The Coonhound Calcutta with Wes Hamilton

Online sports betting has taken the U.S. by storm in recent years. From boxing, horse racing, golf, football, MMA, and everything in between, people are logging in to place their bets. Why are the competition coonhunts at the elite level of our sport not getting the same recognition on these online platforms? Join your host Bryce Matthews this week as he sits down with one of the founders of the Coonhound Calcutta, Wes Hamilton, to see where our sport is headed with online betting. This episode is jam packed with topics ranging from the Dash for Cash, working as a team with a dog to take $5,000 and turn it into $200,000 plus, and the future of our sport possibly landing on the main strip of Las Vegas. If you have a competitive nature, this is one episode you will absolutely not want to miss!

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Bryce Matthews: [00:00:00] My name is Bryce Matthews, and this is The Deep and Lonely Podcast presented to you by Homan xp. During this podcast, we will dive deep into what makes the ultimate top level and unmatched extreme competition. Coon Hunter. We will hear stories of old tales of today, and we will dive deep into what separates the men from the boys.

The stories will be raw, the truth will be told, and the comradery will be second to none. Pull up your chaps. It's about to get deep.

Welcome back to another episode of the Deep and Lonely Podcast, presented by the Hins and XP network. Guys. Today I'm very fortunate to be joined by somebody who is well known in the sport of competition [00:01:00] coon hunting. He's got, accolades out the roof. He's got a dog that is at the top of the charts.

Today we're sitting down with Mr. Wes Hamilton. Wes, how you doing buddy? Very good. Very

Wes Hamilton: good

Bryce Matthews: man. I'm very glad we finally got you on here. It's been a struggle to get our schedules to meet up and match up, but we finally got it nailed down here. So I'm pumped to be here this afternoon.

I think this is gonna be a conversation that is very intriguing to guys like myself who are very competitive into this. We're just competitive in general especially with the sport of competition, coon hunting. We're gonna spend a lot of time today guys talking about the new Coonhound Calcutta. We're gonna let Wess dive into that here in a little bit.

If you guys aren't familiar with what that is stay tuned for this whole podcast. 'cause that's gonna be the majority of what we've got going on here today is talking about this coonhound Calcutta. And what it could possibly do for the sport of competition, coon hunting. Wess, why don't you just go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners, let 'em know who you are, where you're from, your little background, just a little bit more about Wess Hamilton.

Wes Hamilton: Obviously I'm Wess [00:02:00] Hamilton, but I live out in Nebraska. I build buildings for a living work a lot. We coon hunt a lot too. Not a lot of coon hunters out here in Nebraska. There's good hunting in Nebraska, but there's not, it's not like Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois. You got a, you probably got five or six good spots, like good spots.

You got a lot of little spots you can kinda single dog in, but where you can cast a dog because I've probably got five or six spots, and just like everybody else, our hunting's dwindling out down here, just like everybody is but I guess I'd be most known for Ruby, Ruby's probably the dog that put me on the map more than anything.

I've hunted a lot of different dogs before that, but I suppose she's probably the dog that put me on the map the

Bryce Matthews: most yeah. So how did you get into it? Have you coon hunted your, like growing up? Does, is it a family tradition? How is it? Yeah, I've

Wes Hamilton: actually got five brothers. And my stepdad actually got me into coon hunting when I was young.

We hunted like for the [00:03:00] hides, it was a big thing, it was a money thing actually. We kept them dogs all summer, we trade dogs around or whatever, but we hunted through the winter for the hides, I mean for the money. And I was 80 up with it from little and I didn't get into the competition hunting until I was 16 when I could drive or about right before I was 16.

That's when I got into that. And you know how it is, you get your first win outta hunt and then it's just, it's coon hunting thing's just different, you're either in it all the way. Or you're just not really in it, but it doesn't work for everybody either, 'cause not everybody's got not everybody's got the, not, it don't work with everybody's jobs.

It don't work with everybody's family. And it's hard to make everything work, to be out running the roads and doing competition hunts.

Bryce Matthews: It is, man. I a hundred percent agree. I spent the last two nights over at the P K C world qualifiers, and, Thursday night and Friday night those are nights I had to miss some things for my kids.

But it was something big. You try to hit, you try to hit the majority of their stuff going [00:04:00] on, but these big events that you've gotta be there. Yeah. How'd you do? Not worth that. Darn. I'm just flat out on, we, I'm not even going back tonight. I don't, man. I don't know what the deal is. He's been looking so good.

And we had, we had a heck of a run up there at Michigan Madness. We got in two outta the three nights. Sitting second in the truck race for the pups right now. I think we got bumped a third after last weekend, but we were sitting second there for a while. God, we just had a good run. He was looking solid.

And then it got stupid hot down here in Indiana this week. I don't know what it's been like over there in Nebraska. Same here. Same here. Very bad. Very hot. It was awful. So I didn't hunt a couple nights leading up to it. I just wanted to let him rest. And then I went out there the last two nights and he's just been in run mode.

His name's wheels for a reason, but it shouldn't be that bad. Yeah, he just, he never made a tree. He just run for two nights

Wes Hamilton: I think this summer. And I think if you watch what a lot of other ERs say, you know the guys that are always hunting, 'cause they'll be saying, you can talk to 'em and they know what's going on.

And it's crazy how stuff can [00:05:00] be the same in Indiana as it is Nebraska. It is Texas. That's what, like you'll see everybody will have an off week with dogs, and I think this summer's been the hardest. I don't know why we didn't get no rain out here until later on it was just hot and dry.

Hot dry, hot, dry, and then we got a bunch of rain, and then it was hot and dry. Now it's hot and dry again. It is just been tough, man, to keep dogs consistent. This summer's as hard as it's ever been for

Bryce Matthews: me, man. I agree. I don't remember a summer that's been this hard, and I don't like hunting in the summer to begin with.

It's just, I don't like being hot and sweaty bugs. I, it's not my thing. I don't like it, but I do it because I love the sport and I like to win. And if you're gonna win, you've gotta be out there night in and night out. But this summer has been tough, and I was literally talking to Bron McDaniel earlier today about it.

We were just chit-chatting back and forth. I said, man, I said I can't figure him out. I was like, there'll be a week or so where he looks just as good as anything I've ever drawn. And then he goes out and it's he don't know what he's doing. He's just in run mode. And it's [00:06:00] just, he's just not, I'm not seeing consistency with him right now.

And I've talked to some other hunters and they're seeing the same thing. So I don't think it's just my dog, but, what a heck of a time to be inconsistent here at the world hunt. It just, it's not gonna happen this year. Yeah, I think our world

Wes Hamilton: hunt's a little early this year too. I know that's all in the works of getting fixed and stuff, but, It is a little early for World Hunt right now.

Ain't It's hot. I didn't even go. Just be, we got a big hunt in Oklahoma next weekend, but yeah, it's just, there's a lot of hunts right now too. That's another thing.

Bryce Matthews: There is, so it's a lot of, so this weekend we had the P K C world zones Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Yeah. I've got my stuff loaded and ready to go first thing in the morning to TMOs.

We're gonna be, we go down there on Sunday, so I get there on Sunday and then we've got Labor Day classic Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then that actually goes on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I'm probably gonna hunt Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And then you got your dual championships in TMOs Thursday.

You got your grands on Friday. It's man, there's a hunt every day next week. And Yes, there is. [00:07:00] It's just wild. It's hot. It's, I dunno, it's fun. The sport is evolving where there're, you can literally go to hunt around here, I would say 70% of the week if you wanted to. Is it like out, out in Nebraska?

Do you guys have those kinda hunts. We don't have

Wes Hamilton: a lot of small hunts, but you can get into a truck and go somewhere any weekend. You know what I mean? And but everything's far from out here. That's one thing about it. It's wild. Nothing's close. Closest big hunts are gonna be like Memphis, Missouri, or La Plata, Missouri.

That's gonna be five, six hours. That's gonna be the far, that's gonna be the closest. Where I grew up at and actually what got me into the big hunts and the pro classics was before they ever even started was the Russ Meyer Hunt. I don't know if you've heard people talk about, I have heard about, that was really the first pro classic.

And what was crazy is that was so far ahead of its time. That was just a 16 dog $6,500 three night deal, but that went on for 12 consecutive years before anybody ever even picked up and had [00:08:00] one pro classic. You know what I mean? Really? I didn't know that. That's a while. Yes. No, it went on for I think 12, I think.

I think they had 13 years in the 12. It was 12 years were passed before. And what happened was, it was like, it was almost like Russ was doing it and like he was like the only person that could do it. For some reason P K C wouldn't do it. They were just doing their thirties and their, they're out of purse hunts.

And this went on for a decade. And then, and then Russ, he got sick and he was like, I'm not gonna do it no more. And and then they had the first one that black IP one in Texas. I didn't even go the first one down there. And I was at the majority of all Russ's. I either, early on I was judging or guiding 'cause I lived right there.

So I got to see firsthand that, hey, if you've got a good dog and you give 'em three nights and hunting that they're good in. They're probably gonna come out, and I think it's took people a little time to see [00:09:00] on these pro classics about just the way the pro classics are.

