Ode to a Houndsman: Larry Anderson

Larry Anderson

Born: 03-22-1975

Died: 02-07-23

This podcast is dedicated to Larry Anderson, my friend.

Larry had more people that considered him their best friend than anyone I know. I know I am not the only one that called him that. What does that say about a person?  Friend seems like such an understatement for the relationship I had with Larry. It was more like a kindred spirit type thing. Larry and I had some great times in a relatively short period. We hunted together, we traveled together, we even ran a business together and I lived with him and his family for a few months.

Larry set an example for our close knit family of houndsmen. He demonstrated friendship, loyalty, humility and love. He loved his friends and family. He loved his hounds like no other. Larry was not a wealthy man. He sacrificed personal lcomforts and luxuries to ensure that his hounds were fed the best feed, got the best medical care and the hunting they needed to be a great pack of bear and lion dogs.

Please join me in remembering a great houndsman and human being.

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This is the Homan XP podcast.

The original podcast for the complete hound.

We're gonna get, we're gonna get the podcast that represents our lifestyle of extreme performance.[00:02:00]

Yeah. Good boy, ranger Uniting Homan across the globe from east to west, north to south. If you're gonna catch a cat or a line, you have to have teamwork. We take you to the wildest places on earth. Yeah. So how many days a week can you spend at headache? 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.

Yeah, this is pretty tough to release this podcast, this la last week on February 7th, I got a message, text message that my [00:03:00] good friend and fellow hounds man, Larry Anderson passed. Larry was one of those guys that really made an impact on my life. And it's a sad deal that he passed so young. He was unexpected.

And I just want to pay tribute to my friend Larry Anderson and no telling blue ticks. He lived in Gibbons, Idaho. Originally from the Flathead Valley of Montana. He's a professional guide and built a pack of Blue tech towns that were no doubt the real deal. In fact, last year at the APA Breed days in Greenville, Tennessee, some guys were talking and they were asking if they, if I had ever seen blue ticks that could [00:04:00] perform on Baron Lyons.

And without hesitation, I said, I know where there's a pack. And they were Larry's. I spent hours and days with these dogs and with Larry and the Rocky Mountains catching bears and blue ticks. And I think it's just fitting that a guy that dedicated so much of his life and his time and his passions, n. We play pay tribute to him.

Larry wasn't just a friend of mine. I we worked together in the Flathead Valley and got into the construction business together there for a summer. And I basically, I did, I lived with him and his family for about two and a half months. His wife, Jamie and her parents. It was a great time.

We've logged thousands of miles on the road together and I just feel like we need to pay some tribute to a good friend of mine [00:05:00] and celebrate Larry's life. This is a podcast that he and I recorded on an actual bear hound. It's live action. It's right from the front seat of the truck while we were hunting and it was originally released a couple years ago.

but I just want to put it out there again. Larry's one of those guys that I think you probably have more best friends than anybody I know. He he was just that kind of guy. We met through Gary Roberson of carnivore tv I'd sent a message to Gary and asked him about who had some blue ticks that were really turning the crank on big game.

And Gary just immediately referred me to Larry and I dropped him a message. I found him on Facebook, dropped him a message, and before you know it, we've got a hunt scheduled. [00:06:00] Ne never meeting each other. Now mind you, we had a hunt scheduled in condo, Montana. I can't remember three years, four years ago, five years ago, I can't remember how long it will go.

It was now, but our plan was to meet at a cabin and hunt from this cabin in condo Montana. Our wives both bailed and said, no way. I am not going. We have no idea who you're meeting here but Larry and I met up and, man, I'm telling you what, from there, the magic started and it was just a bond between Larry and I that, that has been pretty unique in my life.

He I can pick up the phone and say, Hey, you want to chase bears in Arizona? I would drive 20 hours that way. And he would drive 17 hours from where he was at. And we'd meet [00:07:00] up in, in Arizona and chase Bears, no questions asked. It was just an opportunity. And I just saw Larry a couple weeks ago.

I called him and said, Hey, I've got some seats available at the American Bear Foundation. He drove through a blizzard or at least treacherous winter road conditions. I'm not gonna say a blizzard that's over dramatizing it. But he did drive through treacherous road conditions to get the Cody and To spend some time with me.

I got to see him a couple weeks ago. It was a great time. We went through the Buffalo Bill Museum there and Cody and attended the banquet together and drank some yellow bellies, as he calls 'em, yellow bellies, Coors banquet beers together. And the deal with Larry is you didn't have to take care of that relationship every day.

There wasn't any drama. We could go a month or so without talking and we'd just pick up like we always did. [00:08:00] And if you didn't listen to this podcast the first time was released, I hope you'll take some time and listen to this one. This one's for you, Larry. Until we meet again, buddy, we'll keep 'em in the woods down here.

Keep 'em tuned up. You scout that hunting ground on the other side for us. And I'm not carrying a bunch of bait from that damn jawbreaker that you thought you got a good deal on. We'll see you on the other side in this episode of the Hounds Man XP podcast. We are taking you to the mountains of Idaho. We are going to put you in the truck with us as we cruise the mountain roads, hoping for a rigs strike, or to find that bear track.

We are black bear hunting springtime in the Idaho Mountains, and I've got with me an epic hounds man, Larry Anderson. And we are going to [00:09:00] talk about his no, tell him blue ticks as you listen to Larry's story. There will be no mistaking his passion for hounds and hound hunting and. The Hounds Man lifestyle.

Larry absolutely demonstrates extreme performance in Hounds, and that's what makes him such a great fit for the Hounds Man XP podcast. But Larry's become a very good friend of mine and you're gonna get an opportunity to ride along with us and just listen to those conversations that happen as we drive around and listen look and listen for that rig strike.

So you're gonna really enjoy this. It's real time. It's gonna be there's a lot of surprises in this one. So want you to sit back and enjoy this conversation that we're gonna have.

I know. Yep. You're gonna get a little bit of feedback in it just because the connections are bouncing around a little bit. I'm [00:10:00] not sure. And I think our garments interfere a little bit and gives us that little bit of. That little blip. Oh yeah, I can hear that little, yep. Yeah. But yeah, we're like flying the space shuttle through Idaho right now.

A little zippity, dude. Got the headsets on, not too far from the snow. So hopefully we can cut a track. I don't know what that little blip is. I don't know what that is. You think it's from the GPS outfit? I can move it. Maybe. I don't know, but it ought to keep people awake. , you know they drive people nuts.

Yeah. What the entire nations them guys in out there. That's right. So we are cruising through a place in Idaho that we're not gonna talk about where we're at cuz we don't wanna see every other hound dogger here. We're all. People coming out and hunting and supporting hound dogging and [00:11:00] all that stuff, but they need to find someplace else to do it.

? No. Tell 'em Ridge . . Yeah. We're with Larry Anderson and Larry, his I've known you for a couple years now, but we've learned to tolerate each other pretty well, I think. Oh yeah, we get along pretty good. Yep. Yep. And that is just driving me crazy. That little bleep. It seems like it's going fast or it's like an old telemetry box or something.

Oh, I know. we're, yeah. You running, are you running beat beeps? No. No matter I think there's a power surge in our thing here, so just hang in there cuz I think this is gonna be a pretty good podcast. We're actually, we've got dogs collared up and they got their heads hanging out. It's a pretty crappy day.

It's too crappy to work. So we want bear hunting. Yeah, I can't work in the rain and snow, but, I could definitely go bear dogging in the rain and snow. So we're just, I don't know, it's probably the bears aren't gonna be moving real good, but I got a feeling if we get up above 6,000 feet we'll get into snow and if nothing else may hopefully find an old [00:12:00] track that we can work or something, but Right.

You never know. If you don't, if you don't go, you definitely ain't gonna get 'em. Yeah. So this giver, see what happens. You're not gonna treat him sitting on the couch in the cabin, that's for sure. No. Hopefully we don't end up with too much of a rodeo. Cause I forgot the tire chains. It's summertime, so we wouldn't really think you'd need 'em.

But summertime when we're going up into the snow, it's spitting snow right now. I was up on the pass this morning. It was over six inches of snow. I imagine once we get up here we'll be into the same . You tried to go to work? I tried to go to work. Yeah. You tried to go to work and just, hey, you can only do so much.

Yeah, the pass wasn't even plowed. I threw it and four wheel to get up on top and then I was just like, yeah. So yeah. How much effort did you actually give it? When a guy's a bear hunter in Idaho in kinda look for excuses not to go to work, don't you? I always look for excuses not to go to [00:13:00] work.

