm not doing that. [00:24:00] There is a lot of, economical benefit to the area. Obviously having all that money rolling around, but it isn't necessarily always the people that I'd like to see.

We've, just, and I think as a culture in the country, that's just, I don't know, people have changed a lot. I think it presents a good opportunity there. You talk about running into people in the woods and things like that it's what are you doing here?

What do those dogs do? Because I don't care if they came out and they voted for, whoever conservative, that's not part of their culture, and they're not sure where they're at with that. And they've heard all of the media and different things that have come along and the narrative and Facebook about, they that, that say that hounds men are evil and bad and there's an opportunity, but there's an opportunity there.

Just there's an opportunity for you to make money. There's an opportunity there for you to help educate them and tell them the truth about it. If you'll just take a few minutes and stop and talk to 'em. Yeah, for sure. They're curious. [00:25:00] Yep. Yeah, and I've traveled around and haunted a fair bit and it always has been a neat like I've always appreciated those cultures in those areas where it's extremely historic.

I spent time in Utah and. We, looked at trying to move there. Spent quite a bit of time in Idaho over the years and everybody just walks up to you like, knowing full well that what you're doing. You're like, oh man, you seen any critters? You right what you find. And man, and my uncle was a bear hunter.

My grandpa was a bear hunter and a man I'd love to go again. Or they, don't like 'em one or the other. There's usually two camps. It's but I'm always amazed at how everybody is familiar with the activity. And like in Montana for the, a lot of people are, obviously there's a history.

It used to be that way, Montana history of, cat hunters especially. But but it is very much in the winter it's not the same. 'cause we don't interact, if it's, if you only have legal season structure to hunt in the winter you're not gonna interact with the level of public as you do in the spring and the fall.

Sure. Yeah. And so they just don't see us. We're out there when they're. Ice [00:26:00] fishing, even the, recreational people that are in the, that do would be in the woods in the winter or in the summer. And so that was an interesting component. Even in our spring season we've got now is that Yeah.

You just end up interacting with people. 'cause they're parked at a trail head Sure. In their hiking to a lake or they're or they're out camping with their family and here you're roading dogs by, on a forest service road somewhere and they see 'em or people out berry picking in the summer, whatever.

So it, it has been a I think there's a lot of opportunity to interact with more people and it wasn't like we intended to do that, but you just flew under the radar a lot when you're out there Sure. In the middle of February and there's just nobody else is out there and some trappers or somebody, but Right.

So it has been fire firewood cutters. Yeah. If they're cutting fire in February they should have been getting at, they're. They should have been getting after it earlier. 'cause you better believe it. Yeah. Yeah. But you see a few of them. I remember going up the road and up there one day in Tally, and there's this, if you buy a forest or as fire permit, it says, no, [00:27:00] no firewood cutting on.

I can't remember what the number of that road is. 10, 10 80 or whatever. No firewood cutting on that road. And I'm driving up the road and here this guy's got this green larch just smoked right down the road, which you can't cut green trees anyway. If anybody had know, you know your larch, Western Larch or trees lose all their needles.

Large pine. Yeah. They're they lose all their needles every year. So they, to an unknowing person, they might think they've died. It's a dead, it's a dead, it's a dead tree. It's a dead lodgepole. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. What's interesting about that is there's all, conifers will lose all their needles and they cycle.

Yeah. But. Some of 'em have on a five year cycle and they replace every needle and some of 'em are on a furs are on a three year cycle, and pine are on a three year cycle, I think. Your Western large, they just lose them every year. Every year. Yeah. So they're not a deciduous like some people might think.

But anyhow, this yeah, so they got this big gorgeous, three log large tree, smoked right down the [00:28:00] road trying to burn, burning some blocks off or with the old poo on. And they're stuck in the ditch with this pickup with bald tires and, that you can imagine. And I pull up there, of course, I just want to get by him so I can get, keep hunting and, but you gotta drag this guy out of the road and out of the ditch and help him get out of there.

And you finally get him out of the way enough and you get to where you can drive around him and you're like, man, I'd hurry up and get the heck outta here or get that thing cleaned up and take it home because I was like, you kinda ain't supposed to be cutting firewood on this particular road.

And, but you can see that and you're not supposed to be green cutting green large. You can't grow green large no matter what. And you can't cut on this. This is one of the few roads in the entire, national forest in this area that. If I had national forest that you can't be cutting a tree on and even a dead tree, standing tree.

And but you can just see that, these are just a couple deadbeat dudes that are him and his buddy and they're, his wife finally with California plates that they haven't switched over yet. And his wife finally got tired of burning the furniture and she's booted him outta the [00:29:00] house.

You worthless coal. Go get some firewood today. And so he wanders out there and drinks a beer with his buddy and smokes, look at this dead tree. Smokes a big green. Yeah, you always, yeah. You look at the stump and you wonder how somebody didn't die. But anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man, I love, yeah. So the, everything's gonna change.

It's always changing. But the cool thing, one of the conversations we've talked about since you've been here is, some of your observations from. Going from pretty much being a loner and, hunting by yourself in the Rockies to going to the bear hunting culture of Wisconsin.

Yeah. Like I said, I think it gave me a great appreciation for their sense of community. These guys are, and I just got a little glimpse I'm, I can't speak to by any means, the whole thing, but the fellows that I was there with are, just good, solid humans [00:30:00] regardless. They respect each other and probably not every day they work together. They kinda all have a common goal. They all kinda work with the same plan in general. And they're even working together genetically with some of the dogs, mixing pups back and forth where they can keep and prove out some crosses, which is super helpful for anybody.

Yeah. And. And the young guys coming up there, there's a lot of mentorship that goes on that these young guys get to learn from the other guys. And I'm sure the older guys had the, a similar experience where they were fairly mentored Yeah. Into the sport where, in our country, I, you know I was fortunate enough to get to know a few guys, but I still really didn't get a chance to hunt.

I would go and tag along with somebody if they'd let me. And I would learn a pile but it's not the same unless you were born into it. It, there, there is an aversion to entry in our country up by us and not as much anymore. G p sss have really changed that made it more accessible to a lot more people.

And there's of course, obviously always somebody that'll take you along or whatever, but and not that guys don't hunt and [00:31:00] cruise up, up by us too, but, as a general. Rule. I was just impressed at their level of, respect for each other and their kind of cooperation in the race even, and the communication on the radios and, I felt like a coal, I had a co one long hard running race and we packed some dogs in and had a couple dogs falling out and a couple of mine fell out. And one, one, when we were trying to catch up dogs off the road, she slipped by.

I wasn't actually there, and I was looking for another dog. Meanwhile, this other kid runs in there and goes, gets my dog, brings him out and then when I finally drive up and around those guys went in and got my other dog for me and brought her out, and I'm just sitting like a road toad up here just waiting for everybody to bring my dogs and gather 'em up for me, but, they were, they were happy to do it. It, and that's just a normal occurrence, I've never had anybody go get my dogs for me in my life, sure. It was like, that was like, like an interesting thing, but I could, I, and I would be happy to do that for somebody else, obviously.

Sure. So it wasn't like [00:32:00] I, but it is a kind of a sense of community and a cooperation. And that in, in the organizational structure, the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association. Yeah. The Michigan, all these groups that are. They're strong in numbers and they're strong in community.

And I think that's a very much a Midwest quality anyway. The Midwest nice kind of, we don't have big, snowy covered mountains and millions of acres to hunt on, so we gotta hang our hats on something. And you gotta get along. Yeah. You just do, if you're gonna do it, you need to get along.

And if you're the kind of guy that don't get along, you're gonna probably burn a lot of bridges and you ain't gonna have nowhere to go, sure. So anyway, I just was impressed by that for sure. And and we could do you think more of that's completely different?