You just gotta win one cast, so it's really the best bang for your buck, and then if you got and you can actually make some money at 'em too if your dog's right. You know what I mean? I guess if they're right. That's true. And it is not. And dude, they're just, you get better handlers, you get better dogs, but they're just you don't get much BSS in 'em, I agree. I agree. It's, it is just pretty professional, I think, so I like talk about

Bryce Matthews: it. Okay. So you've been around for a while. Were you hunting the when they had the pro series, I guess it was like the pro hunts before they went to the pro classics.

Wes Hamilton: Yeah. Yep. That, and to think back now that, oh yeah.

So in 2010 I won the Pro Race with a Dogger. I signed for Jeremy McKaylas, a dog named Wipe Out suds. And I won the pro race with that dog and that there people, it was one a month and it didn't matter if it was in North Carolina or where it was [00:10:00] at, it was $300 entropy. 64 people were going there.

They wasn't missing it. And that was wild. That was very wild. And you were just there and once a month you went to this hunt. But it was crazy was, it was only $4,000 if you got lucky enough to win it, and they were hard to win. It wasn't like Hunts are now where their 16 dogs, two cast one, you gotta win three cast.

It seemed like it was pretty, the 16 dogs would normally prevail getting the top 16. But then that, that early round on Saturday night was tough. It was just tough. There was always really good dogs in it. And then the win one was just tough. So actually that year in 2010, I think there was 12 hunts or whatever, and I won one and then gotten the finals of a couple others and that won it for me.

So that shows you how hard it was to actually even win one of them, yeah. But yeah, so I went to a bunch of those that was the hunt and and I think the pro classics probably hurt the pro months, the series thing. Now you got all these [00:11:00] series people doing in each state, that's pretty neat.

You know what I mean? But we don't have a real pro race like we used to, like where you waited to see in the book and Oh, such and such is a thousand dollars ahead or whatever, that it was a big

Bryce Matthews: thing, yeah. And so whenever I first came into the, I. This scene of coon hunting in general?

'cause I've really only been coon hunting for eight years. Yeah. I didn't start till I was in college. I've said it on here before, but I had a buddy in college, he introduced me to it, and I just got bit by the bug. Like you said, you're either in it or you're out of it. And I have been head first in it for eight years now, but when I was first getting into it, I couldn't soak up enough the information.

I was trying to figure it out and trying to see, I was like, what is this deal? What is this competition thing about? And that's whenever I started seeing these pro hunts and the pro races and I was like, man, are these guys at that time, I didn't know. I was like, do you have to win X amount of money to be considered a pro, to be able to even enter in these hunts?

Can anybody what makes a pro? And I was just so enamored by that. And I was like, I would watch it and I'm like, man, this is like crazy. Like you said, you'd see the same guys [00:12:00] in North Carolina, in Missouri, Texas, like wherever that pro Hunt was at, used to all the same guys. And I was like, are these guys making a living doing this?

I just, I didn't know what it was about and I was so enamored with the thought of. Man, like you can be a pro at anything, can be pro baseball, pro basketball, pro nascar, and now there's a professional coon hunter. Like

Wes Hamilton: what? Yeah, it's crazy about hobbies. I tell people all the time when people talk about coon hunting and whatever and I don't want to coon hunt for a living.

I love doing it at the highest level, but I love to work, and just, I don't want kon to be my job. I've always that's one thing. It's, I guess it, it'll wear you down if you're working and trying to, it'll flat wear a man down. But it'll wear, but like the guys that do it for a living man, they're doing it hard enough that throw war down too.

There. There's no way that you can run the road working or not working and not be wore down. Man, it's them ks will wear a man down Absolutely. As much as work well. As much as work well for sure. But yeah, I know exactly. I [00:13:00] remember thinking, having all of the same thoughts you did about the Pro series, but.

Any hobby that you're in, there's another level to it. You know what I mean? Look at cornhole like it's on e s, esp, N now.

Bryce Matthews: Is that how crazy?

Wes Hamilton: Yeah, it's just wild. Like everything, something that start in the backyard drinking beer is on E S P N, yeah. And that kind of goes into everything that they're doing with the Calcutta stuff.

It's just this thing should keep growing. Coon Hunt should keep growing. There should be a world. There's no reason that there's not a world hunt that's not a $300 entry fee that pays a hundred thousand. You know what I mean? We have we have pro classics that are 64 dogs that pay a hundred thousand.

How in the world can you tell me, we can't figure out to have a world hunt that's a 300 or $500 entry fee that pays a hundred grand. Think of all the people that would be there. You know what I mean? Look at how many people are fitting to be at TMOs. You know what I mean? Or, wherever you're telling me that if you.

$300. A lot of people it, I look at Kon Hunts like [00:14:00] this, there's a bracket, like it takes a money man for about anything over $500 for most people. You know what I mean? That's a bracket. Yep. If you go under 500, you go 300, $200 hunts. There's a lot, our money's changed. There's a lot of local guys that can hunt that.

If you kept a world hunt entry fee down there, and you advertise it for a hundred grand first place, I think it'd be unreal. Adults

Bryce Matthews: you could get there. And okay, so let's talk about that because I've got a couple thoughts on that.

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Bryce Matthews: Onyx. I'll start with the just dog numbers. Let's just start with that. So we were scheduled to have 60, or we had 64 spots available in Monticello this weekend. Yep. For the [00:16:00] qualifiers. Thursday night we had 17 dogs. 17.

Wes Hamilton: Yeah. And I'll tell you why I think that is, is I think that it's, there's a little bit, is too much hunt, but we're not doing anything. The world hunt's paid $30,000 for as long as I've been in this thing, it's paid 30,000. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. So nothing is growing, you gotta, you take it, you gotta start giving guys something new so they got something to chase. You know what I mean? Winning the world hunt is a great thing, but it's $30,000 and then they just gotta put more. More into it. Gotta put something new into it.

Bryce Matthews: Okay. So I, and then like I look at it, I think that's why people ain't there.

Yeah. And I look at it like this too. So when I hear the let's just, let's go with like buzz words of World Series or Sup, [00:17:00] their Super Bowl. That is the most prestigious thing you can win in either of those two respective sports. Okay. Yep. Baseball, football. When I hear world hunt, I think prestige. First thing that comes to mind.

Okay. Oh, but with prestige comes money in my opinion. Yeah. If you're gonna win the biggest hunt, the most prestigious hunt, if you are gonna have W c H in front of your dog's name at the end of that hunt when you're number one. You've put in time and effort and you've caught some good breaks along the way.

Yeah. But you have done your due diligence to get There's true. Why is that World hunt not paying the most? Why is the world hunt paying $30,000 for P K C? And you can go out to a $2,000 or $3,000 entry fee Pro classic and win 30,000 in two nights. That's right. Why can you win the same [00:18:00] amount on a Joe Blow Friday and Saturday that you can win at the World Hunt?

Why can, why is the U K C world hunt paying $10,000 and you got Tournament of Champions paying 50?

Wes Hamilton: I get it. Hey, I'm telling you, I, I don't know why. It's one thing that we've gotta figure out as coon hunters we've gotta figure that, that out, that, that has to be figured out. So there used to be a rule in the Blue book, it was either for nationals or it was for The world hunt, that pro, classic or whatever could not pay more than, I think it was nationals.

I think no pro classic. 'cause that's the reason the $6,500 hunt's always paid 18,000

Bryce Matthews: because Nationals pays 20,000. They paid

Wes Hamilton: 20, nothing could pay more than nationals, so they didn't wanna make it bigger. The problem is everything's growing, but we're not really growing on our big, on our hunts.

That really should be growing. Because when I look at a world hunt, everybody should have a chance at that [00:19:00] man. That ought to be, every coon hunter that has a coon dog ought to be out of world hunt, and and they do like it. And U K C does a pretty good job about getting everybody involved.

I just don't think in P K C we're doing a good enough job of getting everybody involved, but I, hopefully we just keep working at it and get it going, but I just think, man, I think if you could. You gotta, you're probably gonna have to do a zone thing like we're doing, but we gotta do it at a good time of year.

Right now is the worst time of year for coon hunting. I'm talking about like in, in 15 days, 20 days fitting to get better probably. But you can't hardly sell a puppy right now. It's hot. Nobody's thinking about coon hunting. Everybody's at the lake, still school, starting football games. In about a month, everybody would be thinking about coon hunting, and I think we've got bad timing on the world hunt qualifier right now. Probably the ones that are in the south, they'll probably do better, 'cause what are they, a couple weeks or three weeks

Bryce Matthews: away or something?

Yeah, I think there's a two, two week split, I think. Don't hold me [00:20:00] to it.

Wes Hamilton: Yeah it's gonna get better. But right now for coon hunting, And anything as far as crew hunting right now, I think it's just kinda slow. It's hot, but yeah. But we do need to do better. The world hunt should be the biggest stage platform there is.

We ought to be able to get sponsors. We ought to be able to have money. There just ought to be a lot of things better. But I think there is some guys out there that got some good ideas about getting, doing some of that,

Bryce Matthews: okay. Now let me run this past you. So I'm not gonna say who it was.