No, we gotta little, especially in bear season. We got a little gate here. Yeah. Let me jump out and get this, sing my song while I'm getting this gate.

Let's see here. Hopefully he knows how to open a gate. Wrong side.

Yeah, he's got it going now. He's like a real cowboy, opening the fence.

I don't know what I just ran over, but hopefully nothing important.

Oh, Chris, he's like a real cowboy opening, closing gates. [00:14:00] Look at him. Go.

I locked him out in the rain.

Man, Chris, you're like a real cowboy. I'm just not riding in the middle. We need if I was riding in the middle, I'd be like the real cowboy . That way you don't have to get the gate.

Yeah, man. I don't know what that, I don't know what the bleeping is. Let me en, let me unhook just here, just a second

ma'am. We're getting interference. Bleed over for something that's that's causing us a little bit of headaches here, but let's just roll with it and put up with it, how long you been, how long you been, you're, you've lived in Montana, you've lived in Montana your whole life, right? Yeah, born and [00:15:00] raised, Montana, Northwest Montana. Yep. Finally got out of there and moved to Idaho, right? Yep. Why'd you move to Idaho? I think that's an interesting story for Bears, , bear dogging a lot more hunting opportunities.

There's a lot. It just seems like there's a lot more freedom in Idaho than there is in Montana anymore. You grew up there I, we've had this discussion off the podcast, but it's hard to leave your home and move your family and no it is, but sometimes you just gotta do some change and do something different, yeah, my Montana's still good in a lot of ways, but. . I think for me and what Jamie and I do and to do, it just makes more sense to be in Idaho. Yeah. Yep. But yeah, just like it. Enjoy it. Yep. I think we had to do, I think we had to do a little contest with this bleep in [00:16:00] the first person that sends us how many bleeps, how many of these little bleeps we get in a minute, I'll send them something like a window decal or something.

This is just hang in there and see how long into the podcast this thing last, but that gone, I don't like it much. But yeah. You're transferring over here. You found your place in Gibbons and tell me what you said about it. Oh, that's it. I just, it's just real pretty, there's no, hardly no people and it's pretty awesome.

There's no cell phone service. There's no, can't pick up a radio station. There's nothing but beauty here. How you gonna keep up with your social media profile, Larry? You're a high profile guy. There's a mule deer buck. Yeah. Nice mule buck. I gotta go to town and work can, I can check on, make sure social media's still alive.

It's actually nice. I mean it, you get home and relax and just sit on the porch and eat your New York steak and listen to the crick roll and Yeah. You didn't just say New York steak, did you? [00:17:00] Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to find a rib by around here. Yeah. . Yeah. You gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah. Sometimes you gotta take seconds, yeah. But no, it's just peaceful. I just, if I finally found like a place I can really call home, that's what you said that stuck with me is I found someplace I could call home. Yeah. No, it's it's wicked pretty. It reminds me a lot of the little town I grew up in. Only Montana, about 20 miles north of Whitefish and.

It's beautiful up there too. And then you get, big old timber and you get a lot of snow in the winter. And that's where we broke Gary Crow. That's where we broke Gary Crow. Yep. We told that story in a previous podcast about breaking Gary Crow, but yeah, that was a wild ride. Yep. Man, that was a crazy day anyway.

It was just freaking the ice was so bad when you guys brought the, I was on the epic trash race, recovering dogs, and on foot and thought, heck, I'm just gonna walk 'em down to the trucks. And [00:18:00] then I hear the side by side coming with tracks on 'em on that. It was like a hockey rink coming down that thing.

Yeah, I was, you guys were fish tailing coming down the ice. The weather. The weather sucked and swan this year. Yeah, I know. It was rain and freeze and rain and freeze and icy and, Lack of snow and no lack of wolves. It made, it just, it made it a pretty dang tough on it. Just pretty rugged. But it's how it goes.

It's cat. Yeah. That's just how the, especially cat hunting, you're in the, it's all about weather and then it, when the wolves are wicked thick, you can't really just road and hope for the best cuz the amount of wolves in that country is unlike probably anywhere else in the world.

They're unbelievable thick. Yeah. I mean it was and so this trail we're on right now is making my butthole pucker up pretty good , it's barely a two track road and it's only probably a three or [00:19:00] 400 foot drop off the driver's side. I've got one handle on the door handle right now.

It's basically, we were just driving across the rock slide. Yeah. Basically that's, that. That's what we are doing is driving across the face of a rock slide right here. Which the rock is good because it gives us pretty good traction. It's as long as the rocks don't slip. Yeah. . Oh yeah, there you go.

There you go. I'm gonna see you do that. That 32 point turn right there on the face of that rock slide. I'll get out up here and watch you do it. Yeah. And let me get those two plots out there too. Yeah, that probably ain't gonna happen. , this is one of those roads you just keep going forward and you just keep going forward cuz you're not gonna back up or turn around.

Exactly. Yeah. So the wolf situation in the swan this year, we talked a little bit about it. It seems like we're always talking about wolves when we're talking to western hunters, but you know how the wolves changed hunting, and especially how let's just talk about how they've changed hunting in general in the west.

Oh yeah. It's. Like in northwest Montana, it used to [00:20:00] be pretty much the best of the west. We had more mountain lions and bobcat and elk all over and deer and the whitetail deer was unbelievable. Giant whitetails, stuff like you see that comes out of, Ohio and Illinois and all that kind of country, but they're all Indiana.

Don't leave Indiana out. They're all, yeah, they're all, yeah, public land deer. Just they're, absolute giants. If you go, you ever in Kalispell go to the sportsman ski house and see the bucks they got mounted? Those deer were not uncommon, 180 inch whitetails. Just absolute giants and it's hard to even just to get an antler buck anymore in that country, the wolves had just dominated.

And when I was a kid, South Fork of the fly head was just crawling with elk. It was amazing. I mean if you even hear an elk bugle or even see an elk track it, it's like you just hit the lottery. It's pretty, pretty poor, and then you used to be able to just turn out on two, three old lion tracks and not even worry about it, and [00:21:00] now you find a lion track that's 20 minutes old and then you spend the next three hours making a loop around it and hoping the heck that wolves didn't cross into the little wood block you're trying to hunt. And cuz it don't take long to get dogs smashed by wolves. We turned out on a line checked was maybe a half an hour old at the most and dogs made it 700 yards off the road.

And wolves come in and start killing dogs. And it was a pretty sad day. My buddies lost dogs and my mine made it some for some reason. But, and I hunt with my friends and their dogs are like family to me too, were they lagging? Were they just lagging behind? What kind? No. No.

Okay. What kind of dogs was your buddy hunting? Cameron Blue Tics. Yeah, see that's why cuz your dogs were so far behind. Yeah. It could be . It could be . I don't know. It's just, it's sad, and everybody puts all the time into these dogs and to come up on 'em, [00:22:00] eating alive like that, within seconds of turning out as, I mean it was a hot smoking track and brand new snow.

It just had quit snowing like half hour, 40 minutes before, so I mean it was just a roar and RA race, and then all of a sudden it just, wolves come in and start killing dogs. And we thought we were in the clear, there hadn't been any wolves in that area for a long time and they moved in like obviously during the storm or something.

I dunno if we just had a head on collision, but, anyways it's something you can't unsee. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah. And I think that's what the whole anybody that's not a hounds man. That's what we're trying to do here is bring more exposure to hounds men. And I don't think people understand how much these dogs mean to us.

And we see a lot, I see a lot of good stuff coming outta social media. And now it used to be you saw a lot of stuff that [00:23:00] made you cringe about things guys were putting on social media. But I've seen an upswing on it. I think the hound the hound hunting communities finally figured out that we can't, we gotta change our, we gotta change the image and we're not putting enough stuff on there about what hounds mean to us and.

What, how would you have felt if you'd to get your dog smashed that down? I know how you feel about your dogs, Larry. You probably keep, you keep as good a care as anybody I've ever seen of your dogs and your wife Jamie. It's a family project. How would you have fell if you'd got dogs smashed that day?

Oh, I would've been devastated. I was devastated. Just my friend's losing dogs, yeah. Like I said, we hunt together and we're all friends and you see those do same dogs growing up, doing better. So yeah, it's pretty rugged. Yep. Yep. We're in the snow now, so we're gonna be finding a bear track here, but, oh.

[00:24:00] Still it's snowing pretty good, but hopefully there's a bear on the moon someplace. . So we can either rig one or find a track and the cold trail and get one up and rolling maybe, or who knows, you've got an old bait. The bait site that you're in up here for years. So you've hunted this how long you hunted this country we're in right now?