Do you think there's more of the loner type attitude and maybe a little more contention in the Rocky Mountains than there are? What do you I don't know. I if the community part stuck out to you than Is [00:33:00] that because it doesn't exist? No, it does. It does. And it exists in little ways.

You just, there's just a lot more lone rangers in our country. We're really, they live there to be alone. Yeah. We wanna be alone. We really don't care what anybody else is doing. We're out there doing our thing. We don't really care if anybody knows about it. I'm doing this for me.

I don't do this for anybody else. And, and and and I'd also say that those same kind of John Wayne do it yourself, of pull, tough, that guys that are aspiring to that that image or that identifying themselves that way. Sure. A lot of them, tend to be a bunch of, either they're they're not what I've seen is a bunch of guys that are, that in the west.

There are also a lot of 'em though, are real jealous. A lot of 'em are real jealous and real territorial. Okay. And real, what are you doing up here a thing, and that's a crazy thing. I've said this before, it's like when you hunt in Virginia, if you pass six trucks, of another group in your area, it's kinda like [00:34:00] typical day on the mountain and out west, if you've passed six, six trucks on the mountain, it's like, holy crap, where'd all these people come from?

Or one set of tire tracks up, up there that you haven't seen all winter and Oh, we were, yeah. You're like, who the heck's up here? It's funny to me because I don't remember where I, or if you don't drive in the ruts after somebody's Yeah. You go screw the frigging road up. I, what was funny, last year I bumped into this guy and he.

Moved here a year or two ago or something. I don't know where he is from. I didn't even really get to know him or anything, but he didn't want to talk, but I was up there hunting me and my son and, for the last several years though, I've been primarily hunting on the road, staying in other parts of the state.

And so I hunt on the weekends when I'm home and I hunt, in weeks that I'm not working for the state, but I don't pound the country at home like I used to. Yeah. And I go up there and I'm hunting in this area that [00:35:00] I've, I'm sitting there and I could think of a hundred trees I've been to within a couple miles of there.

And hunted. And anyway, and this guy comes flying up the road and I just kicked the dog out and he treated me. He goes, who the heck are you and what are you doing in my hunt, my mountain? He says, and I'm just like, who the heck are you? Yeah. And he had just moved there from Washington and, he hunted in Washington before that is what I gathered and, anyway, but it was just a funny 'cause, it goes both ways.

Sure. Where he just hadn't seen me in there all winter. And it doesn't mean that it's, so anyway, that was an interesting experie. What was the biggest cultural we get? I wanna talk about cultural differences, and then I wanna talk about, dog work differences. I wanna get into dog work differences, but what was the biggest cultural difference that you saw coming from, never being to Wisconsin before, and then here you are from Marion, Montana to Wisconsin.

Culturally, I just would say the cooperation between people. And I can only say that too. Like I said, it wasn't beer at nine [00:36:00] o'clock in the morning. There was and you don't drink beer. We'll just get that out there. But yeah, that had to be a shocker. Yeah I I was disappointment to a few folks I think.

But but I think mostly Just that, that level of cooperation. And like I said, that it's not totally fair to me to stereotype our country as everybody being independent because there's plenty of guys in our area that all work together and they enjoy the comradery of everybody going. I've seen that.

Yeah. It's Hey, you guys got a, what are you guys up to? Hey, we lost a hound up here. Hey, I'll sure give you a call if I see it. Yeah. And I've seen that firsthand. I know that happens. Oh, absolutely. And we, everybody will help each other out. Sure. But there, that's a necessity to being successful, honestly.

Maybe not completely. I'm sure you can, find a little hole, and especially if you've got a lot of time and you're not pounding the weekends and fighting, like if, but if that's, you're working a real job and you better find a crew that treat you know, that you treat good and you Yeah.

You're, you have to make sure that you're holding up your inner deal and you're valuable to them. Yeah. And you're helping bait and you're helping doing the work and you're and then they're happy to, [00:37:00] let you come in. The, yeah, that was an interesting component there. Socially the the other thing to me just the difference in terrain, it's flat as a pancake, and the, I've made a living in the woods my whole life, logging or, and I've seen where I've seen where you've logged and it's like you need to be tied off to log the places that you've logged. And I don't know how you do it but I've never, I got a mic turned around once in a while here and there, but I've never been in a position where I just was like, had no idea which direction I'm looking.

And everywhere I go in, in this country, I have no idea where I'm at. I'm in Wisconsin. Yeah. Or even here, I'm just like it's so crazy to me. Like I'm pretty sure like I need a compass here pretty bad. And that's a weird, it's a weird feeling to me just because, I've just grew up my whole life in the brush and found my way in and outta places in the dark, no big deal.

I never had this feeling like I didn't know where I was. Such and such peak is you can always see landmarks. You can, or [00:38:00] head down the creek. The crick's in the bottom. And that crick comes out down here and this road crosses that or, yeah.

Head to the ridge and you, that ridge will take you off and there's a trail that comes, it's these the terrain drives, your ability to navigate. Yeah. For there it's just blocks and just green leaves in every direction. Just green leaves everywhere you look and you get so distracted, swatting, Skeeters that you forget where you went and No, but that's all joking and, I wasn't like completely helpless, but the point being is that I was like, that's a real legitimate challenge, yeah. Is a, is awareness. And to me that was a real eye-opener. Plus all the vegetation's the same, we have a lot of varying vegetation, different, cut lines or just natural openings or, you get down in this place, all this stuff grows.

A lot of the same, just because it's all exposed to the same sunlight. It's all exposed to the same weather. It's a very continuous habitat that is so that was a definite eye opener and new experience to me. When we taught, we went through the land navigation courses and stuff in the [00:39:00] Marine Corps and then of course, while we were working and stuff, as in my job, there's such a thing as being like a right foot dominant person.

Naturally, if you try to take off walking on flat ground and your right foot dominant, you'll actually stray off and start cutting to your left. When you're in the Rocky Mountains, You don't just accidentally go up a rock face, you know that, you know you're side hill and it's there and you don't, it's oh yeah, I'm right foot dominant, so I'm gonna, I'm going drift off and change elevation by 200 feet where you're on flat ground.

Before you know it, you're thinking, okay, we're going this way and we're talking, distance. But when you're dodging brush and doing different things before you know it, if without the visual it's, if you're not used to being in it and you don't have that internal thing, it's like, it's not hard to get turned around.

And I've always prided myself on even being inside a building somewhere and knowing north, south, east, and [00:40:00] west, just, it's, but I've been in woods right here at night in Flatwoods that I've been in 20 or 30 times. And we were walking out one night and a guy I was hunting with, he's don't we need to go over here?

And I was like, I don't think so. And I look at my garments sure enough, so it can happen and it can happen real easy, yeah. Oh yeah. I was grateful that, those guys kept me lined out and kept me from wandering around for a while. They have to holler you back to the truck. They never did that, but ho your horn.

I do have a and of course I did have a Garmin, so I could breadcrumb my way out of there. But I think Garmins have dumbed me down so much. I'm so used to looking at the Garmin and you can see your backtrack and everything else. So there's a lot of times where I'll just I'm walking in here, I know the dogs are treated there.

I don't need my Garmin out and put it away and come back out. Now this country down in here is not hard for me at all. I never get lost down here in this this is the hills, this is Roy. And Yeah. And they got a lot of defining, I've been lost s I've been lost in Northern Indiana, cornfields for longer.

And [00:41:00] that's miserable. You're trying to side, you're cutting crossroads at corn. Corn, and you can't see anything. Yeah. Except corn all the way around you. Yeah. And before you know it, you pop out on the road and you're like, where the heck am I? Yeah. No, thanks. That doesn't appeal to me.