But they are a well known person in the competition world. Very outspoken. And when I was judging them a few weeks ago, they made the statement that the sport of coon hunting is as big as it needs to be right now. And their reason behind that, 'cause I asked, I said, why? I said, why should it not be bigger?

Why should it not be mainstream? Why should everybody not know about this? And his reasoning behind that was that he believes if it gets any bigger, Then we're gonna have animal [00:21:00] rights activists down our back more than we do now. Because the majority of the world doesn't understand it. So he was afraid that if it gets bigger, if it gets televised, it's just gonna ruin what we already have going and they're afraid of losing what we have.

What do you think on that one?

Wes Hamilton: I think he's looking in the rear view mirror. I, he needs to be looking through the front glass. So I think

Bryce Matthews: okay. I would make sure I wasn't the only one in the boat, but I just listened to what he had to

Wes Hamilton: say. I think. I think so. I just think, Hey, we get bigger.

We can deal with things like that. You know what I mean? But don't you gotta worry about growing And I just, and I think probably a little bit of that right there is why we're not where we need to be, and not that we're in a bad spot. We are growing. We are growing, but we could still get better.

You know what I mean? Yeah. We really could. And I think this kundal Calcutta thing we started this off not really knowing, but I'm telling you, I think it could get, it's gonna help a lot of this. Yeah, I really do.

Bryce Matthews: Yeah. And we're gonna, we're gonna dive into that, but couple things I want to get into before we get [00:22:00] into Calcutta.

Let's talk about I just wanna know the story about Ruby. I want to like, let me. Let me in on how you came to Hunt. And Ruby.

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Bryce Matthews: If you guys pulled up P K C right now on the website and you go to the Races and standings tab and you go to all Time Winning Hounds, you guys are gonna find halftime. Ruby sitting at number two right now. She is the number one winning female in Pkcs history. Currently she's seating at $271,000, a little more than that, 2 71, 7, 30 $4 and 62 cents to be exact.

That's crazy to me that a dog that's life changing money. A dog can provide that. Tell me the journey, how did you get Ruby? Did you put all that money onto the winning? I don't know the story and I know if, I don't know what the listeners don't know it either, so let's hear it.

Wes Hamilton: It's funny that you talk we were talking about pro hunts, right?

And the pro races, the $300 that would pay 4,000, they had a pro hunt [00:24:00] and Up in Iowa. I don't remember exactly where it was Northeast Iowa. I was hunting a, I was hunting a female named Little Shine and pretty good female. I lemme think I, I get in the finals, I'd gotten the finals with this female, a ridiculous amount of time.

Shine, but never won one. They, I went to five or six, six pro hunts that year, gotten five of 'em, and I got like third and fourth every time with her. I just thought I'd had to hunt 'em off, so we hunt it off. We go out to hunt off and Brett Meyers, which is my partner on, on Ruby, he says, he looks at me and he says you're gonna get beat by a pup.

He's hunting Ruby. And she was about 15, 16 months old. And man, she struck, I remember we go out there and we hunt and she struck and she was probably running the deer or something, just puppy barking. And she runs for a good while, but then she trees a coon in there. There's probably an hour. It's probably an [00:25:00] hour in.

Actually he trees her running one. She takes a hundred mine. And Jane, Jesse James was in this cast too, so it wasn't like, there wasn't some pretty good dogs in this cast. It was, there was some really good town. And we but when she trees this coon, he cuts her back loose and she trees another one just like bang, like it was nothing like, she was just, and then he cuts her off and she trees another one.

And she was just treating those coons like off of coons like so quick. I'd not seen that. All these dogs gotta have reset time. Reset time. So I knew it was on, I still had connections with Russ Meyers Jess Dickerson all these guys. I'm onto this deal. I'm buying this dog. Whatever it takes, I'm getting this dog.

I start calling Brett Meyers and Nathan Stoner, Brett Meyers and Nathan Stoner owned that dog together, owned Ruby. And I start calling 'em and no, we won't sell. And they did price. And this is crazy 'cause this dog had [00:26:00] about, she had about, she'd won a four wheeler, maybe not this time at Think she won the Pro Hunt.

But by the time I ended up getting her bought, she'd won a four wheeler too. She had about 13,000, I think, Juan, when I got her. But this goes on like for almost, or over a year. A year goes on for about a year of me trying to buy this dog. I have family in Iowa. Every time I'd go back over there and that's how much time's changed, so she was, when I got her, she had one super stakes left.

So she was three probably, right at three. You think about that. Now, if there was a dog that had won a four-wheeler and a Pro hunt, it would've been gone. You know what I mean? But this goes on for. And we wasn't talking crazy money either. It was like 10,000 bucks. They were willing to sell this dog and it just worked out.

I called Russ Meyers, I'm like, Hey, this is the dog. Russ was getting out at that time. He is man, I just really ain't looking to buy another dog. And I didn't have the money. I didn't have the money to buy the dog, my home itself. And I knew it was the [00:27:00] dog that needed to be done. We had a couple other deals and they just fell through.

I was trying to get it, it just went on and on. And finally I get a deal done. I get to talking to Brett. We get a deal done and I've got a partner, me and Cody Cherney, were gonna be partners. I was actually hunting dogs. Him, he was gonna put up 5,000. I was gonna put up 5,000. We're gonna buy her.

Cody gets cold feet. You know how dog deals go? Oh, the dog's got a lick. You a dog's got this, So I call Cody and I'm like, I finally got this done. We're gonna get this dog. Cody says so the other thing was Barry Kitty was after the dog too. So that was after Ruby also. And Barry pulled a slick move and got Cody to back out on this deal.

Barry calls Cody and says, there's something wrong with that dog. I don't think I would jump in on this. He's it is just, there's something they're not telling us about that dog. So Cody throws his hands up in there and he's out. He's not gonna buy. Oh, no. And so now I'm sitting here. I [00:28:00] promise you, I had $5,000 and 0 cents to my name.

That's all I had. I had, that's all I had at that time. Five thou. I had this $5,000. I'm buying half this dog. I'm getting this dog. And so now Cody's backed out and I Barry's hot on the hill. Barry's trying to buy this dog. And and I just had a feeling that's what Barry is working that angle he was.

And I called Brett and I talked to Brett and I said, 'cause this was like in the winter. And my big thing was I wanna hunt that dog. When it comes to Russ Meyer Hunt, all I could think of is, oh, I will win Russ Meyer hunt with this dog guaranteed this spring. And I called Brett Meyers and end up working a deal where I could just buy Nathan Stoner's half Al and me and Brett.

He said, yeah, go ahead. And I said, my big thing is I said, will you pay half of a Russ Meyer entry with me? Which was unheard of $6,500. There was only so many people I could even pay that. And Brett said, I'll do [00:29:00] it. He said, if you think you could win, which I'd won it with several times with different dogs.

He probably felt pretty good that we had a chance, And he knew what Ruby was capable of doing. So I ended up taking my $5,000 I got and driving up there and buying half of her from Nathan and I got her. And when she came to me, we went right. We went right to, it was went to Hunter her and we went to the Meyer Hunt.

We got let's see, we won like 25,000 the first whack, went to Super Stakes before that. Got third in the super stakes right off the bat, just, and then just went on. She's the only dog that you could just, she'd always bail you out. It, I don't even really know how to explain it. I wish I had another one.

I know that, but

Bryce Matthews: does Ruby hunt for herself or does she care who's going on? No, she hunts

Wes Hamilton: for me for a hundred percent. She a. She's a hundred percent a pleaser.

Bryce Matthews: So you, but you went out your very first hunt and won 25,000 with her. You didn't have her tray

Wes Hamilton: on. Went to super stakes [00:30:00] before that, I think, and got 75, but it was pre pretty quick.

And then the Russ Meyer hunt was the first big entry fee. Yeah.

Bryce Matthews: But you take your $5,000, your last 5,000 to your name. Yeah. You saw something in her. You believed in her. You spend your last dime on this dog, bam. First hunt went, even if it's seven, 500, you get your money back.

Wes Hamilton: Oh yeah.

Yeah. It was on, it was crazy to be honest with you. And and the thing of it is that money wasn't real big. So one of the first things we was doing back then is we wanted to win the Iowa State race or whatever. 'cause that was still a big thing back then. I don't know. We won like 3,900 in open money that year with her.

And then we went ahead and bred her like pretty quick within me having her, I don't think I'd had her for a year. We, she was like, I whatever, four or three or four. And we bred her to Big D semen right off the bat, and that's what a lot of people don't realize is she just had her fifth litter of pups, like she's won all this and raised five litters of pups, and yeah, she's something I don't know.

Bryce Matthews: So one thing [00:31:00] I didn't know about her for the longest time, I'd heard Ruby and I was like, okay, that's whatever. I've seen pictures of her. And then one day somebody said, yeah, she's a crossbred dog. I was like, no. And they're like, yeah, like Blue Tick and Walker.