About four. Oh, we're gonna have to get the freaking chain years chainsaw out. Get the chainsaw out. You're using it too. I offer to stop and buy a chain. Yeah, it's, it could cut butter with that thing. . Maybe. It's pretty I think I hit some rocks last time or something. Yeah, it doesn't take long, man.

You touch a rock with a chainsaw and it's over. Yeah, I know. Don't. Sharp. Let's get this thing. Listen to our beeps. Listen to our interference beeps. We'll be right back.[00:25:00] [00:26:00]

Holy. Where's my space Controls? We have Lift Off Houston. Holy temperatures are dropping 34 degrees. Nine o'clock.

Yep.

All right. We're back on the move.[00:27:00]

Breathing like a, I need to stop eating. Eating so many Twinkies or something. Yeah. JB needs to quit making me so many cookies getting fat. I'm glad we didn't have to cut that outta the way. I've done that one time already. Yeah. Is that your work right there, ? Yeah. Is it really? Yeah, the whole, the tree was so huge.

I hooked on with my truck and winch and got it turned and then, yeah, it was a nightmare. Yeah, that sucker was like two and a half feet across its stump. Yeah. No, you didn't do it with that chain, so you got in the back. I know that. No, I didn't do it to a little mini horse. No. I brought a real chains out for that deal.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's

so tell me about this line of blue tick you're hunting and let's start out let's go back and talk about how you and I met, cuz I think that's a funny story in a lot of ways, but I was talking to Gary Roberson [00:28:00] and Gary Roberson referred me to you. That's what, two and a half, three, almost three years ago now.

Yeah. Yeah, probably. We started talking ago. Yeah. And just talking blue ticks and talking hounds and then before you know it, we're never met each other and set up this hunt in the Swan Valley at this cabin that I found on V R B O. And we invited our wives to go Remember ? Yeah. They're like, hell no, I'm not going.

I don't, I've never met these. How do you know they're not gonna, he's not gonna murder yet up in the mountains. . He just met some guy on social media. We're gonna meet in the middle of nowhere where nobody's gonna know if something happens. . Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, no way. Our wives were a lot, they were smart.

We're like, what's a hound dogger? I'm going, yeah. A good opportunity here. . Yeah. It's ah, Lord hate's a coward. That's right. That's right. His giver. [00:29:00] Yeah. Whatever's gonna happen's gonna happen. But no, it was a you brought back up with you and you brought Scotty, Parker. Scotty too. Hotty.

Yeah, Scotty's, he's a good kid, man. He's a lot of fun to be around and hunt. He's, he he took the hounds and hound hunting, ducked the water. He hadn't been hound, he hadn't been hound hunting that long. How long? Four or five years? Yeah, four or five years. He's always wanted to go, but nobody ever take him.

And then I told him, I said, oh, I'm going lion hunting. I'm gonna leave at two in the morning, and if you're here at 2 0 1, you're gonna miss the boat. And he was there probably 15 minutes early. And he goes, would you really left me? I said, yep. I said, if I set a time, I said time. And I just go, . Yeah. And, but no he's been a force.

He he definitely is into it and loves to go and loves to watch the dogs. He don't ever care to shoot anything or harvest anything. And he is, he's a hard charger too. Oh, he's, he'll [00:30:00] break trail. He'll yeah. He'll, he'll do whatever you need him to do and yeah, you don't need to drive.

Hey, you really don't. We can move that. Oh, I can drive around. Oh hell, Larry, I got another stick. Don't freaking drive around that summer gun. I got three inches. No you don't. . Get your ass back. We'll be winching this sun bitch off this freaking mountain. Yeah, it might be. Anyway. Sun will , I'm gonna have to edit that part out.

Hang on. We'll be right back.

We are still alive and we're . We are we're not out of this one yet. So this is what is exciting about hunting with Larry Anderson. So here [00:31:00] goes the chainsaw. We're gonna cut this outta the way, and then we're actually gonna have to

we're gonna have to front the truck back up on the road. So throw greasy up here. Oh, here. Here's this epic battle with this, with the seal, MS. 21 with a sloppy, dull chain.

He's gonna pinch the saw.

Oh heck yeah. Move that saw back and forth. It cuts better when you're, doing the cross-cut chainsaw. Oh, he's got her. All right, so lemme get off here and give him a hand.[00:32:00]

You got gloves in there? You got a pair of gloves? Yeah.

So now we're gonna run the winch outta here, putting on the gloves and yeah. Yeah. Need a.[00:33:00] [00:34:00] [00:35:00]

Here we go.[00:36:00] [00:37:00] [00:38:00]

By time us that in there, please. [00:39:00] Yep.

You're trying to give me the whole Western experience right there. Oh, you hang out with me, you're gonna get a Western experience, I promise. Look, that wasn't bad. Not as, that was just another day in the life. There's a reason to put airbags in these truck. There's a reason why they put seat belts in them too.

I'm not sure where we were at before about went off the mountain, but Yeah, I don't either. But we were talking about Scotty, pulling his weight and that's important when you're hunting in conditions like, and this is really pretty mild. It's not. It's treacherous, but it's not, oh, it's not bad.

But yeah, Scotty's a he's the hounds man. If you're ever in a pension, you're in trouble. He's gonna come, he's gonna get you, he's gonna find you. Yep. No, no joking. He, it don't matter how big the mountain is he'll conquer it, yep. That's important to have in a hunting [00:40:00] partner.

Oh, man. Yeah. There's no doubt that he'll be there. Yep. I've been through a few hunting partners over the years and, guys that I there's a, I like hunting with a lot of different people and there's just once you find somebody that you can depend on, you gotta foster that relationship, that's for sure.

Yeah. No, for sure. But anyway Scotty shows up the cabin and I'm like, who is this hippie ? So he's got this, he's got this, beard and ponytail. And I'm like, wow, here we go, . And then it was just it was just a good time from there on out. He got out la out of the truck laughing, and I don't think we quit laughing until we left.

Yeah, no, it, he's, he is a lot of fun to be around and just, you look at him, he looks like you said, like this crazy hippie or something. But yeah, he doesn't do drugs. He don't [00:41:00] drink. He, but he just, he's addicted to the homs, he's addicted to his family too.

Yeah. His kids and Yeah, he's a good family man. Yep. Yep. He's just got a lot of, got them two twin little boys, man. They. They're a wild little guys. Is he, are they hunting with him yet? No, they're big enough. They're five, six, maybe now Uhhuh , but I'm sure like, oh, it's coming.

Yeah. No, it's coming. They're they'll be going. Yep. All of his, his girls, older girls they've all been to trees and whatnot and, but yeah. Yep. So tell us about your family. Oh, it's just Jamie Ryer a boy. He in the Marine Corps. Yeah. He's not a boy. Nah, I ain't a boy no more. . No I got to, I got served with some of those Mountain Bread and Marines and it, they got a different energy to 'em as far as the way they approach things and do things.

And you can depend on them. They, there's nothing that they can't do. And [00:42:00] that's what I love about this Western culture is it's, you guys are remote and, just like that right there. That's a. What we just did, winching the truck out. That's can be a bad day for people back in my area.

And for you it's just like another day. Yeah. It's another day on the hill. Yep. But those mountain bread marines are just tough as pine knots and can go all day and little things that are a problem to other people just don't seem like they're that big a deal.

No. Hey, you grow up cutting firewood and bucking hay and fixing fence and yep. Digging down dog trucks out of snow ditches and banks that you shouldn't have never been. And like this grave, we're getting ready to go up right now. I'm not sure we'll even make it, but actually maybe I should put it in for low.

It's rugged, but. It's all [00:43:00] warm and muddy. Been raining and raining. Now it's got four or five inches of snow on top, so we don't have to go up here if you don't want to. Oh yeah. We'll be alright. Got insurance. Good insurance, I hope. Oh yeah. Don't be telling the story. The day you broke Chris Powell

Yep. Oh yeah. So we're spinning all four tires now, huh? Maybe we won't make it up the hill. There's a trail that goes down, isn't there? Oh yeah. There's a good bear crossing up here though. They like to go through, but I don't know that we're gonna make it, especially since somebody forgot the tire chains.

I took mine out for, I, when I left Indiana, I thought, oh, I'm not gonna need chains, . And then I get outta here and we get into this and just another day in [00:44:00] Idaho at 6,000 feet. Yeah. Yeah. No joke. Yeah. I don't, we might be able to hit her a few times hard, but I then we're gonna have to come back down off of it after I muck it all up.