There's an awful lot of corn though between here and Montana. That's, I can guarantee you that. Holy smokes. Yep. Yeah, definitely. That was unique. And then, talking about the dogs, we first and foremost I, everywhere I've gone I truly, my, my philosophy on it is a good dog is a good dog, is a good dog.

And they're gonna, if they're given time to acclimate and, learn how to handle whatever it is that you're asking them to do, they're gonna perform well. There's obviously, different definite skill sets and tools in the toolbox that are more useful in certain parts of the country, or necessary, maybe that you can get away with in another place and be successful, but there's no way you're gonna be successful in another piece of ground. Those guys', dogs obviously were great dogs and they've they [00:42:00] got a great system. One component that is interesting is, they don't really, how many states have you hunted in?

You've hunted, Montana, Idaho, Colorado yeah. Colorado Wyoming, New Mexico. New Mexico, Arizona. Nope. Utah. Utah, Nevada. Nope. That's probably it. Yeah. So you, you've been from the northwest down to the, the High Plains Desert Yeah. All the way down to New Mexico.

Yeah. With varying levels of success at different times, obviously. Sure. I mean that, so it has been a great, I really have appreciated that experience. 'cause what I've found is that every time you might struggle along for a while with dogs that were banging it up in another area and.

But eventually once they start clicking, once they start figuring it out they all of a sudden look good. And you give 'em the time they acclimate, they but sense different that it handles different Yeah. The, the Hounds Man XP podcast is fueled by joy Dog, food joy, dog food has a rich [00:43:00] tradition of supporting the Hounds Man of America, founded in 1945.

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Know where you stand with Onyx. And it gives, it's always given me a great appreciation for the guys that are doing it there, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? There's diff just every place has its own challenge, do you think a bear smells the same? Does a bear smell like a bear in Montana as a New Mexico bear to a Wisconsin bear, to a Virginia bear?

I think a bear smells like a bear, but I think the concentrations of scent based on the, do you think bears can pick up their scent? I haven't witnessed that, but I haven't seen very much. So we'll see. I think I think that's a loaded question, Chris. You do, it is a loaded question.

There's an agenda behind that question. I have. I think a bear smells like a [00:46:00] bear, but you don't think dietary, there's, you, yeah, there's gotta be some differences, but I think a bear dog, I. He might not strike on the first bear, he smells, but I, the second he smells it, knows that this is what he's looking for.

He's gonna turn, he's gonna crank. Is that, if that makes sense. I don't think it's like if my dog's, if you buy a pup from, if you got a finished dog that was a bear dog in Arizona, and you take him to Wisconsin and he stands on the road and stares at everything and you give him a week and you're running him with decent stuff and, you've got bear tracks.

He was never a bear dog in Arizona, let's put it that way. That's, I guess what I'm trying to say. Sure. And if that guy tells you, oh yeah, the bears just smell different up there. Then he hasn't, maybe he wasn't being real honest with you. I think good dogs are gonna thrive wherever they're placed.

That's my opinion. Like I said I think But it does it isn't always pretty at first. You know what I mean? Yeah. And and even as a dog owner, you gotta give them dogs a little bit of a[00:47:00] I don't know, a little grace. I, one another thing I noticed so much up there, the grass and the thick brush is I'm sure there's thicker places than where we were hunting, but we've got, we might have eight foot deep blow down.

A flaw pole blow down or something. That's a definite obstacle for dogs to get through. Yeah. You, my dogs will be all tore up on their chest. They'll have little scabs and stripes from climbing over heart, sharp, blow down running bears and, but, there it's peeling the stinking hair right off their ears and their eyes and they're getting seeds stuck in 'em.

And they're. It's like that grass is sharp. It takes a lot to just put their head down and bulldoze through something. They can't see what's on the other side. Yeah. I'm sure that's the same for Laurel Thickets. I'm sure that's the same for different places. You work a bear on the ground, out in the, in the, either in a parked out, Ponderosa Pine Park in New Mexico.

Up on the ridges or in Aspen Grove or. Or opening their, those dogs can work. They can get away. They can [00:48:00] really handle that bear, they go swimming through the thickets and all of a sudden this rough bear just stomps the living tire on 'em. They didn't even see it coming.

Those dogs are gonna handle that pressure a lot differently. And so they might be pretty confident working a bear and know how to work a bear, but they might get caught quite a bit because they're a little too gritty. They don't know how to give a little space when needed. So there's so many different aspects to terrain that drives the style of dog you need to put the right kind of pressure on.

But they gotta have that mindset of just bulldozing and pushing forward in that country too. Yeah. In Wisconsin, what I'm referring to. So I every place has its challenges, it, that's just the realities of it. And every place has good trailing days and every place has some bad trailing days.

And some places have more good ones than bad ones, and so it's easier to hunt there. But if you hunt every day, you're gonna have days when it's not easy. That's just how it is. Man, I think it's just important that you like, have a good appreciation for what everybody else deals with, yeah. So many times you roll into town and you've had successful,[00:49:00] you've had some good success with your dogs and you put 'em down on and something that they should be able to take. Everything else is taken it, or everything else is rolling that day, and that's your turn. And you put your dogs down and they just look like they've never looked at a bear track before.

They don't understand what's going on. And at that point, you. You it's, you know what you got. Yeah. You know that these dogs have already caught 40 bears in Montana from April to June, and we had a good season and now I'm up here and they just don't look sharp. They're not popping.

I I think it's just an acclimation thing, just like you being on flat ground and being like, which way's? The truck, they're like, yeah. Which way's? The truck. Which way's the truck? Which there's the bear, I think, and it was in, it was neat to see, we were just, had just broken over that hump.

It wasn't like they looked like a bunch of slappy the [00:50:00] first day, but it was just, you could look at them dogs and re you know, be like, yeah, they just traveled 20 miles, 20 hours and Yeah. Travel's hard. Yeah. And and they're in a place they didn't really know and they just didn't look on point, and then as the week progressed, and those guys, and I, they were, we were talking about that, Cody and Drew were both that way. They're just like, yeah, man. I was pretty amazed to see like that last day. Those dogs were cranking. They were. They were learning to get caught up and learning to pack in.

And my dogs, I don't typically pack dogs. I just haven't, or anybody pack too, when you're out there by yourself. Yeah. And also, you just dump the box. 'cause you probably aren't gonna be able to get dogs in this race. They're gonna be Yeah. Too far in there. You're not gonna have opportunities.

The one or two times that a bear does come and cross the road, you're wishing like, heck, you would've saved a dog. But maybe something once in a while, I don't know. But I've also am a sport hunter. I'm not like I'm, if I get flat, beat out, ran, if I dump the whole box and I got six, eight dogs, [00:51:00] whatever I'm packing and they run 22 miles.

And that bear, they didn't put enough pressure to tree that bear or whatever. I come back tomorrow, I go run something. My life will go on. I'm I, if I'm outfitting or something, I'm going to maybe put some more things in my own favor to save some dogs back, be a little more strategic about how I plan out that race.

But my goal in life is keeping dogs good and keeping dogs tired. And I can accomplish that. Probably some bear hunters think that's ignorant that you wouldn't be a little smarter. But that's just the reality of how I've always operated is I dumped a truck man just right.

Yeah. Jim Harrell says, son, you ain't got no sense. He says, you just dumped the box. You ain't got no sense. But getting back to the thing that, that caught my attention when you were, when we were talking about this, is the fact that you've been in hounds long enough. You're a good homan, you're observant.

You're not just basing [00:52:00] dogs. Look off. You've already taken into account that you've traveled 20 hours. Your ego is not riding on whether your dogs look like a million bucks that day. It's not gonna ruin your day. You're looking for the things that, okay, I know I'm not packing calls, so what is it that's off here?