I was like, come on. And I got to look. And I'm like I'll be like, is that something that you have messed with the box? That's

Wes Hamilton: Brett Meyer's line of dogs. There was a dog and Brett could really tell you all about it. Way better than I could have. But he hunted a female named Hare Jesse. And she goes back, all of Brett's dogs go back to half breed Jesse and half Breed Jesse was half English or blue tick or whatever, and half Walker was out of a blue tick name monster or something like that.

And yeah, so he bred all of his dogs off of that off that female and Yep. But I think it's, and we may, when we crossed her back on like big country I do think there's a lot of health benefits and stuff in the crossbreeding.

Bryce Matthews: You do. So you're a proponent for Crossbreeding?

Wes Hamilton: I think I'm a component.

I just like [00:32:00] Kon dogs, but if they're good. But I'm not a big walker man or Blue tick man or whatever, but Kon dog. But I do think there's something to dogs not having as many health problems, thyroids and just things like that. If they're crossbred. I think lime breeding and you keep, in my experience, you keep the blood really tight.

Seems like you got more problems. Yeah,

Bryce Matthews: but that's crazy, man. You take your, spend your $5,000 on her, and now she's sitting at just shy of $272,000. Congratulations. That's awesome, man. Like that, that just gets me

Wes Hamilton: excited. It's almost, it is just crazy, man, the way she would, how it all played out, and it'll never happen again.

I'm confident that it won't but yeah, I, and what I seen in her that first night hundred with her is why she's good, right? Is that it never changed from when she was a pup and what I seen in her then, if you could find a dog that's got something really special about 'em, and you can [00:33:00] always make that a little better, and just focus on that.

That's how you make a big winter, yeah. And it's tree coons off of coons. If we, if you ever went in a place, I promise you, and there was some, when she'd tree a coon, she'd get jacked up off that coon she'd tree, another one, and the next one and the next one. They'd just keep coming easier, if they were there to tree, they'd just come easier, and that was her strong point and that's why she won big. Yeah.

Bryce Matthews: So you said she had five litters of pups. I want to talk about this. You seem to be on the front lines of changing the way things are done. And I've been interested, I've been following this dash for cash you guys have going on.

Yeah. So

Wes Hamilton: that's so Jr Wall, he came into the book. So that basically where JR comes in is after I got done with Ruby, I. We'd ran, me and Brett, just two working guys. We ran the road with Ruby, which a lot of the big hunts didn't even start until she was like six years old. Other than the Russ Meyer hunt.

Like she, we didn't start [00:34:00] having those pro classics really until what, four years ago? Probably, four years probably ago. So it wasn't like the entry fees were crazy until then. But me and Brett forth the whole thing ourselves just, Brett works on a hog farm and I built buildings, whatever but I always said that, I said even as much as Ruby won, I knew I'd never have a dog probably that would win as much as her hope.

I have a bunch of 'em, but probably won't happen. I always said if I did this again and kept going to these Hunts, I'd you'd want to get 'em money. Man. At that point, when Ruby's was, Ruby was done, everybody pretty well had a guy that was helping, I don't know what you

Bryce Matthews: call 'em. Money. Money Man's the only thing I can call 'em.

'cause that's what they are.

Wes Hamilton: That's what you call 'em. Money minute. You hate to, I like to call 'em, I don't know, a sponsor or whatever, because a lot of those guys are real coon hunters too, that just can't like Jr. He owns every night, JR. Wal, he owns every night. They're coon hunters too.

They

Bryce Matthews: just, yeah, they're backer. Everybody's got,

Wes Hamilton: they're a good backer. It takes a team, man. It takes a team. It does. A hundred percent. Takes a team to really go out there and win like you want to. [00:35:00] But so when Ruby was about done that's when the JR came, Jr. Came in the books of this thing. So then Jr.

That was more his idea, but it, we came up with it together. And man, and I think it's good Jr's, big thing is he wants to buy a good dog, okay. And the way he looks at it, and he wanted to promote that dog and get people out there hunting out his dog. And what better way to do it is than to put the ascent out there, the dog that

Bryce Matthews: takes the money.

The dog we're talking about is Neosha River, Ralph. Yes,

Wes Hamilton: Ralph? Yep. Okay. So this is the second one we've done. The first one had 15,000. It's basically, and what we did, basically we set, sold these Ps for $500 and you take all that money, you put it in a pot, and then you get it back to the hunters. It's no way's, kinda like a super stakes program, but it's but our main goal is to try to find a greyhound.

You know what I mean? Is get people out there hunting 'em, because there's not very many [00:36:00] people out there hunting pups anymore, if you haven't noticed that. It's, it is not like there's a pup here and there to buy. That's a good start, dog, right? Yeah.

Bryce Matthews: I, I agree with that and I've never been, In a situation where I can go out and buy a nice dog.

So I have, since I've been in this, I've tried to make a pup and I, to this day I've been unsuccessful. I have just struggled with it, man. Like I've tried and tried. I have one right now that's doing better than anyone I've ever had before. I'm still not gonna say I'm a great pup guy, but I, that, that's a goal of mine is to take a pup from 12 weeks old and make it a coon dog and win a cast.

Like I personally want to do that. But I wanna just for the listeners to read this ad off that you guys have. 'cause I think it's genius how you guys have done it. So basically you're taking nine females that you guys have selected, and when they come in season, you're breeding em into Ralph.

Wes Hamilton: They all, so what worked out was they're all within two months of age. Okay. These pups are, so it just worked out that we grabbed when it starts warming up in the spring, everybody's female comes and heating. [00:37:00] Yep. So we had all these females that people are coming to breed and they're like let's put a.

A program together just on these nine, and that'll keep everybody's pups within two couple months of age, yep. And go ahead. But

Bryce Matthews: yeah. Yeah. So you guys have selected nine females and they come and see us and they're getting bred to Ralph. The pups are $500 a piece when you sell 'em. And the guys I'm reading directly off the ad here.

So there's $30,000 in prize money here. That's a pretty good incentive for what you guys have going on. Yeah. There's $5,000 to the first pup to make a P K C Silver champion. The silver champion is what is it, 4,000? 4,000? Yep. 4,000. Okay. $5,000 to the first pup to make a P K C champion with open events money only.

That's 500 bucks. So if you can go out there and win 500, you're making 5,000. If you're the first one to do it, that is a return on investment right

Wes Hamilton: there. Absolutely.

Bryce Matthews: $5,000 to the first pup to make the final four [00:38:00] of a pro sport event. $5,000. In addition, if you win the same pro sport event. So if you can get in that event and make the final four boom, guaranteed 5,000, you hunt it off and you win, boom, another 5,000, there's 10,000 on top of what you're gonna win for pro sport.

Exactly. This is good. And then the last, oh, we got two more. There's $5,000 to the first pup to make a U K C night champion. You gotta win five cast. You win five, cast at $30 entry fees, you're making $5,000. And then the last one is $5,000 to the first pup to make a U K C Grand Night Champion.

So what I really like about what I see on this ad is you are including all three of the main registries. We've got P K C U K C, pro sport. There is an incentive in this ad for every single coon hunter out there. Nobody's being left out, should be. I like that. The other part that I like about it [00:39:00] is that these pups are selling for $500 a piece to me, and this is just me speaking, that's about what a pup should go for because you Yeah, it's a fart In a whirlwind what you're gonna get out of a litter, you could breed the best of the best and not get nothing.

You could breed two duds, get great. You could have a mix in between, you might, it's just like a 50 50 raffle ticket. You might be the winning number and you were one ticket ahead of the one that I had, but we paid the same amount. To buy that raffle ticket. Yep. So I have always said, I think $500 is a good putt price.

You guys are not in this to make a ton of money. You're in it to find a good hound and to promote dogs that you believe in. Yeah, exactly. I like it. And I think that's innovative. I think that's smart. Yeah I'm a big fan of it the bottom of the ad, it, and I like it. It says the only place you get paid to hunt a pup.

And I think that's true because I don't know, I don't know anybody that's you got guys that handle dogs or they'll, somebody will send you a [00:40:00] dog for a thousand dollars a month to hunt their dog. Okay. But those dogs are usually tree coons. I don't know many guys that get sent an eight week old pup and somebody is paying them to make that dog tree coons.

Wes Hamilton: Exactly. No, it's not very often. It's not very often. I just think we really gotta push more people to hunt pups. There's just not enough guys, man, that, and a lot of that's got to do with, there's no price on the fur market or anything anymore that, that's a big thing. A lot of people, a lot of those guys that used to train pups were for hunters and we'd get a pup and shoot 'em a bunch of coons and stuff and, but we've, we gotta remember that.

These dogs that win big money, gotta start somewhere,

Bryce Matthews: Yeah. And if you're a pup man right now, like you said, there's not very many of 'em. So those guys who take the time to lay out there in the woods, get these pups going, they have the opportunity to make this a good chunk of money.

As, or the same good chunk of money as these guys who are running the [00:41:00] roads. They're just doing it in a different fashion. Their name's not in the limelight, they're not getting the front cover of the magazine. But there are guys out there right now that will pay top dollar for a dog that is young, has potential, is showing good interest and showing progression just so they don't have to put the boot work in.