So the going up usually doesn't, there goes a mirror. Yep. The old tundra that break it. No, you're good. It's a Larry Anderson breakaway mirror. My wife's probably already got an extra one someplace. , she, she buys the tip turn signals for me. Yeah. Yeah. By the pallet.

, I think I ch, I think I changed out six taillights last year. Yeah, let's back backing into stuff or my ass in sliding over and smashing into stuff and yeah. Yep. And let's talk about Jamie a little bit cuz Jamie, she's just awesome. She she makes sure we're fed and Oh yeah.

No she likes feeds us too much all the time. Yeah. Everything from the best breakfast burrito you ever tasted to [00:45:00] huckleberry pies to Oh yeah. Huckleberry pies are amazing. And then cookies, the best cookies ever. But man, she's, and not only that, but she's a to how many puppies right now?

We got nine puppies she's nursing and playing with right now. And no, she's handy. She good at sewing hounds back together and fixing and mending them And I don't know how or why, but she puts up with me. So that's pretty cool. And she puts up with me when I come out . She puts up with me coming out and just dragging you off and yeah.

And then she likes to hunt too. That's the cool thing. Oh yeah. She loves to hunt. She loves to hear the dogs roll her. She killed a whale of a mule deer this last year. Yeah, I know. She shot a magnum 31 and a half inch mule deer. Just an absolute giant. It was a beast. Yeah. Know, man. It's what, it's what people dream of, dear people.

Dream of shooting. Oh yeah. [00:46:00] I jealous. I probably never get a deer like that in my lifetime. . Yeah. Yep. But no, she did good. And we hunted hard and put, definitely put the days in, but that mirror's kind of. It's bad shape. What? Can't see out of it or what the, here let me, I think I got it.

Let's see. Oh, maybe it'll, oh no, I got the wrong side going.

Yeah, I break everything. There we go. We're back at it Now we're back at it. We're back. All right. We have the space shuttle back in motion. It's wicked pretty right now, man. It's the snow's hanging off of the evergreen trees and piling up on this. What do you guys call this fence?

Jack? Pine. Jack pine fence. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. There's a lot of stuff that you guys do out here that makes a lot of sense. I was telling [00:47:00] you earlier, I was gonna build fence like this at home just because we've got a lot of shelf rocking. It's just hard to drive posts or or dig a hole.

So let's talk about your blue ticks. Why do you've been in? I think that's an I and I hear, it seems the thing that I hate is hounds men that they pigeonhole or they stereotype different breeds of hounds, especially, hounds that they're close minded about the ability of dogs based on their colors.

And I've seen your blue ticks in action several times and anybody that says blue ticks can't catch game. Having hunted with the blue ticks you're hunting. So what kind of tell us a little bit about 'em, Larry, how you got started in blue ticks and I always just thought they were pretty, a long time ago, but I just [00:48:00] heard about Dennis Epson in northern Wisconsin.

He runs old Vaughn and Smoky RiverDogs and he put 40 years of his life into making bearing Bobcat dogs. And so we got a couple and tried 'em out and man, they worked good. And what'd you like about 'em? They're cold nose and they're fast track dogs and they stay put tree dogs, honest tree dogs great rig dog smart, wicked smart.

They figure out unravel bobcat tracks and all the Kittycat games that kitty cats like to play. And they're gritty enough to stick and hold and do the things that a, like a bear dog needs to do. And so I, we've got a bunch of Dennis's dogs out here and. He got me set up with Matt Turner and John Gill and those guys all have heavy smoky river dogs and all those guys, it's hard work.

I've just got dogs from all of them and [00:49:00] the dogs I really like and have the carrots sticks. I like, I just kinda been breeding 'em back and forth. I like a fast track dog and I like a dog with a good nose and brain and athletic dog. I want a dog that's gonna be on a bear from daylight till dark if need be, and to have the steam to do it all day.

And I wanna be able to go catch another bear tomorrow. I like an athletic dog. They're short eared, long nose. We may be winching ourself outta this hole. There's nothing to winch to here, so I know. Hopefully not. Just keep it in the middle. . Yep. Keep her on the high ground, hopefully.

Yeah. Except for later. That's a big hole. But anyway they're probably not the hound Yout looking of the blue ticks by her, but I like an athletic dog before a pretty dog, . And I don't really care about ear spread or any of that stuff. I care more about an athletic dog that, that suits [00:50:00] me, but they, dogs aren't gonna suit everybody. Once you cut 'em loose, they're not gonna come back and check on you. They're just gonna go find something and they'll be there when you get there. Yeah. When you get, they'll be there when you get there. I've had places that trade lines and stuff I couldn't get in there and figure out how to get in there for over 24 hours and they're still belted up tree, the voice isn't quite there anymore, but they're still there and waiting on me, that's good for old fat guy . Yeah. Old fat guy. Sometimes it takes me a minute to get there. It takes you a minute. It takes me a lot of minutes. And I remember , the reason you got a high of a high energy dog is cuz you're a high energy hounds man. And the story I tell people a lot of times is when we were down in Springerville, in the White Mountains doing that sportsman for heroes Hunt and remember Lolo?

Yeah. We hooked up the horn picker. Yeah. The [00:51:00] guy, like the epic horn hunters. I think he's around 60 years old. Yeah. And he's just, he was fit. The guy was, he spent every day in the mountains and . You could tell. You could tell. But yeah, he was tough as a pint, huh? You could just tell.

Yep. So we we went on that, we met him. He found, he had found, seen a bear, and we went, he said, come on down, I'll show you where it was at. And he walks us up in there and I got separated cuz Mongo was, I don't remember. He was trying to get back across the road or do something, I don't know.

And I got behind and I got up halfway on that hill that had no idea where you guys were. And so I bailed on ya. You guys had three or four guys with ya. So I bailed and beat it back down to the truck. I knew where that was. So we went through that thing. We didn't catch bear on that, walked all the way through, but then later on, it wasn't 25 minutes later and we got a rig strike or and [00:52:00] you made another epic walk, but I remember you grabbing leashes and grabbing dogs.

And run, running down this trail to get your dogs in there. . Yeah, . I'm like, how can he be running right now? We hiked a lot of miles that day, but no I think, I think we did 20. Yeah, I think you did 20 that day. Yeah, I probably did. I probably did 12 to 15 on foot. But you did a full 20.

Yeah. At least hiking in between canyons and stuff where you can't get ro between roads and trying to get into raspberry patches and get into bears that aren't getting rigged from the road. And you deal, and, but but yeah, I know I am hardwired and I think my dogs definitely feed off me quite a bit cuz I, I'm I dunno, excitable, oh, you. So you gotta be, and that's the thing I like hunting with guys that are energetic and you get some, you start hunting with a guy you can feed off of that, yeah. It's important to have [00:53:00] positive attitudes and that no quit attitude when you're out here doing this stuff.

If you get somebody that's whining and dragging around and stuff like that, it just takes a wind outta everything. Yeah, no, it does. It's, we're out in rough mountains and rough weather and, you just gotta have the passion and want it and be out here and if you're having a good time, then everybody else will have a good time.

If you're kinda sore about being in the slippery, crappy snow, then it just feeds off everybody, yeah. Yep. That is pretty much a white out. You could see maybe 150 yards . Oh no, it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. It's socked in big time. I'm thinking the bears are probably socked in too.

Yeah, they're probably hunkered in sleeping in the snow storm. You never know. Might, the rut should be still going on. . So there could be more cruising, looking for a sour, those, yeah. So tell us what it, tell us what it's like [00:54:00] when the RU'S on out here. Yeah, bet you just get a lot of bears moving, coming and going, and you'll get some bigger bears that come in, from wherever they come in from.

The back country or maybe even outta state, it's hard to say, but you'll have your regular bears and regular bears, and then all of a sudden it's whoa, look at this big joker. Where did he come from? It's kinda like the lions. You get a female that comes into heat.

It's amazing. Overnight. There's you've been hunting the same area over and over and over and there's no big toms, and then get a female or two that's, and then boom, like overnight. There they are. Like, where'd you come from? . . There's not a road we haven't chopped up in the last month and there has been no sign of you.

Now you're here. Yeah. And I think, I think that's how it works with most, you see all these herds of elk, 50 60 head and all these little rag horns, and then soon as the cow start coming into mattress, all next thing you know, there's a couple mega bulls where they come from, yeah. Where they've been hiding at the whole time, but but no [00:55:00] it gets to be fun. And it's interesting cuz you could have a bait and you bait and you got all these bores and stuff coming and going all the time. And then the elk calves start dropping and the Fs start dropping.