Yeah. And you start problem solving at that point. Yeah. And you just get, you just let it go. It's okay. I think the cool thing is you just keep going. Just keep going. And that's the key, like with a puppy that's struggling with things that don't look right. Don't get torqued off about it.

Don't go beat the ribs and like just back out of it, man. And just keep going and keep going. And you look back a few years and you're like, dang, that's a nice dog. And most guys, I think they don't get to that point because they don't, they either give up on 'em or they create more problems by the way that they're treating those dogs or handling those dogs or their own emotions will actually, they're worried about [00:53:00] what people are gonna think about him.

Yeah. Oh, this Casey Stutzman, he, he's a government hunter. I got a buddy of mine, we were out there hunting with him in Montana. He's got some bang up bear dogs. They've got you built up and they introduce you to people and then all of a sudden you turn your dogs loose and they look pretty common.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden it's, the person that's not the immature person who lets her, that lets their. Ego control who they are. They get mad about it and they start putting the boots to dogs and Yeah. Getting on the button and before you know it, you've created a whole mess.

Yeah. You've created problems that didn't exist before that you didn't need. If you just let it ride it. Yeah. But what I did see is they started progressing and I think we were just on the cusp of, I, it would've been really fun to stay a couple more weeks and then just really start looking on Sure.

It was good. Like even, I got a couple dogs that are independent to a fault, and that's a valuable, actually asset to me at times. And I, he would not pack, wouldn't, he let out on a couple races and everybody caught him and passed him and then he just didn't want nothing to do with it.

That [00:54:00] kind of thing, which now granted he's by no means a slow dog, but he. He's just an independent dog. He wants to trail his own track, he wants to trail a track. A lot of bear hunter specifically probably can't stand a dog like that. I have to catch lion hunting. I gotta catch family groups, right?

Yeah. So if I got dogs scattered, catching three different lions a day, treat up, and that to me is valuable. And oh, I get it. So in your lion study work, you go in there and you turn loose on a female with two kittens. You wanna catch all three. I wanna catch all three.

So if you've got dogs that'll split up and tree the whole family group, boom. You've got your job done that day. Oh, and I get my job done in a few hours, right? Instead of having to. Or if everybody catches one, then I'm hiking circles around this group trying to find an out track or cast.

If there's no snow, I'm casting dogs trying to pick up a, wherever they left off. And and you'll work your guts out trying to round up the whole group. It was actually an interesting thing. 'cause if you're just sport hunting and you catch one of the two or whatever, you're [00:55:00] happy you go home.

We caught a cat. Yeah. Go try to catch all, every single one of 'em. And it's it's the harder than it think some days. But anyway, and I'm not saying like I specifically kept that dog for that purpose. But I don't get too worried about. A dog that's real independent he's gonna lead 90% of the races anyway.

Yeah. And he, I, he is what he is and I'm not like even being critical of him, but in that instance, he's not gonna just catch up to dogs like, and then if he gets behind, when they're behind, they perpetuates being behind sometimes. Regardless.

Anyway, he I can't remember what I was saying about him, but by the end of the week though, he was like I turned him in and he just ripped up in there and got caught up and was right there with the lead dogs. And so what I'm saying is that a dog that he adapted to those conditions and what was expected of him and Right.

And was gonna, he did just fine. So those are the types of things though, that you notice when you staying, if you just stayed there and you just kept going, you'd see [00:56:00] those dogs progress and start looking on point with the rest of the dogs that are local dogs. And I told you this story too, you, I went to Utah and I was rigging around.

I couldn't get a strike, and I had been catching piles of critters with these dogs, and it just was a struggle, and it was, I was actually working down there, so I built a log home down there in four corners. And so I was hunting the San Juans and Lasal and some of that country up there.

And there was a lot of other guys in there that spring and it was just neat country, neat to get to see that culture. And, but I was starting to doubt what I got, these were good dogs and they were struggling, right? And anyway, this one real nice fellow that was a local kid there, he he'd been hunting up in there and finally I ended up bumping along behind him.

We were driving up the road. His dogs just rock a strike, right? And what'd your dogs do? They started strike struck a little bit, but these were really clean strike dogs at home. Yeah. And in Idaho, [00:57:00] and it, and they didn't look very good. And anyway, he kicks down and I kicked a couple of in behind them and I think they trailed through.

Maybe they even wandered around. And anyway, I did have a couple dogs there. We caught stuffed one in a hole in the rocks. And anyway, hiked in there with him and dogs baed on this thing. And the next day I went hunting. Boom. Struck a bear. Caught a bear Next day. Struck a bear. Caught a bear.

Struck a bear. Caught a bear. What caused that? What do you think it is? I truly, there is definitely that, that conversation about do bears smell different? Maybe that's some of it, maybe it's that they were looking for, let's just refer to it in weight. But let's just say his dogs knew that a fresh track.

Smells like a half a pound, right? My dogs have been striking on a track. They're looking for a three pound track, right? And maybe they're smelling those things, but not to them. That's not, it's not registering in their brain. This, I've ran bears at home and I get a whole nose full Sure.

And I know I can do this, but [00:58:00] they haven't realized that. Yeah. Boop. And it's not that's as good as it's gonna get today. So I, a dog with high prey drive Yeah. Will figure that out. And it's not that I, I don't just turn out on a rock and strike rock shakers where I'm expecting. If I get a clean bump, you don't cherry pick.

You don't know. I to, to a fault to be honest. I waste a lot of days and a lot of time when I should just drive around the corner and get a box shaker. And instead I rig something that's 800 yards down the canyon and I find a lot of pleasure. And those dogs finally figured out how to.

Dive off the mountain 600 yards and hit that track that's down in the C Creek, or I think, I don't, I think you, you're never gonna develop super good, accurate rig dogs if only, if you're always just waiting for that box shaker, man, I'm telling you what it's one of those deals that I've seen it myself, where you, if you're willing to put in the bootle, the dog will never learn to take that track and how far they need to travel to [00:59:00] actually hit the track and take the bear to jump and all that stuff.

If all you're ever looking for is the box shakers and making it easy it's a confidence issue in my opinion. Cold trailing a cat or whatever is the exact same thing. If their whole time they're led to a, a two hour old snow track, when they come across a three day old track, even if they can register that it's a cat.

They've never taken that track to a tree. They've never turned this old track into a tree. But if you can keep pushing and you keep going and you turn 'em out on old tracks and they, the, your percentage of finishing those races, probably, maybe that goes, is gonna go down. But but when those dogs gain the confidence, I always it's kinda, maybe it's a stupid analogy, but I think I like the old what's the guy on Old Jim Carrey, and Dumb and Dummies.

He says, what's the chances of a girl like you getting with a guy like me? So you're saying there's still a chance and I want my hounds, to say, so you're saying there's a chance I want them to. That's right. I want [01:00:00] them to hit that cent and go, yep, we're gonna get this done. We're gonna get this done.

And they push it with that intensity and that belief, that hope that they know that I can turn this old track into some, into a tree. But if they, if you've never asked them to do that, it's not gonna register. It's not gonna register as a catchable animal they're still looking for that box shaker.

And so they're not gonna work hard on it. And I'm sure there's certain propensities and certain, gene pools even that are, have more prey drive to more Sure. More intensity on, on less scent. But the point I'm making is that I, anyway, that hunts with me knows I'm.

I'm pretty bad that way actually, that I just dump 'em, if they, if I know it's clean and it ain't trash, I put 'em down and I'll let 'em work, yeah. Let 'em work. Don't just throw 'em right back in the rig. Don't just keep driving on when they make a little circle.

How long will you sit there and let 'em work? How long would you sit there? It depends, it depends on where you're at and what it is and why it is, time of the day and what, where you think they're actually getting sent from. Is it time of day? Air occurrence. If you got some ripping thermals that [01:01:00] are coming from way a long ways away, it's probably pretty unlikely that you, those dogs are gonna get far enough.