So if you're, if you are a genuine pup guy and that's what you like to do, you've got a chance to make good money in this sport too. You're just doing it in a different fashion.

Wes Hamilton: Exactly. Exactly. There ain't no doubt. I, no, I think it's a great thing. I think it'll keep growing too. We went from 15,000 on the first time we, and then we went the first dash for cash.

One had 15,000. It's 2,500 spot, the second one was 30,000. I just look forward to keep growing. I figured it'll probably keep getting bigger also. Yeah.

Bryce Matthews: So do you guys have, tell me about the results you've seen from the first one. Were those hunters, were they jacked up and ready to go? So they're pumped up

Wes Hamilton: but it's just about at the point that it's gonna be happening here.

So we did that one. So most of those pups are [00:42:00] probably about eight, nine months old. So this, I would say, we're just at the point where this winter it's gonna be rocking and rolling, probably just about what I just talked about here, when the, this coon hunting thing's gonna really kick off here in the next month.

You know what I mean? I know I say that and we got guys all over coon hunting this weekend, but It is gonna really get to be a big thing here in about a month,

Bryce Matthews: Yeah. Yep. I know. I'm excited for it. This, I think this season is gonna be big for my pup that I'm pushing right now. I've I'm letting her, I'm taking her out a few times this summer, but it's just not good condition.

So I don't want to burn her out, I just take her out, keep her going. She's treated a few Koons, but I think this kills season is gonna be big for her. So I'm excited, I'm in that same boat. I'm waiting for this next 15, 20 days.

Wes Hamilton: And that's a big thing with pups, and I'll tell you, that was a big thing, even back on Ruby when we were winning with Ruby, is we didn't put her in positions that we thought she would lose.

And we were able to do that because we were working guys too, so we didn't go every hunt, but we didn't go to, [00:43:00] we went to where there was Cosby Tree we went to we didn't go to Tennessee and some of the rougher places, Kentucky. We went to Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, where there was.

And we put her in good positions where we thought that she would win and that helped her a bunch, but Right. If you notice now though, most of these coon hunts are where you treat coons like, because everybody's paying such a big entry fee. They want everybody to have fun in raccoons also, whether they win or lose.

So you look at it, most of these hunts are in good hunting, they really are. I think there's probably a few of 'em down the south. They ain't, but the majority of these big hunts are all places you treat raccoons at.

Bryce Matthews: Yeah. So the dash for cash was the first one that I saw that I was like, man, that's innovative.

That's good. Then you got the, you got all the koon hunters sitting around these clubs and stuff talking and everybody's talking about, where's the sport gonna go, what's it gonna do? And something that I have thought about [00:44:00] for years and I'm, I'll just be very honest, I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

Money is not my game. I don't know the ins and outs of it, but I've always said, man, you've got draftings, you've got sports book, or whatever it is that they call it. Man, it'd be cool if guys could, because you had, you'll have a Calcutta at the local club, you've got your guy there and, okay, here comes Ruby, who's gonna gimme $20 for?

And you'll see at some of the hunts, they'll go up to a hundred, $150 on a dog. And then you've got, okay, here comes wheels. Who'll gimme $20 And he might stay, yeah. 20 bucks, yeah. But they're raffling off these dogs at the hunts. And if the dog gets in, you get some money back.

It's a pretty simple concept, but I was like, man, why can't, at these bigger hunts, you've already got a list of the pre-end dogs that are gonna be there. Why is there not a a platform for guys to go out there and let's call it for what it is, bet on these dogs. Like it's, it's a, betting is something as old as time.

People have done it all the time, from here on out, [00:45:00] and they're, they'll continue to do it. People like to spend money with a chance of recouping money. Yeah. So why is there not a draft Kings for coon hunting? And I've tossed it around and I've talked to people and I, heck, I even talked to a guy at work who's big into the draftings and sports books.

I'm like, all right, how do we make this work? He's man it'd take a lot. It'd take a lot. And then all of a sudden, wham, here comes the coonhound Calcutta. And part of me was like, dang, somebody beat me to it. And then the other part of me was like, all right, it's probably better that somebody who knows what they're doing does it the right way.

So tell me about Coonhound Calcutta. From its inception, let's talk about the thought process, what it took to build the platform you're using, and then where it's going. 'cause you just made a Facebook post this week, you know that there's some big things coming, there's some changes coming. So let's talk about the whole thing.

Start to finish.

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So there's four of us involved in Kunal, Calcutta, Colin Stubbs, Brett Meyers, and Jr. Wall. And at first I thought that seems like a lot of, a lot of people. But yeah, honestly, it's probably just the right amount. It takes it, it takes a group of people to run this thing for one. I promise you one person couldn't run it.

It basically just, we started talking about probably just like you did, we started talking about it. Colin Stubbs is a, without him we would not be very far probably, but he's, you've gotta have somebody that's very good on computers, very good on legal stuff.

And we just decided [00:48:00] and luckily to have JR 'cause jr's, great with just supporting ideas, that we have. And JR said, we'll figure it out. Let me know what it's gonna cost and let's roll with it. And we just started digging into it and there was a lot of loops and hurdles and things we had to get into to get it going, and we thought off the bat, we wanted to keep it simple and see what happens.

We didn't know what you think it'll work, but coon owners are also the type of people that they're not all for new stuff all the time. And we want, we thought we'll just, let's start with pro sport. They're putting on these simple pro classics. They'll be simple. They're and pro sport's.

One thing that they do better is they keep everybody informed. They got Josh out there, at the end of these pro sport hunts, and at three o'clock in the morning there's 500 people watching, and which was another thing that I'd seen and you'd probably seen too, it's man, people would bet on this, yep. They would I got [00:49:00] eight, nine guys that work for me. They spend a majority of their paychecks playing keno or some game on. On their phones. Pe there's a lot of people that are on their phones, gambling, all time betting on fights and so like in Iowa, which is where we're based out of sports betting opened up out there.

Yep.

Bryce Matthews: It just opened up, up here in Indiana last year too, I think, or two years ago.

Wes Hamilton: All these things are happening to make this all kind of possible where it was just originally just a thought like you had. And we started pushing it going and we did our first one. We've done three now and we've paid out $25,000 and three of 'em.

And we're just guys, we're just starting like this is, and three of 'em we have, the payout has been 25,000 total. And that's just on three of 'em. And I'm telling you getting the platform, getting that all set, that's just gonna keep evolving. The one we have right now definitely works.

There's definitely things that we want to make better and [00:50:00] better. We wanna make it so simple. That anybody can do it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I want some old retired coon hunter that's, sitting at home that his wife can do it for him, where he is literally just hitting a button or getting off site and just rolling.

And I think the biggest thing that separated us from other people is that were dipping into it, is we definitely knew we had to have a platform, like a betting deal that when you bought it, the money came outta your account so that you wasn't chasing people for money. Yep. And doing that stuff and then your money's there, and then just as soon as the deal's over your money's getting dispensed back to you, getting paid to you.

I think in a year, I think everybody will be amazed how big it is. I think it looks like it's really rolling down. It is very rolling. But I think as if you look at pro sport, when they first started, It took 'em about a year to really get the following and get it rocking, and they are, [00:51:00] and they're rolling.

They're rolling very well right now. And they're still growing too. But I think in a year, kundal Calcutta will be huge.

Bryce Matthews: Yeah. So that was the biggest thing for me on that. Whenever I was just, it was just tossing it around. Like I said, I talked to a bunch of people about it. 'cause I was like, there, there is a market for this.

But what scared me was the legal part of it. I was like, man, I don't even know where to begin on this. And I couldn't even speak on any part of it. 'cause the legal part is what scared me on the deal. You guys have got it figured out and I get on there and look and I'm seeing who's betting on what.

And I think it's fun. 'cause I'm not a gambler personally, you are not gonna see me buying a scratch off ticket unless it's, yeah. I'll buy a Hoosier lottery ticket or a Mega million when it's like 1 billion or something. 'cause I'm like, all right, it's $2, but you're not gonna see me going to the casino spending money.

I don't like, I don't even to pay entry fees for these hunts. 'cause I'm like, if I lose, like there goes my money, yeah. I'm just not a gambler. I by nature, but I like to keep up with it. 'cause I'm like, okay, who's spending money [00:52:00] here? What dogs here? 'cause I'm competitive, I like to, I just to see it.

It's something that I thought would be a big deal. I thought it would be a big success and you guys are taking that and running with it. One thing I thought was interesting though is like after the Khan Calcutta got out and people started using it, then okay, here comes the P K C Calcutta.

And I was like, oh boy. I was like, okay. So now we've got two different platforms with two different sets of people trying to do the same thing. How is this gonna work? I didn't see it ending well for anybody but you guys have figured out a way to make it work. Let's talk about it.

Wes Hamilton: So that's a big news last week, which just off to start here, I'll tell you this.