And I don't care what I'm feeding, they just. Just walk away and start eating Fs. They'll come back and they'll drop the scat and little elk hubs or deer hubs in it. And there's something about 'em, the proteins or whatever, they'll, whatever, any kind of candy or meat scraps or whatever, they just go out and look for fawns and calves to kill.

Yep. I think it's a biological cycle. They know what they need at different times. Yeah. It's gotta be something like that. Cause yeah, I've tried to feed 'em as best I could feed 'em to keep 'em, hold 'em tight. And when that time comes, they just go. And we've seen a few fawns and we've seen, I've seen antelope, Vons and saw an elk cow yesterday with a calf.[00:56:00]

White tails with doze standing out was sunken inside, so you know that they just dropped a fawn somewhere. So it's probably getting right there. Yeah. No, there's a lot of fawns and calves getting born right now. There's a pile of them. I seen a couple wobbly calves this morning. . But yeah, those, so I mean them, them big bores and stuff, they're gonna be out looking for some elk veal.

And the thing about bear hunting in Idaho is baiting is still legal and as long as you follow the regulations, there's pretty strict regulations around baiting in, in Idaho distances off the road and different things like that. But it takes to run a bait out here, it takes some dedication.

Oh yeah. You gotta pack it plenty far off a road and it's heavy and. Idaho's steep. There's not really a whole lot of flat where you're gonna be bear hunting. It's mostly vertical feet. [00:57:00] So Idaho's a small stay. But if you flatten it out and laid it across the map, the thing would be huge Cuz , , the mountains are no joke.

They're steep. Yep. Yeah. But it keeps you in shape. It offsets the huckleberry pie and the cookies. Oh yeah. Seems like I'm losing on the cookie thing. I'm getting getting a dad bo going on pretty hard. . Yeah. When you sent me the, when you sent me your waist size for your first light gear, I was kinda like yeah. I'm not sure about that. . Yeah, I don't know about that one, Larry. That might be a stretch buddy. You better be planning on losing a couple inches maybe . Let's be first light skinny jeans

Yep. Yep. But no, it's

Back to your blue ticks, how many generations, how many years? Let's start out with how many years you've been hunting this line of blue [00:58:00] ticks. I think Jamie and I have had these dogs this line for about 16 years now. And we, before that we tried about everything. We had plots and never had plots, but we had some blackened towns and some other kind of blue ticks.

And we've had walker hounds and red bones and all kinds of stuff. And so have you been hound hunting since you were a kid? No. Been hound hunting for about 20 years. This is all, , so still pretty wet behind the ears. But always wanted to do it. And then, but when I wanted to get into it, like nobody would really ever want to help another Hounds man.

They're like, oh, we got plenty of Hounds men, we don't really need anymore . I even got a short tail relative that had Hounds and ahead and never even take me. And I asked him some years later, I said, why wouldn't you ever take me? He goes, I figure if you really wanted it, it was in your heart. You'd get it going, and figure it out yourself and you've done good.

So that's a valuable, [00:59:00] that's an interesting thought process. Yeah. It's kinda it's kinda like youth seasons, I'm all about getting kids in involved and doing these youth hunt events and doing different stuff like that. But I really feel like as a community as a whole, we're missing the mark.

You we're setting everything up for 'em. I'll give you an example. We had a we had a youth program that we started with the Hoosier Tree Dog Alliance. And you get all these people that come out and they're like, oh yeah, I'll be involved and we can do all this epic stuff and we'll get these prizes and we'll do this and we'll, and all these volunteers are just running themselves ragged, and the kids don't have to do anything except show up, right?

Yeah. And so I said, we need to form a youth committee and let them learn how to do this. They need to [01:00:00] understand the work that goes into this for what they're doing and how they, it doesn't just magically happen. There's work involved and there's people that are invested in 'em and we can mentor them because they're eventually gonna have to be the people that are doing those sort of things.

And how are they gonna learn it if we don't? Make them carry their load, during the youth events. And we'd done that a couple times and it seemed like the kids enjoyed it more and they had more satisfaction. And now some of those kids are, in their twenties, in their leaders, in their clubs or their communities.

If they stuck with hounds better than I think the success rate. I wish somebody would do a study and see what the success rate is of the continuation. And that's just for, that's competition type hunting type stuff. But even with general hunting stuff, you dad goes out and he sets up the Turkey blind and he, he does the scouting and he spins, he puts the game, cameras out and he does all these things and then opening day [01:01:00] comes and he's got the shooting rest set up.

And really the only thing the kid has to do is show up and pull the trigger. . Yeah, no, for sure. Like out here in Idaho though, you see a lot of dads and kids and, little kids pack and bait. I'll pack a whole lot, but they're all putting in something. Yeah. And it's neat to see you'll see a whole family and they might be just bait sitters, but they're all involved and they're all working together and doing stuff as a family.

Like little kids are packing little tiny ice cream buckets of bait, yeah. Nobody gets a free ride. No. And it's cool to see that here. Yeah. Yep. That whole, it's a whole family tradition, and hopefully it all gets to stay. Yeah. I think I've, seems like I've been on this kick lately, but, we talk about the pendulum of hunting and our culture and I think we have seen it swing as far as we can.

And,[01:02:00]

oh, we got us a little strike. Maybe a little bump. I wonder. Little bump. I don't see a track. Who was that Jack? That was Jack. He's pretty, pretty legit. Usually. I'm surprised he outr my plot.

How he is striking on deer track. Larry? No, I didn't see him. Deer tracks. I'm just kidding. He could be.

Maybe just let me know. He is still there. I don't know. Oh, we hit this switch back. He might catch at a different angle. Yeah. I'm not sure how the thermals are working in the snow. Yeah, and of course I left my, the trick you taught me, the wind checker. I left it. Left it in my Bino harness, which is back in my truck of course.

Cuz we were in a rush. You show up at six 30, running around, I see you pulling the driveway and you're running around the truck. And I was like, did you get rained out? Heck yeah man, let's go. We'll light 'em up[01:03:00] . Yeah, if I'm not working, I'm gonna be in the woods no matter how crappy the woods are.

Yeah. If it's raining snow and sleeting, I don't care. If you don't go, you don't get 'em. That's just how it is, it's probably, odds are probably slim about getting anything up and rolling today, but it's way slim if I just hit the house. Yep. So I got lots of days to sit at the house.

There's only one guarantee. One guarantee in honey and being a homan is you're not gonna catch games sitting on the couch a hundred percent. No, not unless you have one heck of a nice piece of property, . Just open the kennel door and watch your garment, right? Yep. I'll just watch this. I'll watch lonesome.

I'll watch this series of lonesome dove until my dogs get treated. . Yeah. Some of the hounds. I've owned it. You could, I think you could run through the whole, you could run through the whole series and you'd never have to get up. Yeah. I've had a few of those . [01:04:00] Yep. I think we all have at some point.

Yep. How many how many generations have you and Jamie how many generations of pups have you guys, Brad, tell us a little bit about the no tellum breeding method here. We're just, I don't know how many generations, but there's been quite a lot. I guess Jamie could tell you.

Jamie could tell you every day that every dog's birthday and. Probably about the dang time they were born, like seven oh six, and that one was seven 10, and that one was seven 15 and that one didn't come out until 9:00 AM or whatever. She, I don't know how she remembers it all, but she don't, she didn't, she never forgets a hound birthday.

She didn't write it down. Oh no. She just got it in her head. No, she don't. Yeah, she don't have it written down. We got papers on 'em all, but I was gonna ask you about that here in a second about, but she no, she just remembers like she's a numbers person. But we just breed family line of dogs [01:05:00] and I like breeding the ups and line into the, like the Ellis Blue Gym line, the, that Turner and John Gill and them guys back east have, they're super fast track dogs and, but they're, there's, we get a box shaker, man.

I wonder which way the wind's coming outta.

We got a strike folks. There's gotta be one here somewhere. I'm probably put a couple dogs down and see what we got. Yep. Cause it's something's going on. What's that? What are the plot liquors doing back there? Eating my dog box. Trying to get out. Are they? Yeah. Yeah. Good deal. Yeah, let's turn a couple loose, see if we can turn up.