But I'm watching it and these young dogs I've got here, they're your two and a half year old dogs. And they're learning and going a long ways. And so I'm always, and what do you consider what do you consider a long way? 600, 800 yards. Yeah. Yeah. If they go, but they're react, they're not just they're reacting to stuff.

They're, yeah. But the challenge is a lot of times those little bumps on the air currents, they'll be hover, on the wind they hit the dirt, they don't have access to that same air current. And but they'll be standing on their back legs and just keep working the direction they know it was coming from.

And they learn how to work into the wind and work before you know it. Boom. And a lot of times those strikes are actually a pretty fresh track. It might even be it might even be the bear laid in the right, they're actually getting body sent, a little bit on the wind like that.

And, you, they don't even really trail to a jump. It's just boom right there. But you could have easily, but it didn't cross the road, it's a long ways from crossing the road, sure. So you do, if you give those dogs chance and [01:02:00] it doesn't always work out, sometimes you're better off just to go move on.

But. But if they can succeed in that situation, they get, they self reward by the fact that they cast it out 600 yards all and kept their head in the wind and they finally hit that track. Then those dogs, they learn that real quick and pretty soon the next time they're able to cast out a lot further.

And they stretch, but if every time you, they hit the dirt and don't just blow outta the country, and then you just jump 'em all back up and drive ahead another 200 yards and they hit another little tiny scent and you put 'em down, they run a little lap and they jump back on the truck.

That perpetuates a behavior. Just drives me nuts. Okay, so you're driving down the road, you get that bump, you jump out, you look for the track around the truck. You probably don't even look for the track around the truck because you know it's not gonna be there. Yeah.

'cause of your experience, but okay. They get that, that, that bump and you put 'em down and they wanna come back the truck. What do you do? How do you overcome it? You put, A lot of times I just wait there, and then they're standing around [01:03:00] let's go or whatever. If mine are pretty good about making another lap, lap around you know what I mean? They check in and then they're like, I, they don't get the, they don't get my body language and energy doesn't say, here, let's just keep going. So they'll make another lap. Sometimes they'll bump it then, but if not, I just start moseying my way towards that.

I just hike, hike towards where I think that senses coming from. And try to push 'em out there. But I try not to keep 'em in pocket, and if that makes any sort of sense, I want, I'm just trying to get them to move that direction, but I move slow enough that they don't just like file in line behind me and expect me to go show them something.

I wanna, I just want to be like, let's just keep checking there and I. And I just try to keep letting them get to that area where it is, especially you're reading their body language, you're watching the way that their head hits the wind and they're moving into the wind and you just keep moving them along in that spot where you're getting the little cues and they're, you're getting a little bit of body language off that dog.

So you're trying to put this together in your head based on this, you read, trying to read this dog and how he's reacting to, [01:04:00] to wind scent or whatever. Or ground scent, if he's beating his tail and he's got his nose, whatever. But and it doesn't always work out, you, you're not gonna start every one of those.

But so I'm trying, I'm trying to draw a real clear picture here, because this is something that I've been guilty of, is, it was really prominent when I was a k canine handler. I get it in my mind that this track should be going this way. So the reason I asked you all those questions is because, how do you do it?

Because it's easy to get. In your head that you've already hit, you've already hit your wind checker, you know the wind's coming in your face, you know that track should be ahead of you and all of a sudden you get a dog that's two or 300 yards maybe up above you on a ridge a little bit. And it's real tempting to yell at that dog and say, come on, let's go this way.

'cause you've already got, you've already made the decision in your mind that you know where the track is. And in reality, you have no idea where the track is. You don't, you can't, [01:05:00] you didn't smell that bear. Your dog did. So the reason I wanted to go through that is I think there's a lot of value in, putting that pressure on 'em without walking 'em without feeling.

But when they do start to exercise and get out there, Not to flip out about it. Yeah. And think that, and don't be a control freak over it. They're exploring, they're looking. Shorty was really good about this. I watched how he handled his dogs on Mount Lions, he have dogs 150 yards that way.

He have dogs 200 yards to the left. He's got a dog 300 yards out in front of him. And all of them are out there just working and exploring. And if one of 'em, opened then they were getting to him. Yeah. They jack jet. Yeah. We can put too much and put too much. I've been guilty in the past of putting too much pressure on a dog and keeping them under foot.

The key with that, the one key with being able to do that is just you've gotta have broke dogs. Because when they're out of pocket [01:06:00] 400, 500 yards, I ain't worried about 'em. If they open, it's gonna be right. Does that make sense now? Yep. Granted, they're, they're dogs But, so the ones that I'm a little worried about, I'm gonna be paying a lot more attention and I'm gonna, I don't want that dog halfway across the mountain and then bumping an elk or something.

Yep. So your willingness and your patience is directly correlated to how clean, how much trust you have, the much trust you have those dogs. Yeah. Which is why you know that you're doing the same thing riding a, an animal and casting free, casting those dogs. Yeah. It, you just have to have, when you have dogs on the ground that are looking for their, they have to start their own game where you're not taking them to a track, you're not taking 'em to a bait site, you're not taking 'em to a track in the snow.

You're not taking 'em to to the kill. That's a little different 'cause because when you're not like starting them on the track. So what my way of thinking is that a hound. A big component in being a fully well-rounded hound is they should find their own game.

And, they have the right game [01:07:00] and get it going the right direction on their own Now, so this is another discussion, and it's that's one thing that, like the Southwest is amazing for because there's really those dogs no, don't get me wrong. Those guys will put down a dog on a track in the sand all the time, right?

And they'll hunt the snow any chance they get or whatever. Some of 'em probably don't, but but as much as possible I wanna develop that skillset in those dogs to not be dependent on me just stuffing their nose in a track. Now I live in a place where it's, the only time I can hunt is December to April and there's snow cover from November to May.

So I don't have the luxury, no, not granted. There's a lot of varying, and it melts off through the middle and we get more, and it's freeze and thaw and there's all kinds of challenges up with that. It isn't like perfect snow, but that junk we tried to hunt in fi in March this year.

Yeah. That one day that was bad. Yeah, for sure. And slushy frozen over slushy. [01:08:00] Yeah. Bare ground. Yep. It was terrible. A big mix of dirt and frozen ground and thawed out what was frozen last night and Right. Three feet of slush and yeah there's, we get some conditions that you probably be smart to not keep pounding away, but we're not smart.

Sorry. We're not smart. So I think though back to this discussion though about dogs finding their own game I just think it it's important to develop and I, similarly I. And I'm bad about this at times, but I try to, it just depends on the dogs and their own level of competency and stuff.

But it's, if I find a track in the snow, go back and road them dogs into that track so that in their minds they're finding it. Does that make sense? And it helps perpetuate that when you are roading and there is no snow that you've learned several things about your dog.

You, when they hit that track, you're watching their body language and how they ad adjust to it or it so I'm learning something about my hound watching it road into this track that I know is sitting there. If, or [01:09:00] walk 'em down the road, whatever. But like the, in their brain, they should be.

They're the ones that found the track. They were looking for the track and they found the track. So the next time you put 'em on the road, when they're road down the road, they have full anticipation and expectation to ca to start a track. Does that make sense? They're not just running to 'cause dogs.

They'll get to where they know that they're just running to run. And if you road to exercise, but you never start a track on the road. Their expectation isn't necessarily gonna be, I see that in mine. Yeah. Because I've gotta road em here and they actually know, and it's always in the mornings and we'll go, but I hunt in the mornings too.

But they know that when we go out here that there's no attempt for them to go hunting at all. Yeah. Around my side by side and the trade off on that. I end up suffering and paying the penalty. Sure. When I'm out hunting, my dogs aren't ranging out far enough. But there also is, if I'm trying to exercise dogs and get 'em legged up and there's not a local a legal season that I can [01:10:00] hunt in, I can't really have these dogs blowing off the road.