I am pro U K C, I'm pro P K C, I'm pro I pro sport. There's room for all three of 'em. Even back when they're talking about all these rule changes, don't make all the rules all the same in all three hunts. That's my opinion. Keep something for everybody. You know what I mean? U K C's doing great things and they're, and heck, their t o c deal's [00:53:00] probably the most biggest hunter there is.

It's a banger. Yes. They they're doing great. There there's good in all of them. And I'm, and I support all three of them, very much. We started with pro sport and then so they came out with they did. And I think they pro I'm telling you guys, it's work. There's a lot of work involved.

And I just reached out to Shane and now we're doing all of P K C Hunts. We cut a deal on it. And so now all P k C hunts are gonna be ran by us. It'll be through Kundal Calcutta also, which is great. I I appreciate Roger, Dale and Shane and whoever else all involved for letting that happen.

But, so next weekend, the pro class at Oklahoma will be a Coball Calcutta deal, and I think it's gonna be huge. 'cause I think there's a lot of people that follow P K C that don't follow pro sport, and there's a lot of people that follow pro sport. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think as it grows, the biggest thing is [00:54:00] if you get this thing up here where you get like a thousand, 2000 people fall on this thing, there's just gonna be, it's gonna get big.

I think they'll be like, let's just say they'll be, our, I think our top dog right now sold for $800, on a cow cutter, which pretty good.

Bryce Matthews: That's the best I've ever seen.

Wes Hamilton: For three. For three. Only th this we've done three Calcutta, three hunts. We did, we started doing open 'em back up and like doing another one for top 16 and whatever.

But we've only done three hunts. But I think that where was I going with that? But basically I just, yeah, the more people I think, and then once you get so many people, I'm not so sure that there won't be, they'll, we're gonna try to start putting odds in this and it's just gonna keep growing. We're just gonna keep new ideas and keep rolling, but I wouldn't be surprised that dogs start selling for 2,500 and they'll be like, five or six guys go in on that. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. And a big thing that was [00:55:00] always important to me from the get go on this Calcutta thing was I said, we have to figure out a way where we can post the cast and keep it open.

Where people can see the cast. And the first time we didn't have it that way. Obviously growing up. The last two months we've had it that way and it's been a big thing. So we figure out what time are these dogs gonna be getting cut loose? And we try to literally shut that thing down with as much time as close to whenever the, you know what I'm saying?

Yep. Yep. So I wanna have it on there for an hour and a half or two hours after the cast are drawn. See what I'm saying? Yep. So then everybody, now people real betters can get on there and be like, okay, here's my odds. I've got a one in four chance here. You know what I mean? Yeah. Show me what you can tell me about this dog or whatever.

Bryce Matthews: Yeah. I like that because, I, whenever I was tossed around this idea and stuff, I was like, okay, what I thought would be really cool is to put statistics. With the dogs. Okay. Yeah. You've got [00:56:00] take, I don't know any dog that's out there winning Take Z, all time money winning dog.

Yeah. Okay. This dog has won this amount of money. He's won over $300,000, his win percentage and I would, maybe and there's a lot that goes into, I know that analytics and stuff, but take out open events, let's say pro classics and up his have a win percentage. This dog has won 68% of the pro classics.

He's been entered in with entry fee of a thousand dollars or more. Something like that. But then what I really like is, I like betting. If I were to be a man, I would bet on dog and handler combos. Yep. Because I might take z. And say, Bryce Matthews is handling him, and your odds of that, okay, you have a really good dog and a mediocre handler.

Okay. Or you take Z and you take weeded who's put a bunch of money on him, and you're like, okay. The odds just dramatically increased. So I like seeing that dog handler combo and for the betting, but then like you [00:57:00] guys said, you took it a step further and leave it open after the casts are drawn because you might bet on Z, but if Z draws Paige and you've got Paige and Strickland versus weed Yeah.

And Z oh, okay, Paige has been on a hot streak. I would've bet on Z, but I know that the hot streak that Paige has been on the last month, so now my chances are not as good. Exactly. I think it's cool. I think you guys are really trying to do the right thing there.

Wes Hamilton: Oh, I I'm more stoked about it.

And so P K C, they've got, More information. So we're gonna try to put we are going to, we're not gonna try it, we're gonna put so on this one next weekend, them dogs that are in there, they'll literally have, you'll have their pedigrees on there. And as this keeps going, every bit of information we bring in, we're keeping all the information.

If you sent us a dog picture, we're keeping it, you, you sent it, whatever you sent us. We're keeping all the information, if you sent us anything. So that way when we're [00:58:00] just gonna, as this thing grows, we're gonna keep putting more information beside these dogs, more information beside the handlers, the owners.

We won't have as much information on there for the people betting as possible. Because there's you, if you guys looked at who was actually getting on here and bedding a lot of these people you won't even know. And I just think it's not, we're just looking past like just your buddies buying you on this Calcutta.

Like it would be at time, we need to get people in here buying these dogs that are. Not even coon owners, can like, like they do on the horse

Bryce Matthews: races. Can you imagine seeing coonhound Calcutta on a main screen in Las Vegas? Like these guys Yeah. Saying don't give a dag gone about a coonhound or a raccoon.

They don't care. They are statistical geniuses in my mind. 'cause I, it's way over my head. All they need is odds. All they need is odds. They're like, okay, I've got this odd to make this amount of money, boom. Put me $500 on old [00:59:00] blue. Yeah. They don't care. They don't care about pedigrees, they don't care about names, they don't care about any of that.

They wanna see odds. And if you can get that in Vegas, let's just go ahead and think big. Yeah. The biggest betting spot in the world. What would that do for coon hunting? What would that do for the sport?

Wes Hamilton: That's, and that's Steve Ol called me and Steve always calls if I went a hunt or something.

He is always been good to congratulate me or do anything like that. And he said, And he, we didn't even really talk about hunting. He talked about Kundal Calcutta, and he is man, he's I just want you guys to keep pushing this thing. He's I think you guys got a great idea and it's gonna take time.

But he, he was real supportive about it and it, I just, I think that the sky's the limit. I really do. And I just, we appreciate everybody that helps and keep it rolling. But to jump back just a little bit about about handler combos. We're learning, doing all this. So Dustin Weed actually switches a dog on us, which happens.

So that's thing you buy, that's little bit of gambling. If somebody switches a dog, you [01:00:00] buy that spot, you're just gonna flow with that dog. That's just how you gotta do it. But we try to let people know what's going on. And I don't know what Dustin switched to. We switched some good dog to another good dog or whatever, he's got an arsenal of him and we message this guy and we're like, Hey, you're the high bed on this dog.

And Dustin, he said, this guy sends back, he says, I don't care if Dustin's on a poodle. I want him

It was like seven or $800. He was like, I don't care. I'm betting on Dustin, not the p not the right, not the dog. And I was just like, so just guy goes back what you're saying, he is I don't care if he's not a poodle. Yeah. I'm buying

Bryce Matthews: him. Exactly. And I think that's a big thing. Like I said, you could have the same dog, but it depends on who's gonna spend money.

Because it depends on who's on the end of that lead strap. Because I don't care what anybody says, it is a team effort to go out there and win a competition. Coon hunt. The dog has to do his part and the handler better. Darn shoot, do his part or else you ain't gonna win. That's just how it's gonna be.

[01:01:00] That's, that's right. And even last night, so last night, we're a hunt and I'll just say I was with Logan Ray hunting and my dog went out there, ran a good track, loaded up tree. I didn't have a reason to tree in. I had no reason to, there was nothing around him. I had nothing to lose.

I just let him sit there and tree, and I let him tree for two and a half minutes before I tree that dog. And I was like, okay, like it's getting hot. There. I was listening to what the other dogs are doing, treating my dog in. That's fine. He's sitting there, tree and Logan. He, he's judging.

Put him on there, he tree for another minute and a half. So he's tree for three and a half minutes total. Just, he had locate, just rolled it over to a chop. You couldn't ask, you couldn't paint a prettier picture. And all of a sudden he just shuts it up, rolls it on. And I was like, dang, like that sucked.

And Logan looked at me, he said, why'd you do that? I said, what do you mean, why'd I do that? He said, why'd you treat your dog? I said, Logan. I said, I'll be very honest with you. I said, I gave him the benefit of the doubt of not treating him on a locate because there was no pressure to, [01:02:00] but then. I'm trying to get my points.

It's hot. I said I'm treating the dog in like it is his responsibility when he locates and when he trees like that to stay there. It is my responsibility to make an informed decision on whether to tree him or to not to tree him. I said he had his opportunity. I said I did what I was supposed to do, and then he let me down.

So I, you said it is a win and lose for the situation. It's a two part deal. The dog has to do his part. I have to do my part. And at the end of the night, it didn't matter. It didn't affect the outcome. But if I would've lost on that deal, I could have held my head high knowing that I did my part. People, their dogs are dogs.

You can't explain why they do why they do what they do. But I can say, going back to the betting thing, it is a deal on handler and dogs. I think that what dog is in front of what handler's lead is gonna have an effect on who pays what money for it. I just do. So I think you guys are doing a good, you gotta have

Wes Hamilton: the handle on there.