Okay. All right. Let's see what tracks, but, all right, I'm going to stop the recording right here. All right. So back at it. The wind's doing weird stuff. Yeah, it's in a box [01:06:00] canyon and it's coming up and down and all around, but I'm sure we bumped the bear pretty hard right there or the line. But it could be at the bottom of this canyon.

The way the no tracks there. It look like an old Snowden bear track right there. Honestly, right here. It's snow way in. Sliding off this hill here. Yeah. Yep. I don't look at that. That looks, yeah. It's way snowed in, but Yeah. But it's it probably wouldn't a lot of snow up here yesterday.

No. No snow yesterday. It's been snowing all night.

Yeah. It's either, I don't know for sure. I think it's a, I think it's a young bear. Yeah. Looks like one that'll give us a run. Oh yeah. Honda 90 right there. Hard to see how far he is. Yeah. Pretty snowed in. But we were we were talking about your blue [01:07:00] ticks and the way you guys are. So what are some of the things that you breed for Larry?

I like athletic ability pretty much. One of the most important. I like brains. I like them, to thank. Another box shaker right there. They're catching that thing from somewhere. We only win about 150, 200 yards.

Let's go up around the corner. They're hitting hard, but it'd be nice to see a tracker, right? That bear's definitely here some. Please hope we can get 'em lined out, but whoa. No, I think that was just, it was just snow that had fallen off a tree. Yeah. Plop. Plop, yeah.

No I like, I like a good nose and most, I like athletic ability. I like running bears way more than I like lions. So I breed more geared towards rigging dogs. And [01:08:00] how important is grit to you? So a lot of people, we talk about grit a lot. How important is it? I like a gritty dog.

I like a dog that's gonna get in there and work. And I've put probably, maybe a little more effort into the grit than I probably should have. Cause I'm getting to the point where I think I'm just breaking the threshold of the right amount of grit. It's all fun and games, to have a lot of grit and then your dogs are tore up and, so I think it's, I need to back off on the grit department.

I like grit. I like, I'm a sore loser, so I like catching what I turn out on. And if the bears aren't having a good time on the ground, they're gonna find a tree. . But if they're just back cheerleading and doing, if they're not even getting close it.

you'll still catch them. Nice, easy little bears. But if you're gonna have success on bears you need some hair pullers. [01:09:00] You don't need cheerleaders. But so I, I probably have put more effort in the grit than I'm getting to the point where I need to maybe back off, which a little bit, which dog have you got?

That's you would consider your grittiest though? Yeah, Jack. Jack he's a little over zealous and, he is, got scars all over him, but and he is usually really smart, but he get into some of this deep snow and stuff like that and they just don't get outta the way in time. But but Jack is, Jack's a force.

His mom, Dixie, she came from Dennis Upson. She was a wicked, gritty dog, like wicked gritty. But Dennis put 40 years of his life into breeding for. What we got going up. Smart. What kind of track? Deer. Track. Snow down. I think it's a snowed in deer track there. It's gotta be a deer.

The dogs are striking hard on it. Yeah. Look at the plots. If they're striking, then it's probably a deer. Yeah. They're being quiet , trashy blue dogs. [01:10:00] Yeah. I don't know. I just, my, my heart's in the running bears. If you get good snow like this, you can catch lions with the, if you had a good poodle, you'd be catching some lions.

When the snow conditions are perfect, it's pretty easy. But, you get weather patterns that are tough. It's nice to have a dog mill can work, some dirt go across south facing and slopes that are burned off and stuff like that. So I like to keep nose, especially when I'm line guiding, like if I find a track, I need to catch it for the client.

I need to be able to work dry ground and south facing slopes and yeah. You've bear hunted from all the way outta here in Idaho. What's farthest east you've bear hunted Wisconsin. Yeah. Wisconsin. Yeah. What's the difference in hunting out here? In hunting and Wisconsin? Here our weather's a lot nicer and

Yeah, it looks like it. It's they're usually, it is awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. It's get cold in the morning and it warms up in the [01:11:00] afternoons and stuff, but like Wisconsin, just wake up, man. It's hot, it's humid it's flat, but it's swampy, it's grow. It's got its own, it's got its own challenges.

Oh, it's, do you need a different type of dog? No. That's where my dogs mostly came from is Wisconsin. But. I dunno. Wisconsin's different. You gotta have a dog that likes water and swamps and, but the thing is, all we got there, deer track, deer, you get a, you get bear set in their nose and they just go, it doesn't really matter what country you're in.

Yeah. If they got the heart and want the desire, they'll go, yep. Looks like we're gonna be getting the chainsaw again. Yeah. Yeah. Good thing I filled that thing up before we left. When we get back to town, is there a steel dealer in town? I gotta file someplace. I'll find it. I'm gonna share it and otherwise you're gonna keep hounding me about it.

you get the file and I'll sharpen it for you. That's how much ? Yeah. This one's a [01:12:00] green one, so I might take a minute. Yep. I'll push some pause.

All right. I'm back at it. I'm telling you what, if you don't sharpen that salt item, I'm just gonna hand catch a beaver. And put it in the truck. Hold them down, make 'em cheer em. Yep.

Their game's up and moving around a little bit. Yeah, those are pretty fresh gear tracks there. Yeah. Yeah. They were snowed down a little bit, but there's about, what is there, seven 80 inches of snow up here. Yeah. They're seven by seven eight inches. This would be good. Good puppy training for Lion.

Huh? That's what I'm looking for. We could puppy training for a fresh freshy bear truck. Yeah. Yeah. So will the bears stay up high in this? Are they gonna move low and, yeah, they'll just, they're just wherever they are right now. Wherever they are is where they are. Yeah. Yeah. They're not gonna, they're not gonna change what they're doing just for this little bit of squall.

No, they're used to[01:13:00] right now they're just living where they're living. The cells are where they're at, and birds are not far behind them. And.

I might imagine they're probably hunkered in somewhere, but it quits snowing, so who knows? Maybe they'll get up and cruise around looking for something to eat. I don't know. Something chew on. Hard to say, but, yep. But no, my dogs they could be a little bit rammy, a little hot, fish if you run bear all summer.

The first few lion races and the speaking of which faller pretty interesting. Oh, that's a deer track. They could be pretty interesting. They could miss a lot of corners. They wanna run fast. The head on the fly and yeah. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that adjustment from, Raymond Bears all summer.

When you have to switch over to Lions, what's that the first couple chips is just , it's almost embarrassing. You don't want to , you definitely don't want to take a client out lion hunting, and [01:14:00] they're gonna be like, what in Tarn Nation are these dogs even gonna catch anything?

Yeah. Because they, they're all wound uptight, and they want to run and they're looking for the action, and so the first couple races are always just interesting, they miss a lot of corners and it takes 'em 10 times long to catch a line as it should. And how long does it take you to get 'em dialed back in?

Just a couple races. And then they're like, oh, it's wintertime. We're back to gearing down and slowing down and paying attention, and, and then they just fall right back into where they were. But the few, the first few is just, . Like I said, it's embarrassing , but it is what it is. And they're hot, they're naturally hot dogs. They wanna run and that's how I've been working with the breeding. I'm, I want a dog that's athletic and wants to run, like really wants to go, yeah. And first and foremost I like catching bears more than I like lions.

So [01:15:00] I put more effort into the bear aspects than I have the lions. Yeah. Yeah. So getting back to the grit thing, it seems like that you got two plots you're gonna be hunting all summer and it seems like grit is something that plot breeders talk a lot about, but we had a conversation about, east versus west, and I like your opinion on it.

What do you think, what are you thinking? Let's rehash that conversation a little bit on the down, like this country and territory or yeah. Yeah. So I think this open country, I think the dogs can get a lot more speed and steam and circle a bear and work 'em a lot easier per se than places that are just wicked thick and, a bear can back into a briar bush or whatever and the dogs can't really get around is right.

It's just a frontal kind of thing. And yeah, like out west [01:16:00] here, we do have some thick country, but it's not thick like Wisconsin, it's not thick the Virginia stuff, I've never been out to Virginia, but I've seen videos and talked to folks out there. That are real bear hunters and stuff.

And I think we have it made out west cuz it's, I mean we, we definitely have some thick, crappy spots, but you, I think every, it's like Shorty GOs said, when we recorded a podcast with him, every place has its challenges. Every single place. Here it's it's wicked steep. Yeah, wicked, wicked.

Like rock slides and shale slides. I mean they just, that's how Jack broke his foot. He was going across the shale slide on a bear and the rock started rolling and crushed his paw and broke his foot. You know what I mean? No matter where you're at, there's definitely tough conditions.