So I take him to places where I just need to get him exercise and that's, yeah. I wish I had, I wish I, that's hard, right? So Yeah. I wish I had sage sagebrush flats with nothing but jackrabbits and antelope for 20 miles. Yeah. And then I don't have to worry about that. Yeah. But back to that anyway though, is this trying to develop this trait of finding their own game and starting on tracks.

Like I, I'm not saying that you can't have amazing dogs that you've shown every track they've ever started. In the where I hunt and the legal structure of the season structure in where I live, it's imperative that I have a dog. I don't have sand. It's hard rock roads. You don't see a track in the road very rarely.

Maybe in a mud puddle that rain, in the spring, but I don't have the ability to confirm the direction. My dogs are starting a track in our spring bear season and in and I don't have the ability to know what it is they're running. So the key component in my opinion, and that's this is the computer, any free casting type [01:11:00] of situation, whether that's, we're walking them, hiking 'em down ridges, roading 'em down the road putting 'em in front of livestock, Is the key component.

If you wanna do one thing right, get 'em broke, like so that you can trust them. Because if you can trust them, then you can let, you can be patient. If I can, if I get a little bump or I think they got a little scent, if I can trust them, I let 'em cast out their three, 400 yards. I let 'em make some big circles.

I give them a 20 minutes, half hour. If they're not, if that track didn't cross the road so that hopefully they can slam into it and but if I'm always worried that they're gonna blow a deer out of there, I'm not gonna be that. I'm gonna keep a, keep 'em pretty close to pocket. Yeah. So I think if you wanna be successful, first and foremost, and this is coming from a guy who did nothing but had pretty trashy dogs for the first, long time.

And we caught a lot of good game too, but we spent a lot of time running a lot of garbage and so anyhow, that Keeping them broke gives me a lot more patience. But then the other side of that is be patient and also just [01:12:00] always try to let that dog stretch that dog out of its comfort zone.

Let and put it in situations where eventually it stretches. Its the, just like I use the analogy of so you're thinking there's a chance, if they can find success in some of those situations, then pretty soon they're pounding away and they're pounding away and they're working harder and they're far more patient with a bad track.

And you're not worried about 'em. And I'm not worried about they're out there doing good stuff. They're not broke. Yeah. They're all broke. So I so yeah, that's a good thing. So it is, it's an interesting enigma. 'cause like I said I, by no means am I trying to say that like it's a superior way to hunt.

That's just the legal structure in my state. I'm forced to utilize that method. During that time of year I'd be, I'd probably put way more critters up a tree if I had baits, if I could hunt off a bait. But, so I'm trying to develop that skill set in these young dogs and that's, always a challenge.

But so you go to a state like, Like these other places where really the primary form of starting a track is gonna be over bait. And like I said, there's a lot of good reasons for that and I'm not, it's not [01:13:00] 'cause they're lazy, let's put it that way. There ain't nothing about baiting that.

You you're not lazy. Yeah. You can't be lazy if you're baiting. So I'm not by any means making that association, but those dogs do get pretty dependent on that system and they get good at that system. They're smart too. And they learn that. They learn how to handle that bait quickly and cleanly and make a quick circle and find the out track and out they go.

So there's a skill set around starting to track off a bait by all means. But that is a difference. We were talking even a little bit about differences in dogs that you see. Yeah. You send it, you like, when I hunted off Bates first started hunting off Bates. Yeah. The first time my dogs did, you get a young dog out there and they just run in there, the bait and the bait tipped over and you can tell there's been a bear there and they're just sitting there going, there's been a bear here.

Yeah, there's been a bear here. Or I don't care that there was a bear, I know there was a bear here. I'd like to see those dogs that get in there and it's there was a bear here in that bear left somewhere and I'm gonna find it. Boom boom. And and mine are in there just hogging down on chocolate [01:14:00] chip cookies or something.

Absolutely. Exactly. No, that's not true. But they the other side of the bait thing though is that there was coyotes there, there was raccoons there, there was a lot of other things there. The broke dog thing is universal. If you wanna have success, get dogs broke, that's just universal.

But but I'm always in but that, that, that. I'm not, I don't always have a whole family of raccoons in a spot where I dump my dogs into either. Yeah. Is that, if that makes sense. Yeah. Anyway, just a, just, just an observation there. And I we had this conversation. Wouldn't it be cool to be, who was that guy that you were talking about in the southwest that, hunted coyotes and bear, and lions and bobcats and maybe catch a fox and, oh, yeah.

I wish I could remember the name of the wouldn't book, but, yeah. Wouldn't that be awesome just to have that kind of, it's like we're just, we're hunting. Yeah. That's a cool thing about, hunting the terrier around here. It's today we catch a weasel today we catch a chipmunk, we cut a raccoon, we cut a possum.

Yeah. He is the trashiest little thing ever, but he's fun. Oh yeah. You [01:15:00] drive that many hours to go to, or if you're maintaining Bates and trying to maintain bear dogs and stuff like that, you want to be target specific Yeah. On that stuff. Yeah. For sure. But man, it wouldn't it be great.

It's I was talking to Corey Seiger from rough Cut Company. They use the same dogs to Run Bear and Coyotes. Sure. And I'm like, man, how do you do that? I, I run I try to break dogs off of coyotes and Corey was just like the Coyotes a good race too. Yeah.

I, it was interesting. I, these fellas, I was asking them a lot of questions 'cause I was, a lot of them Wisconsin guys, they run a lot of coyotes and. And I was like, do you use the same dogs or don't you? And there's definitely a lot of guys that have better, a few dogs that are way better.

Coyote dogs. Some guys keep separate packs. Yeah. Some guys, and they're like, ah, we run the same dogs. And I don't think these guys specific specifically, I think are pounding on the bears a lot more as a focus. But they're like, no, we, they know, the, I believe that in the winter, those dogs know we're looking for coyotes.

And he says in the spring, he says they start pounding [01:16:00] bears and they'll leave coyotes alone and just pound bears. Yeah. We don't have these mystery races. I'm sure. It's definitely, that's pretty dog specific. Individual dogs or coyo? We used to have dogs that were trained that were, situational awareness and also gear specific, in the police world.

So you. Like markers or you do something consistent like when we're doing, my dog was a track, my dog was a tracking dog. She was a detection dog where she could find things like in boats and cars and and stuff like that. And she was an area search dog. So for the tracking it was always a full tracking harness that went on.

And that harness went on the same way every time. She was getting the gears that I'm tracking, when it was area search, we used the snap collar with a plastic buckle and you sit her down and she hears that snap and you could actually see her ears perk up. She knew what she was doing and you cast her out there and boom, she was doing an area search.

She wasn't trying to track at that point. And through repetition, dogs are smart enough to [01:17:00] figure that stuff out. Oh yeah, absolutely. Like around here when I'm coon hunting, the, I don't put dogs on the up on top of my rig to rig raccoons. Sure. I keep 'em in the box. And I drive to the spot and I turn 'em loose.

Now when I'm bear hunting I think that a dog is capable of learning that they know when they're on the top of the rig. We're not coon hunting. 'cause when I coon hunt for one, it's dark and I've been riding in the box. Yeah. But now I'm on top of the box, so I'm bear hunting. Yeah. And they, I think a lot of them, my dogs anyway, enjoy chasing bear more than they want to run a raccoon.

I jazz trashed on and on coons a couple times in the mountains, and tree on some den trees that I know raccoon den trees in the middle of the day. And that, that, but she was six years old when I started hunting her and she was, she's a coon dog her whole life and Yeah. Doesn't make you proud, no. And and that might be hard on if you're hunting with a bunch of folks, but Yeah. Yeah. I think. They definitely are smart. [01:18:00] The, my Airdale have always been amazing about that. They know what we're doing. If we're going backpack, we're hiking. Yeah. They'll blow a bear off the trail a hundred yards and come right back.