You need the owner on there. You need the, or you need as much information people can look at. It's possible. What do you think the [01:03:00] percentage is that that a handler, let's just say you got a hundred percent, how much of it's dog, how much of it's handler? What, where do, what do you think it falls out

Bryce Matthews: at?

Okay, so for me, honestly, I think it falls more around the 60 40 bracket. It's 60% dog, 40% handler. I definitely think that the dog has to do more work yep. Because they, obviously that's what they're doing. The dog is the one that's out there trying to find the raccoon, but I think that the handler plays a bigger part in it then what I, when I first got into the sport, I thought it was like, probably 90%, 10%.

I think the handler plays a big part because there are so many scenarios that come into each cast. You've gotta be Johnny on the spot with who's got what happens this time is running on this dog, and if this happens, if X happens, then Y happens, and then Z happens, and. There's a lot that goes into it.

I'm gonna say 60 40 in favor of the dog.

Wes Hamilton: I'm more 50 50. I'm more 50 50. And I, you back that as you can take a [01:04:00] great dog, a great dog, put an average handler on him and he'll win. But you put a good handle on him, he'll win twice as much, right? So he's just double, he's doubled. What a good handlers took the same dog and doubled.

Literally doubled what he was doing. So that's why I think it's more of a, I'm more of a 50 50. You gotta have a dog has to tree coons, there's no doubt. But man I just think there, you look at John Strickland, man, he's a good buddy of mine and he's got better with age, I'll tell you that.

He is, I've been around him since the rest Meyer house and everything. But him carrying around that black book and stuff, he look at all, he on trucks and side by side, all different dogs. All different dogs, and these ain't dogs that just, these dogs have been around, people have hunted them, he takes 'em, he wins wins.

You see what I'm saying? And I think it's more a 50 50 thing. I'm a

Bryce Matthews: firm believer in that. Yeah it's interesting, [01:05:00] 'cause I've, I guess I haven't ever asked anybody that what do you think the percentage is? 50 50, 60 40, You're within 10% of each other for two guys who've never spoke.

You and I have never had a conversation until this podcast. Yeah. And different parts of the country. And to be within 10% of each other on that. I think it's pretty close. And I think, yeah, I know it's, I think that, people are gonna have different opinions on it. Like I said, when I first started, I definitely thought it was more the dog.

Man, I'm just gonna turn the dog loose and do what the dog does and I'm gonna call the dog for what he does. And I've learned it. You can't always call the dog for what they do 'cause they will make a liar out of you. Yeah, that's right. You've got the

Wes Hamilton: dog. That's what, as a young kid, that's what you want to do.

You definitely wanna start with that part, but there's, it's just crazy the things my, my boy, I got two boys and he never really was into coon hunting. My B turns, he turned almost 16, or he is 16 now, and six months ago he just got p made up with it. Coon hunts all the time, every night hunt's more.

And I do and he got into Coon Hunt and he's got the bug bad and. So I've been trying to coach him. You know what I mean? And [01:06:00] a lot of you just gotta learn out there. Yeah. You know what I mean? You gotta just put yourself in it and just learn as you go. And it's crazy the times you mess up, you will remember those way more than the wins.

Bryce Matthews: Yep. I like, I will never forget the very first hunt that I won. I was hunting a dog named Shine for Shane Smith and I drew out, it was my second hunt ever. The first one that I ever won. It was like 20 something degrees in the middle of January. And I'm like, okay, I'm looking here. I'm like, all right, I'm going to this hunt 'cause nobody else is gonna be there.

I'm like, we're gonna have a good hunt. I have a good chance of winning. I think everybody and their brother thought the same exact thing. Nobody's gonna show up. I think we had 26 dogs on a Thursday. I was like, this is not right. And I drew Tyler, Petit, Kenny, Trish, and I don't remember the third person.

Long story short, just, just getting to the point here, I made a call on a dog oh I said, could you hear my dog, Tyler Petit's judging? He goes, yep, I got her right [01:07:00] after he said that, he goes, two's working, because he knew that if I took a minus, he wins. 'cause I'd treated the Yeah, cocoon.

And he goes, two's working. And I looked right at him and I said, I thought you said that you heard my dog. He said, brother, you're about to get a $30 lesson. And that the at that time I was aggravated, I was hot. 'cause he said, it only takes one other person to hear your dog. He said, I said, I heard it, now I don't.

He said, I got the card. Yeah. And I have never forgot that me and Tyler we're good buddies. Now I've hunt with him a ton, but he looked me dead in the eyes and he said, boy, you're about to learn a $30 lesson. And I did too. Luckily Karma came through on my side. His, he treated his dog. The two, they shut up, the two got him.

He took a minus two. So I ended up still winning. But, $30 lesson, like I said, you'll remember those ones that hit you more than you'll win anything else. And that has never left me. And I think that, you've been talking that the sport has to grow and you have to grow as a handler too.

You have to grow. You constantly have to think time.[01:08:00] I'll sit after a cast and I'll I'll run it down what did I do? What could I have done better? What did the dog do? What could the dog, I just play stuff all the time. 'cause I want to win. I want to be on the man stage. I wanna win $272,000.

I wanna do that. Yeah, I think it's cool, man.

Wes Hamilton: Yeah, I think it for me, I definitely remember the times that I. Could have done something. I remember the hard losses is way better than the wins. The wins are great. They make the drive home a lot easier. I know that, they just, they make everything a lot better, but them hard losses.

You, I can name so many of 'em, but as you go that they'll just be stuff that happens or you'll make a little mistakes and, but that's what drives me. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just, those are the things I think about a lot.

Bryce Matthews: Dude, I'm with you. I catch myself to this day. This happened literally last week.

I was just driving down the road because that's what I do for work. I just drive all the time. And I don't know what triggered it, but I immediately thought about this year's tournament of Champions, the zones and how I made a bad call that kept me out of the. The top 100 or whatever [01:09:00] it is of the t o c like lead, leading the cast for for dick Brothers.

Like he is a legend in the sport. Everybody knows Dick Brothers. I had the opportunity to handle the dog for him. We're leading the cast. I make a call thinking that I've gotta have a single night top score. Made a bad call in the last 20 seconds of the hunt tree. The dog got within 50 yards of him and he shut down and came to me and I took a minus.

And that kept us out because what we had would've got us in. I was trying to go for more. And I, like I said, it just sticks with you. Like, why did that pop in my head the other day? I have no idea, but it just eats me alive like we could have been there, and it's Dick's dog and hunting for Dick.

And there's just so much that was riding on there for me and blew it. Just blew it. But

Wes Hamilton: yeah, it's, it it gets in your skin, man. I've been, I've lost a little bit here lately too, and I. Because some people are gonna say it's crazy. But one time I lost seven cast in a row with Ruby one time, and I'm gonna [01:10:00] tell you, I thought the world was gonna end.

I, I Billy Bell had me wanting to put thyroid medicine in her and all kinds of crazy seven cast in a row. And that's bad for me to even say, but I'm telling you, I was at home and I was about to quit everything. Yeah. I was just I and I, and it was just, it wasn't nothing. Man you're gonna win.

You're gonna lose. And, but if you get a good combo, and it has to be a good combo, and you can hold onto that combo and you get all, everything figured out, dog handler man, you can, there's so much money out there to win right now. There is. It's unreal. Like next weekend, 40,000, but, and if you really get that combo, you look at the dual Murphy and this Crash dog right now, oh, I'd say they're probably hot as anything. They're just take, just act, just by, by his entry. You know what I mean? He, they've got, he's got that combo going, he's got it going.

They're in sync together right now.

Bryce Matthews: They are, man. And I hunt with dual. I pleasure hunt with dual. We don't live very far from each other. We try to hunt one two nights [01:11:00] a week. And I've seen crash look great and I have seen crash look terrible and he might look terrible one night, but that dog, he knows when it's game time, he goes out there, he knows when there's something on the line and he can look like a turd the night before.

Yep. And then bam, 30,000 the next two nights. But I think dual has a lot to do with that too. I, like you said, I think they're a hot combo. What I like about dual is. I think he, and I think this has to do with a lot of dogs. Just my personal opinion, he spends time with his dogs outside of the woods.

You look at his Snapchats and everything, he's got 'em in the house. He's got 'em in the playpen behind the house. He's got 'em in the truck. I think that there's a reason that he's hot and he gets hot. He was the same way with Melvin, yeah. He builds a bond with those dogs. Those dogs respect him.

They know if they screw up and jack around, there's a consequence. But they also know that, he's gonna treat him. Reward. Exactly.

Wes Hamilton: There's reward. They got a [01:12:00] reward too, though. You know what I mean? And they know that's

Bryce Matthews: a big thing. Yeah. Discipline when they do wrong and reward when they do good.

And I think Duall does a good job of that. I just, I really like dual good buddy and I like seeing him, be on the hot streak like that. I think, heck, they've won 120,000 this year. I. Yeah, they're on it. They're $120,000. To me, that is just mind boggling, man, that you can win this in the sport of competition Kon hunting.