Laurel Thickets in the, Western North Carolina mountains are. Are a lot different than what you have here. If we get down in some of the low country, you've got some pretty thick stuff down some of this low [01:17:00] country, but up here high, I can see 150 yards pretty, see the ground 150 yards out there, and you just don't get that in North Carolina, but, I guess what I'm getting at is there aren't any easy bears there, there aren't any easy bears anywhere because it's just a deal where if the bears aren't, everything's got its challenges is what I'm trying to say. Oh, yeah. Most likely. Most definitely. It's whether you're in steep country or just blow down jungles of dead tipped over lo lodge bull stands or whatever.

There's always hard Yeah. No matter where you go, but I think out west you have. or spoil cuz we can, all the dogs can really circle up a bear and work a bear. And make his life not good, but like in Wisconsin man, some of that stuff is just wicked thick. They just back into it.

Same way with the Laurel thicket, they back into, up against a good laurel bush and dogs basically have, just a couple [01:18:00] options to get in there to work 'em and Yeah. The receiving end. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting cuz I think a lot of times I've heard it said, and

there's a lot of, there's a lot of emphasis put on grit back east, to the point that I'll just say it. The two plots I have back here are gritty. They're, but they lack some of the locating ability I'd like to see. And. I think that is just lack of exposure.

Once they get some more bear races under their belt, they're super wicked smart. Mike Coley's been breeding this line of plots for years, and I'm not, I'm, I've been very happy with them. They've just got a lot of tools to work with and, but I don't think I, I don't think you're gonna be lacking the grit.

We got another box shaker

that's wrapped around the other side of where we were. Yeah, it's hard to say. The way these [01:19:00] thermals are and the way the snow is, I don't really wanna go too hiking and too far unless we get one rolling , right? Yeah. We need to see a track crossing this road. Neither one of us brought our g.

Have you got your gators? I might, I actually, I probably got a couple pair cause I usually got a couple paired behind the seat in case clients don't bring 'em or don't want 'em or until we actually are out hunting and then they're like, oh man, I see why you need Gators . Yeah. So I'll be borrowing a set.

Yeah. I'm sure if I dig around in this truck I'll finest a couple per gators, but Yeah. Yep. Yeah, no, I'm excited about them plots and give 'em a try and work 'em this summer and see how they go. Yeah. And I'm excited to leave them out here with you cuz you know it's one of those deals, Larry, we've hunted the swan a couple times.

We hunted springerville. We're hunting bear here now. We talk all the time. I think it's important that guys make contacts. It's just it's good to have good friends. And I appreciate your friendship. I really do. I've had a blast every time I've hunted with you and I think if I told you I wouldn't leave until [01:20:00] August, you'd, you might cringe a little bit, but you'd be okay with it.

Yeah, no, you're more than welcome. Anytime now. You're always welcome. You're a good friend and always have a good time, even if we're not catching cats, cuz the weather's rainy and crappy, but we get out and we have a good time. And that's a huge part of hound dogging, really.

Just getting out with the dogs and enjoying company from a fellow helmsman and friendship. And if you get something to treat, it's icing on the cake. If you don't we'd agree. You're the first year in the swan. Oh yeah, I know it, it was just the snow conditions were good and the cat movement was good and it was belly button deep and the cats had to move to, to eat and feed and then, We had Scotty too hot to break trail for us.

Yeah, we, that last cat we treated down in the holy cow, that swamp bottom there. And we stepped in that beaver slide and , shit, we were, I disappeared up to our armpits, like just our heads sticking out. That would've been a cool picture of somebody would've been back. It's look at these guys.

It's just our heads sticking out of a snowbank. Look at these idiots. Be more like it. Look at [01:21:00] they're going in there, following the hounds and they did this they volunteered to do this. Yep. Yeah, for sure. And if we were, if somebody told us that was our job, we'd be like no, I don't think so.

Nah, I'm not gonna do that. We're gonna get turned around here cuz like past, this is pretty much roadless and then one road that does go in without tire chains. If we got a dog going that way, we'd be going all the way back to town to get a set of chains. So Yeah, like you say that real casual, like we'll be going all the way back to set a, yeah.

Oh you're saying if the truck's not stuck, if we're not stuck and then buried burying the truck and we've buried some, we've buried some stuff a couple times. Oh. We've buried a lot of stuff and broke a lot of stuff. We've buried this in the side by side of tracks twice. Bad, like the one Yeah.

The time you about cut my head off with the winch. Yeah. That was epic. And I knew be, that was much my fault. I knew better than to be standing where I was standing and I knew when you took the angle you [01:22:00] took with that winch cable. I was suspicious Right then I was like, ah, that's a pretty steep angle to be trying to winch something out.

But we really didn't have a lot of other options. Yeah. There wasn't a lot to pick from there. It was. and the crappy thing you find out later, there was two dead, there was two logs. Yeah. We found 'em this, we found 'em this winter. Yeah. And there was two, so there's two trees laying there. And the track was between the two trees.

Yeah. And so it was wedged in there, but it was so much snow that we couldn't, you couldn't see to see what we were jacked up on. And this year it's oh, no wonder why. Yeah. No wonder why it was such a pain in the butt to get it outta the, and that's why we broke the cable and everything else cuz we were stuck between two trees.

Yeah. And then we're tr we get past that, we get up over the top and you're like, oh man, this snows deep. This snows deep. I've never got this thing stuck before. But man, this snows deep. And then we just let off the, you let off the gas a little bit and that sucker sat right down on the skid plates and we were done.

Yeah. That, yeah. You get them tracked up side by [01:23:00] side. Stuck. It's it was an epic dig man. Oh yeah. No it's for real. How deep was that? I've got pictures of it. I don't know. It was probably. Close to five feet. I think I, I don't know for sure. It was, we dug it all the way down to the till we saw grass and yeah, it was it was way bad.

And then like you say, we hit her hard one time and you came out of it Yeah. Hit her hard one time.

Then we get the truck stuck last year, this past winter up in the, I don't even remember which. Where were you a Punch Creek? Lion Creek. Yeah. Lion Creek. Yeah. It's just hard cuz it's freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing, 50 something degrees in the day and then gets rock hard frozen at night and then you get those layers of crust and the ice underneath and that's really the only time I've ever seen you mad when we stuck that truck.

It was and I think it was a combination of things that the dog's feet were cut up from the couple tracks we did try to run and the weather wasn't cooperating and. [01:24:00] And just some other things going on there and slid that truck off the road and yeah, we slid it off and I centered on that, the bank, like the the actual, the shoulder.

And actually I smashed my oil pan and Oh, you did? Flashed my, yeah, it flattened my oil pan a little bit and then it broke the seal. And so I didn't realize you did all that. Yeah, I didn't either. I hope to get my oil changed and the guy's Hey you kinda got a shitty leak under your truck.

Your oil pan's leaking pretty bad, and I'll change your oil, but I don't know how long it's gonna stay in there, but luckily, I guess it was cold enough. It didn't burn up nothing, but but yeah, no, I got a brand new oil pan and all that good stuff underneath here. From that, from the, from that little adventure.

This goes back to prove my point that I always say, don't buy a used truck from a bear hunter. , any hound Dogger, man. Any, any hound dogger that's hunting. If you got Idaho or Montana pin strapping all over your truck, definitely [01:25:00] don't wanna be buying no truck from no hound guy.

Yeah. I'll see a rig on the advertised on the internet and I'm like, yeah, buddy. I'm staying way, way away from that vehicle right there. Yeah. Yeah. Duke's a hazard. They don't have nothing on a bear Dogger. That's right. . Yep. I'll tell you what I think I don't know how long we've been recording for, but you got anything you want to tell the Hound world?

The Hounds Man XP podcast is the most listened to podcast. We're the first, the original and the most listened to and it started when you. when I was in Montana with you the first time we were, remember we were working on it and we talked about it then. Yeah. Yeah. Talking about it then and now it's it's way cool.

The Helmsman podcast. And where I live, I, there's no cell phone service, there's no internet, there's no, I can't even pick up a [01:26:00] country western on the radio. I can't get, and so for me, it's awesome. I just download all the podcasts and then, cook some dinner and listen to podcasts. And you don't even have tv.

Nah. Right now. Yeah. There's nothing. Sit on the porch and listen to the river and listen to hound Minox p Podcast. Podcast. And you've had a lot of cool people on your podcast and a lot of valuable information. It's came, and shoot 'em feeding 30 20 dog food now. And I never really gave it much thought before.