Yeah. And you just, they're letting us know that they're there and they're keeping 'em off, off, away from camp or whatever. But you go out and turn loose on a bear track. They're hammering all day long, same thing with cats, same thing with the house cat at the house compared to, a cat in the woods or even a strange neighbor house cat that wanders through.

It's all on. Yeah. But they'll let leave that one alone. So they're intelligent, like they can differentiate and they I, my dales were exceptionally observant. They're analytical dogs. I always love how, especially little puppy dales, they'll stare at you and then cock their head when they're just like, yeah.

Sitting there when you're talking to 'em right? And they're trying to figure out what it is you're asking to 'em, but you can just see their wheels spin and they're really a really analytical dog in my experience. And so I they've been great for me in that capacity where I can do whatever I want.

I, my old Air Dale, he [01:19:00] packed my saw gas jugs when I was cutting, and he'd no kidding. Oh yeah, that's cool. He'd come in my strip with me and then I'd send him up the hill and tell him to get in his bed, and he'd go lay down above me, away and then you'd run outta gas, you'd holler him down and he'd bring my gas and oil to me and stuff.

So it's a I was always worried about getting him hit, like losing a tree or something. So I, I didn't do it a ton, but he picked that up so quick. Yeah. And so the point being is that you don't give them dogs enough credit of their intelligence. The first time. Calvin, red H Red House, out there.

He just walks down to the kennel and starts flipping gates open as really the first time I ever saw somebody do that, eastern coon hunting and even hounds 'em, and it's like you grab dogs and you put 'em in the truck where he just turned everything and Larry would do the same thing too. And they'd all end up at the truck.

And I just got to thinking about that. So like here I talked about the dogs, me going out and roading and not hunting. [01:20:00] There's a difference when I'm doing that in the morning. I'd never let the dogs leave here to just, they don't have a permission slip. Just as soon as you get out, you get to go run and go wherever you want.

So every day when I'm roading here around the property, then I just turn 'em, put the collars on 'em, turn 'em loose. It's all the same deal. They're just staying close and they know what's up. Yeah. Now if I'm gonna hunt from here off the side by side, I'll put 'em in the side by side, load 'em up and put 'em in the side by side.

And even if I just ride from here down to the creek right here, 200 yards and make a left turn and go 75 yards and then get 'em out and cast them, I expect them to go. Yeah. Yeah. They learn. They learn and through repetition. I was actually talking about this with Cody up there, it's it's a, my dogs are real habitual because I do everything very consistent.

You have to, and that's just, and maybe it's my, that's a key. Maybe it's my own nature, but I, it's [01:21:00] also, to the dogs. So I come here and everything's way different, when I'm at home, I don't I pull up to a place and I open the whole box. All eight or 10 dogs or however many I'm packing, jump out.

Everybody cleans out, right? I turn all their collars on, sitting on the back of the tip pickup, and I call each dog to me and I call 'em up and then I load 'em back up, or put 'em on the rig or put 'em in the box, whatever I'm doing. And from there we start hunting. So everybody gets cleaned out, and and obviously you gotta pick that spot wisely, right?

But, I have places wherever I go that this is where I do that. And those dogs know that spot 'cause they've. Yeah. They've cleaned out right there 25 times or whatever, and they know that system so they don't hit the dirt bawling. And they're not all excited and they're not, they know that this is the spot to clean out.

Now, granted, see, I don't trust, I don't, I switch my system up a little bit. I don't trust my dogs enough to just, to put 'em out and then call 'em to me without the collar on. Yeah. So I'll take a minute and let everything get synced up and I'll call 'em [01:22:00] outta the box and kick 'em from the tailgate with the collar on.

Sure. Just in case. Yeah, no, just in case. But with that said, I've had numerous times when they you dump 'em out there and they're making a circle of somebody's 80 yards up the hill and off they go. And they're running something too. And, you get to the tree and nobody had a collar on, but so you can definitely get yourself in trouble with that.

Sure. And you don't do that, like all of a sudden one day with having never done that, these dogs have worked their way into the system since they were itty bitty puppies and didn't know what to trail. Yeah. And so similarly, like when I take dogs out of a tree with, calling dogs off a trees, and a lot of guys do that now.

There used to be nobody did that. No. Now, what was it like in Wisconsin? Did they leash 'em and drag 'em out? Some of 'em, their guys, those guys dogs have great handle on 'em. Yeah. They weren't bad. They could have probably done, it just isn't a natural practice. But I think a lot of that too is that nobody's running 10 dogs by the of their own dogs.

It's a six dog limit. So there's never a pile of dogs. There's always three or four people. So the reason we do that is 'cause you [01:23:00] can't lead all of them off the tree. You know what I mean? That's the reason I did it. So not through the, not without getting drug off the edge of a rock or a cliff, or that's the, yeah.

And, and so are hung up in the brush. And three dog couplers are all scattered around, and I, and we started doing that, 15, 20 years ago. And it was a fight to get my dogs to where they first started doing it. The getting the, because I'd had, this pack of dogs that I had just led off of trees all the time.

Yep. And they'd fight me and I had these great big B ticks and they were a pain in the butt, and they're barking at, they're screaming, trying to want to go back. I got drugged down. There's, you're on snowshoe, you're in Boulder fields, you just can't walk. And you're lathered up and you're ready to beat these dogs.

And I was like, there's a better way. There's gotta be a better way. And I had just got a finally had been able to save up enough and got a, a shocking system. An electronic training system. Yeah. I'm gonna have to edit that out. Yeah. Sorry. An eco I got, I finally got an eco. There you go.

And I ended up hammering on some of these dogs, but these [01:24:00] dogs, you gotta understand how good a tree dogs, they were like, you're not gonna be ruining these dogs from being tree dogs. Yeah. And and then with the young pups, I just hook onto that one dog and leash it out of there. But anyway, what's amazing now is I haven't to shocked a dog off of a tree and 12, 15 years, everybody's now granted, I've toned them once in a while.

Like I can, I'll tone them once in a great while. Yeah. And this is no mystery that everybody's doing this now. It was an anomaly back when I was started doing it in our area anyway. And you, these guys have been handling dogs that way in the southwest forever. 'cause they're running 20 dogs and they're Yeah.

They're on a mule or on foot. You're like, you ain't dragging all those dogs back to the truck 20 miles away. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So this is no anomaly. I'm not by anybody saying this, but my process to get to that point though, was a struggle to get everybody used to that system. But once I reinforced that and they learned that there's no fight in this system, we're all, it's time to go.

And they all knew how to come. That's the other thing. They had a, you gotta have a handle on 'em in the yard if you're expecting to have a [01:25:00] handle on 'em when they're at a tree. You're not gonna take a dog that won't come to you in the yard. Without correction. You can't just holler their name up at the tree and expect 'em to come to you either.

So that's the process. But now all these puppies are little dudes. And I say, let's go to the truck. And everybody comes and follows me out to the truck. And those little puppies, they're, they look around, they're not even treating yet. These are, like I haven't, I don't really do much as far as showing, I'm able to just pack 'em along and they just see game in the big woods, yeah. So these little puppies, they're just along for the ride and they're just happy to be in the brush. And they hear me say, let's go to the truck, and these little puppies follow the old dogs. And we all go and we jump in the truck and we go look for another one. So it's a repetition, it's a condition.

So this puppy's done this dozens of times. The first time he starts hammering away and tree really hard. And he's just, he's finally locating and he ran the race and he's just doing a good job. I snap a leash on him and I walk to the truck and I just, and I say, let's go to the truck.