And like I said, just going back to, the whole reason we've talked about this with the Kon hunting Calcutta, if you know that they're on a hot streak and you can get that dog bought for $200 on the Calcutta, you might walk outta there with 1500. Yeah. So just knowing that and I think something that's fun with me is keeping up with everything.

And I think this Calcutta makes you do that. If you're gonna spend money okay, you're checking to see who's winning what, who's being hot, is this dog going to this handler? I, there's just so much into it that just intrigues me. And I think it's cool, man. Yes.

Wes Hamilton: I think it's, I think it's gonna be great.

There's just, there's so many people out there that are wa that are watching Coon hunting as we started with they can't go, a lot of people got [01:13:00] jobs, man, that just don't work to go to Hunts, but they keep up with it. Or maybe they're just the guy that hunts in the winter time, don't hunt summer, but they still keep up with Kon hunting.

Yep. And it, it takes everybody to make this thing work just 'cause you're not, and that's what Kundal Calcutta does. Just because you're not there paying an entry don't mean you can't be involved. And it also doesn't mean that you can't be helping, this deal. And it's just like with this deal we got with P K C, there, there's money going to the use.

So anybody, there's gonna be this kundal Calcutta thing's gonna help grow the use, there's just a, just because you're not at a hunt don't mean you can't support this, the sport. I guess what we're trying to get at, and I think that's what Kundal Calco is gonna help a bunch. I think there's gonna, we're gonna be able to do things for, I'd like to be doing things for all three registries right.

When this all happens. And and I think as we prove ourself and get bigger, I think we will be. Yeah, I think, and [01:14:00] one more thing before we get ready to wrap this thing up is another thing that we're working on an announcement thing here is we're gonna make a dog marketplace. It's in the, it's in the works.

Yes. We're gonna try to, it's basically exactly what you, everybody knows what marketplace is. We're gonna try to do that. We're gonna try to auction dogs if people want dogs auctioned. And have a, it'll either be set up like where you could just post all the information on there for the dog, kinda like to do the pro hound, but with pitchers, or it'll be set up where here's a weak auction,

Bryce Matthews: and I think that'd be super cool, and I think it'd be well received. Just a couple weeks ago, they had a, an auction out west called the Horses Hounds and Mules auction. And the dogs that were there were mainly lying. Lying and bear dogs, yeah. But it was a deal where you could get online.

There was a, there was an auctioneer right there, and you can make your online betts and they sold the dog out there a lion dog for $20,000. On the auction site,

Wes Hamilton: guys, dogs are the only coon, Coonhounds are like the only dogs that are not getting auctioned off right

Bryce Matthews: now. Why? And why? And [01:15:00] so I've thought about that as well.

I, it's funny I've had, I've always been the guy that has these ideas. I just don't know how to make 'em work. Yeah this is no joke. There was one time I legitimately, I told a guy I was working for, I said, okay, I've got this idea for a a ratchet. I was like, it's gonna be a two-sided ratchet.

You're gonna have a quarter inch on one side and a three-eighths on the other side, and you're gonna flip the switch. It wasn't a year later I saw the daggon thing in Menards for sale. I was like, man, like somebody beat me to it. So it's cool like the, that people are thinking about the same things, which tells me I'm not the only one with good ideas.

There's a lot of smart guys out there. It's just who can implement 'em. But I think that it takes the right guy, the right group of people. 'cause like you said, it takes a team to make things happen. Takes a group. Absolutely. You gotta get, you gotta get the right minds involved. You gotta have an innovator, you've gotta have a practical person.

You have to have a motivator. You've gotta have all these guys that make things happen. And so I think, man, I think the auction thing is gonna be cool like the marketplace because you, like you said Coonhounds, they're the only ones not getting sold like that. You gotta be, you gotta be in the know to get a good dog bot.

Right now I think Facebook, sleepy the other day he was posted [01:16:00] for sale and he was sold on Facebook within what, four hours? Yeah. And

Wes Hamilton: the thing is Facebook is, you can't put much information on there 'cause they don't allow it.

Bryce Matthews: Exactly. They're gonna throttle you down.

Wes Hamilton: Yeah. You have a platform that you can put real, like just think if you could post a dog with.

You've got pictures of a tree and you can actually say what you're trying to say on there. Yep. Without using words, confession or whatever, yep. And you could really say it and you could really describe it, and you could put it on there. And then just a guy's looking for a dog.

We do it with the pro hound now, but you're reading words and you're just, then you're calling a guy. Just think if you could just put all this information on this dog on there, and maybe it's an auction maybe you're just trying to sell a dog. We'd like to do it both ways, and I think it'll be huge.

Yeah. It'd be, I think that'll be a big deal. I just think that it, all these things that we're trying to do, we want to help grow the coon hunting team. Yep. It's not like we're all four of us have got jobs, work. It's not, this ain't, we're not doing this to try to get rich or whatever.

You know what I mean? Obviously you've [01:17:00] got, you got time and you gotta make money at some point, but we wanna see coon hunting and get bigger. And I think this Kunal Calcutta and this marketplace deal will help a

Bryce Matthews: lot. Yeah, man, I think that'd be cool. Third Wednesday of every month we've got an auction going on.

Yeah, it'd be, that's right. It'd be cool. Yeah. I think you guys are on the right track. Wess man I appreciate your time today. I really appreciate you sitting down and having this conversation and getting this news out here to the public. I think this podcast deal is a great way to spread information, spread it quickly, and to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, yeah. There's a lot of rumor that goes around with stuff. We all know that. But, to sit down, talk to one of the guys who's in charge of things, get the information straight from them. People can just, they can absorb it, they can think about it. Hopefully this will get guys engaged who have not heard about the coonhound Calcutta.

It'll get 'em looking for that hunt. That's coming up. One thing I did have a question. Before we go though. You said that you're gonna be doing all the P k C hunts. Is it pro classics only? Like how is that gonna happen with you guys? So we're gonna

Wes Hamilton: [01:18:00] pick No, I really want to do when it gets like the semi-finals and super stakes.

Okay. I would like to those when it gets to, we're gonna pick, one thing we're not gonna do is we're not gonna burn this thing out. Gotcha. Okay. You know what I mean?

Bryce Matthews: That's what I was worried about. One,

Wes Hamilton: two cow cuts a month. That's gonna be a big thing. I don't wanna burn it out. I want, every time we do it, I wanna make it great and I wanna make it better every time.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So like this one down here that I think there's gonna be, th it is like a 32 dog hunt. That's gonna be a great one to do over in Oklahoma. And then you'll have super stakes coming up. Do the finals with super stakes. Heck, I think, just stuff like that.

Do the finals that the top, whoever gets. Goes to Salem or whatever in the World Hunt thing, yep. If you get your dog together and get your stuff together, hopefully you're up there and we can auction you off. Oh man. I

Bryce Matthews: hope so. That'd be cool. That would be all right. Probably wouldn't go for much, but it'd still be cool to be there.

All right guys. Like I said, I appreciate Wess so much for sitting down with us today. We had to work hard to get our schedules to work together, but we finally made it [01:19:00] happen. This is a good thing for the sport, I believe. Just like Wess said, we need to keep growing it. Keep pushing.

Don't look in the rear view mirror, look through the front glass. I think that's what we gotta do. Put the pedal to the metal and just keep going. Wess, you got anything else where we head outta here, man?

Wes Hamilton: Just the last thing would be is just, man, if anybody's curious about it, pick up the phone and call me.

Message the Facebook deal on the al kind of thing. We wanna make this thing simple. We want everybody, if anybody's even thinking about being involved, we want you to get involved, and just if you have any questions on, new stuff, that's the big thing. It takes a long time to get new stuff out there, but a lot of it is 'cause people are just on the borderline of calling you or not calling you or asking or not asking.

Just call and ask. And even if you don't get involved it helps that everybody knows what's going on. You know what I mean? And that's why I appreciate you for doing this. 'cause I think this will help with a bunch. You

Bryce Matthews: know what I mean? Yep. All right guys we're gonna wrap this one up. If you would please head over and support our sponsors.

We've got a great list of sponsors that are a part of [01:20:00] Hounds Man xp. They're a part of Deep and Lonely podcast. Support those that support you. Spend your money with those who support you. Just the Coonhound, Calcutta, go over there. Bet on some dogs. I'm not a betting guy, but I'm gonna be going over there and, throwing a little bit of money around just to help support the cause and get things going.

Like I said, visit our sponsor page. Be sure to visit our website hounds and xp.com. We've got a ton of merch over there. We've got hats, we've got Tumblers, we've got shirts, we've got the new competition Extreme Dog Box. We've got a lot going on with Hounds and xp. We are, we're trying to do our part to grow this sport as well, not just in the competition Koon side, which is what the Deep and Lonely Podcast is, but go over and check out the rest of our other.

Podcast. We've got the all mixed up. We've got the journey we've got the ask me Anything Fridays, just check out the rest that we have going on at Haman xp. We really support you guys. We appreciate you listeners Wess. Thanks again for having you on Buddy, and we hope to talk to you soon and we'll see you to hunt sometime.

All right, buddy. Sounds good, man. All right guys, we'll see you.

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