Dog food's, dog food, long as it's decent, your dogs aren't gonna die, but, you feed 'em, it just makes sense to feed 'em better food than, and it just, you, there's a lot to learn from your podcast, and it's, and I think it's helpful for a lot of people to listen to and take the bits and pieces that you want and throw the rest out the window, but at least that information and views from other helmsman are out there, and I think it's a pretty, [01:27:00] pretty cool thing. Yeah. I appreciate that and I've always appreciated you and Jamie. You guys have been supporters of the podcast for a long time and telling people about it from ordering t-shirts to, to your Patreon supporters now.

And just, I really appreciate all the support and the friendship you've given us. And one thing about, I did find a book in your house and piqued my interest. , I found the book called Scent by Richard Cuck, right? Yeah. Dr. Persol and maybe Cuck wa wrote sin and the Sinning Dog, but Persol definitely was a contributor on the Scent book.

Where did you, where did, why did you pick that book up? Was that from the podcast? I believe it was, yeah. I've got quite a few different hound books there. Just to read and try to learn, I've just learned on my own and a spree, free spirit out here in the [01:28:00] woods and reading to learn my dogs.

But I think there's knowledge out there that's being shared if we just pick it up and look and read and and maybe, I think all of a Hounds men could learn something. That's the coolest thing about be doing the podcast is I get to learn. I get to learn. I learn stuff from every person. that I go hunt with.

Sometimes it's learning what not to do, but sometimes it's, yeah. That's half of it there. Trial and error. Yep. And we make I think we make better progress on our learning when we do make some mistakes and but I learned something from everybody I hunt with. It, I don't care if a guy's 26 years old and he is been hunting for 10 years, I've been hunting, almost hunting hounds for almost 40.

But you can always pick something up if you're not close minded. And it just, there's no sense of being close minded in this thing. No, it, there's just, there's [01:29:00] lots to learn. Like sinon conditions is just one of the most bizarre things. Like this winter we had a brand new lion track with Tom and a female and.

And it was fresh snow overnight, but it was bitter or cold. It was, I don't know, probably negative five, maybe 10. I don't know. It was cold and the snow was squeaky and it was, a track was probably only like maybe seven, eight hours old. It was brand new. Any dogs should have ran it.

But the dogs wouldn't even look at it. We came back about five hours later and it was about 30 degrees, and the dogs ran it like, like this had cross the road, , and then they had a tree and an hour, but several hours earlier they just looked at me like I was stupid.

It's sitting conditions are just weird sometimes. Have you got to read that book? Sent book called Saint yet? I've just barely started reading it. But I will read it from front to cover and see what I can pick up, and see what I can learn. And it really dives [01:30:00] into the , kinda the biological side.

Gotcha. You know the, how it works, you already knew, you came back and tried it in your opinions. Okay, so let's talk, I want to know what your opinion is of why your dogs ran that five hours after you originally found it. One, it was like squeaky brand new shiny track. Yeah, I think it was just froze down.

It had some whore frost in it and I think it was just froze down. Just too cold, too frozen too. What'd you call, what kind of frost? Whore Frost. Are we allowed to say that on the podcast? I'm pretty sure. . I don't know. I'm probably not the most politically correct. So you've done, you we've done pretty good.

Not too good. I've got one spot I gotta edit out when you about slid us off the mountain. But other than, that was your potty mouth, not mine.

No, I. But no, it's just interesting. It's just stuff that you learn over time. So you think that track was frozen in, and then once, once you said little [01:31:00] bit of, was it sunny that day? I'm interested. Yeah. No. Yeah, it got it, it cleared off. It was wicked clear, and that's why it got so cold, bitter cold.

But then the sun came out and started melting the snow and was actually slushy and the dogs just fired out of there. They shot 'em out of a cannon. They just fogged the track and like I said, an hour, boom, done tree, and in the morning. And they just, they wouldn't even look at it.

If you read the, I'm not gonna spoil it. I think I've got a, I think I've got a theory and it's not like I'm the guru by any means. I've just cracked a book here and there and had some experience with sending dogs and working dogs as a canine handler, stuff like that. But we'll talk about, read the book and then we'll talk about your theory again and see what you think.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I'm, that's what we're trying to do with the podcast is man, that, you don't always have to watch a YouTube video of a two minute video of a guy catching a bear. And I love all those videos. My buddy Calvin Redhouse put some awesome videos up [01:32:00] and he's a wicked videographer, man.

He's way good. Yeah. And I love it. And it's great for exposure, but every once in a while we gotta learn why it's going on, learn. And I think it will up your success rate and it'll connect some dots. That's what I'm trying to say, cuz I, if we come out here and trial and error, it's like we learn a lot.

But ma'am, when you can dial that in and know exactly what's gonna happen, what if you'd have found that frozen in track and you'd have decided to spend three hours walking the track out and trying to get your dogs. Into it and you could have wasted a lot of time and a lot of energy on that.

Whereas, whereas when you know what's gonna happen, you're like, eh, we'll come back and try that later. And that's all based on experience from your vast experience of being out here and doing it at time and time again. Yeah. My brother-in-law's with me, he is just we're not gonna walk this track out.

I'm like, we're way back here in the side by side. Nobody else has even been around. So we'll just [01:33:00] keep Cho, chopping country up and see what else we can find. And then once it warms up, we'll go back and put the dogs back on him and he's just that don't make sense. And I'm like, it don't, but that's what we're gonna do.

And Right. And he went back and he's just oh, be golly, look at that . Yeah. Yep. He goes, it's like the line just ran across the road and we know we found it that four o'clock in the morning, and here it is 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock in the afternoon. And like I said, like an hour man, boom.

Done tree. And we tree ended up treating it like a hundred yards off the. The main road, . Yeah. Yeah. So it was like a five minute walk to the tree, ah, those are great. Yeah. just, I want lazy bears in short-run lions. That's what I like. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. Yep. And lots of 'em. Lots of 'em.

Yeah. So you take stuff like that, like when I started hunting, I was, lot of the old timers that I hunted with and stuff, they knew that sort of stuff about sending conditions and what their dogs could run and what they couldn't run. And I guess I'm a why guy, why can't they do it? And then when I started, [01:34:00] when I went through canine training for the state, they started talking about these theories, ascent.

And I remembered what some of the old timers told me and I thought, ah, that's why. But they had found out just by trial and error, and they've put dogs on, tracks like that back east, you see a coon across the road and you want to. You're tempted, just dump the box, let's get that pup, get a pup out, and they run around like they've never done anything in their life, losing their minds.

And the old timers will tell you, you don't need to dump out on that track. Go up the road, turn around, give it a few minutes, and then you can run the track. But if you see it across the road, nine times outta 10, your pup's not, or an old dog is not gonna be able to run it. But if you give that time, but why, the thing that I think we miss is, and I've heard even seasoned hounds men talk about this, they think the scent comes from that foot track.

And that's just not the case. It [01:35:00] comes from their whole body. It's a living organism that comes off of the body and we have it. Dogs have it. Every living thing has it, it's and when you can understand some of that, then it makes sense. And I like things to make sense. I guess I'm just hardwired that way, right?

So why do things work the way they do? Yeah, for sure. Yep. Hey, I don't know what else we're gonna do besides your record podcast, but if we don't find a bear track Yeah. Kinda limited without chains. It's just a monkey mess up here. But so far, so good. Other than one almost slide off into the abyss of that tree would've stopped us though.

Yeah, I think we still would've been on our side.

It's all good though. It is what it is. Yep. Yep. Larry, I'm glad to be out here with you and spending some time we're gonna have a good week of hunting. I'm glad you [01:36:00] ditched work today to come out here and ride around and we'll give it we'll give her our best effort here.

Yeah, I know. We'll just keep bouncing around. Just see what we can turn up. Nothing else to do besides hunt. Yep. I wouldn't have it any other way anyway. So we could do something like putting new metal on your building. That sounds like work. . I like this better too. I like this better too.

That'll be better days to do some metal work. Yeah, I hear you. Than when it's snowing and raining and stuff dripping off the roof and all that all right, Larry, if we get up here and the plot liquors decide to hit a bear track, it's hard telling 'em what you're gonna get. You're gonna have fun hunting these two dogs.

No, I think I will. They're easy to be around and they're nice kindhearted dogs and they'll make, so yeah, the reason I shave my head is because I got tired of pulling my hair You're gonna, they're gonna try your, they're gonna try your patients just every young dog will.

[01:37:00] And but while I'm out here, Larry, do you follow your hands and I'll follow mine? Sounds good.

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