And I'm not gonna, I don't wanna risk having a bad experience on that day. On [01:26:00] that, at that point in his little brain. I just want to end on a good note. So we throw 'em in the pickup. And leash 'em back and everybody else follows me, but everybody else, the whole pack is moving with me.

They're all I'm leading this pack back to the, they're following me. So we load up and then, the next time maybe I do that a few times in a row and I end with a good note praising 'em up at the tree and clipping 'em on a lead and going to the pickup. And then the next time I might have to get on him a little bit.

Yeah. But he's already got several repetitions of reinforcing good behavior. Yeah. He already knew that he was supposed to be doing this. That's interesting. And because you were trying to avoid, here's the first time that he put it all together. He connected the dots. He's here. Why run the risk? He ought to know he's done this.

Yeah. He's done this 20 times, he knows what, let's go the truck, yeah. And I think why run the risk? Yeah. It's just not worth it. And I can, I can lead a couple dogs out the woods every day. That's isn't like my case. If [01:27:00] he ain't smart enough to figure that out, ain't worth feeding.

Yeah. I'm not gonna stomp his, and have to use correction on a dog at that point. So in, on a good note, but then, I might have to tone him once, but this dog already knows how to come and he already knows what a tone means. Yep. And he knows that means come looking for me.

And so anyway and you just keep adding individuals into the yard and then it's always easy. Now, I, this year I had a few, the hard ones are those ones where that critter comes down. When you walk 10 feet away Yeah. And you've got way too many dogs to handle and, and you've got not enough leashes and bears are bad about it, and they're bad.

Some of them will just pile down. Like literally you stick pictures as soon as you Yeah. As soon as you turn your back, dogs quit barking and they turn their backs to it, it's down. But, you work through your way through all that kind of stuff. But if it's early in the morning, let's run 'em again.

Yeah. There's that. I what's doing mostly, or you tie up, you tie 'em, you tie up half 'em and hold onto there too, and you let 'em get outta their ways. You move everybody off the tree [01:28:00] ways and let everybody calm down and then they want to go run 'em. But you might have to tone them once or something, or holler pretty good and get 'em all right.

But the other thing is just create forward movement. Like when you're hiking out of there, hike out there with a purpose. Two, those dogs will feed off your energy that we're going home, body language. But if you're, yeah I stress that with my dogs more than anything. I don't always talk to 'em a lot.

I don't coddle 'em, I don't pat, I pet 'em. I happy to and they love me, but, the non-verbal communication is going to be far more powerful tool than verbal communication. With your dogs. It just is 'cause that's how dogs, that's how dogs work. Dogs work in a nonverbal, communicative way with each other.

And if you're mad, they know it. If you're happy, they know it. And so it's an it. Those are the things I'm using in that whole process I just spoke of. That's a powerful amount of, that is, is a lot of presence in nonverbal communication as I'm walking outta there. I think something that was really cool that, that you talked, you mentioned [01:29:00] was, that you haven't had to.

Once you establish the culture then the older dogs taught the younger dogs. Yeah. And I've seen that as well. Look behind you right there on that futon and Roxy has taught Axel how to be a good citizen. Yeah. She's taught tough. How to be a good citizen, what's acceptable behavior, how to react to certain things, where the boundaries are, what the boundaries are, where home is, just a lot dogs have that ability to influence their peers just like we do.

Oh yeah. Like any training dogs to, to jump up on the tailgate and load themselves. Yeah. Yeah. My, your puppies, everybody else piles piles in, and the puppy just jumps in one day, it's I don't personally usually take much time to set up. I. A structure or when they're little puppies put a dog box down.

I think I could accelerate it way better, because some of mine take a while to figure that. I don't stress it. It's just not I do feed young dogs in the box. I think it'd be powerful. I've actually been [01:30:00] sitting there thinking about it. I've got, I've, even listening to Heath and some of these other things.

Yeah. It's been a, it's been on my mind that I think I should probably spend more time with some of those types of attributes. But I've been fortunate because I got a whole culture of a bunch of, a whole pack of dogs that do it. And, I might have to put up with it for a little bit, but it doesn't take very long.

And they're piling into their buddies are all jumping in there. Yeah. Yeah. It's the main reason we're in the, we're leaving, like in the coon hunting community, we have to teach dogs to load because they're by themselves. They're gonna be by themselves a lot. A lot of guys are just hunting one dog a night.

Yeah. And you're not loading two or three dogs. You're trying to, teach some of this independence and whatever all that means. And you don't want a lot of, you don't want 'em buddied up and, it's a different culture for the competition coon hunting side of it.

But for most hounds and hounds, men, a small percentage of the people are engaged in that sort of activity. So for the small. The average hounds man, I [01:31:00] don't mean small hounds man, but the average hounds man. You can afford to let your dogs be buddies Yeah.

And do stuff and let the power of that influence from another dog. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good. Yep. Yeah. I'm grateful. You think that monkey see, monkey do stuff is such a powerful training tool and it takes so much of the saves me so much effort. It's when you have a trash breaking is similar, if you have a whole culture of broke dogs, and that pup gets away and he's running this deer i'll by his lonesome and none of his buddies are there with him, and I correct him, that's a lot easier to get the right drift to that dog's brain that we're not doing this as a pack.

Then if. If every time he breaks, then six, six other ones pile in behind him, even though they're mostly broke. But they'll, if this dumb puppy, you'll start one and they pile in behind him. Then I'm all of a sudden hollering to everybody. But they're, they did it too. And this kind of seems right.

And this is very similar to a good race. Sure. [01:32:00] So I, all of that kind of stuff is valuable when you can yeah. Implement dogs into a well balanced pack of dogs. Fighting and all the aggression and those types of things. That's similar too. A nice balanced quiet pack of dogs is going to influence those puppies in a nice, balanced way.

And they're just, like you said, how to be good citizens and but you get a couple of morons and they're going to key up the whole group and everybody's gonna be a pain in the ear. Yeah. There's definitely some you want to do, you want, do you want harmony in your, everybody does doing their part.

Yeah, for sure. Man, Casey I'm glad you came to see my part of the world the rainforest of southeastern Indiana. It's been humid. We've got some rain, we've had some sunshine. We've had some heat. Got to see the Ohio River. Yeah, you got to go to Kentucky. Went all the way to Kentucky. No, I I'm grateful.

I'm glad I took the time to, to drop down outta here. It's definitely not on the way, but make our way back [01:33:00] home here. And you only added, you probably only added seven hours, your trip back home. It was probably, yeah, probably more like nine down here from where I was. Yeah, maybe seven or eight on the way back home.

We'll go back a different route, but yeah, so that, what's that? 18 hours or no big deal. 16 hours. Yeah. No I'm, yeah. It was good. I decided I wanted to come take a look at this part of the world and I don't know, someday I'd love to listen to a Coon dog go run. That'd be fun. But, Yeah. Yeah. We should have, we, if I had a coon dog, we could've done that last night.

We should have. Yeah. I left my coon dog in New Mexico. Yeah. Yeah. No. Very good. I, like I said, I appreciate being able to come see you. Thanks for letting me come. You bet. Stay and have a place to crash, sure. You're welcome. Anytime. You're welcome. Anytime. So stay as long as you want. Stay tonight and we'll go chase a raccoon tonight.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll have to. All right. Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in and listening to the Hounds Men XP podcast. Make sure you're [01:34:00] checking out our website@houndsmenxp.com. We've got opportunities there for you to listen into past episodes with links there. We've got a merchandise store, and when you spend your money on our merchandise, which a lot of people are doing, I gotta do some reorders on a few of the designs.

But you're supporting this show that talks about. Hounds and hunting, and that's what it's all about. So thanks for listening to the Hounds Man XP podcast. This is fair Chase.

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