October 1, 2020 • 69 mins
We're still in NE Montana for another elk camp conversation with our new friend Chase Dirden. We talk about wrestling, dropping weight, a little bull riding, growing up hunting, and the main topic: Chase's hound hunting. Chase is an avid houndsman that pursues lions in big sky country.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
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with the number thirty. After that, no spaces Nation thirty
and you will receive thirty off your purchase. My name
is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting
Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world
of hunting the icon and the North American Wilderness Prepare.
(01:55):
We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring
you into some of the wildest country on the planet.
Chasing there. We're still up in northeast Montana at Elk
Camp and on this week's podcast, we've got our new buddy,
(02:15):
Chase Dirten here with us. We've been l cutting some
with Chase. Our conversation with him goes into wrestling, it
goes into can a kind of little guy that's really
trained in hand to hand combat be the bigger guy
most Most of what we talked about was hound hunting
(02:36):
up here in Montana. So we had a fun conversation
with chase that you're going to enjoy. Be sure to
look up, check out follow on Instagram, listen to the
podcast of our friends at W Hunting Supply Buddy Woodburry
and his team. And when I say that, me and
(02:57):
Kobe have been there, Me and Kobe have been up
to the W headquarters and have they have met these
guys and gals, and they're all dedicated houndsmen. They know
their products. And what I like about the W team
is that they are they are dedicated to the hound
sports and more. They're they're they're more than a business,
(03:19):
their mission oriented business. And they also have the greatest
customer service around. And they've got the greatest selection of
hound related supplies that you're gonna need, from garments to
dog lucius and collars, to custom merchandise hats and shirts
and everything. Hey, do yourself a favorite check out W
(03:40):
Supply column on the phone, ask him a question about
your garment and you're gonna be happy with these guys.
Our buddies also over at the Western Bear Foundation Joe
Condelis and the Western Bear Guys. It's a nonprofit hunting
conservation organization for bears in the West, fighting the good
fight for hunters and conservationists in for Bears. These guys
(04:02):
are a membership driven organization. So by you joining the
Western Bear Foundation, you are contributing to the mass of
our way of life being preserved as hunters and as conservationists.
So check out our good friends over at the Western
Bear Foundation. You're gonna enjoy this podcast from our Elk
(04:27):
camp in northeast Montana. Boys, we are officially under the
Big Sky, the big night Sky of Montana. Yes we are.
The sunset's gone though, the sunset's gone. What We've got
a beautiful crescent moon over here, and there's been a
(04:48):
bunch of smoke up here. So we're we're in uh,
northeast Montana. We describe about where we are, Chase say,
it's northeast central Montana. Okay, we're a hundred and fifty
miles from the Canadian border. Yeah that's correct. Yeah, well
we are. We're at Elk camp still and uh we've
(05:13):
got let me introduce the crowd to you. To my left,
we've got one Bear, John newcom Bear. So Hi everybody, Hi,
this is your second podcasting A road to be on.
So Bear has been like the Camp Gopher Camp photeographer
camp just hand. So we've been Boston him around, Chase,
(05:36):
just make him do stuff. He's been pretty andy. Yeah
he Uh I had him today go through all our
attack and uh, I had some leather conditioner. But so
we got we got bear and we got the bear check.
Colby moorehead. Colby's uh, Colby's powering through. He's been taking
(05:56):
the morning shift on all the alk hunts, and the
morning shifts have been the usually the exciting ones. Yeah. Yeah.
And then we've got new to the podcast, Chase Dirt.
And Chase is our new buddy that we just met. Um.
Now we've communicated a little bit before, but we just
met really this week. And uh, you're a local up
(06:20):
here man. Yeah. Yeah, it's been good to get to
know you guys and hang out for a few days. Yeah.
So you uh you grew up right here in northeast Montana. Yeah,
I grew up about twenty miles from here. Yeah, from
where we're hunting in. Yeah. Well you've been a you've
been a big help to us. Just you know, you
(06:40):
kind of pointed us in the right direction a couple
of times. Um, and uh. And then this afternoon we
hunted together so so we had several guys that left
this afternoon, so only only me and Colby and Bear
were left at camp. And Chase has been camping with
us for about a day. And anyway, we all went
hunt in this afternoon, had a pretty exciting twenty minutes
(07:03):
of elk hunting. Uh Man, It's tough when they only
give you that short period of time, the last just
a little bit of daylight. It's very tough. Yeah, And
I feel like that's how it goes all the time.
It was pretty quiet. I mean, I thought we weren't
going to see anything, and then you spotted them bulls
and put some cows, and I just decided I got
(07:24):
a feeling, well, them guys are just now coming out
a better head over a rage, and go look over
there and see what I could find, and ended up
seeing a couple peaks to us, Yeah, peek out last
minutes of light and we had to go make a
play and we and we weren't able to really do it.
(07:46):
If we just if we have seen him, you know,
twenty minutes earlier, we probably could have. We could have
made something happen for sure. But it was a it
was a cow in a bull over on our side
of the hill. The tough part of this hunting is years.
You can see a long way, so you often see elk,
but it's hard to just it's hard to describe. But
(08:07):
you might be three and fifty yards from elk and
there might be three ridges in between you and them,
and these elk are super prone to move. They're just
moving and maybe you know all elk do that, but
but you know by the time you get there, they
may not be there. So it's a it's a challenge. Yeah,
I feel like this country is perfect ralk too. They
(08:29):
got the deep bluffs and cuts to washouts to just
get behind and take off running. And then they got
these timber I mean, we sat right above these elk
all all night and didn't know and didn't know it.
They came out less than fifty yards from where I
was sitting, So they've been sitting there all all night
(08:52):
since we've been down there. No kid crazy. UM. So
I want to talk to Chase some about his uh,
lion hunting, he's a houndsman lion hunter, um, and also
some about the elk hunting around here. But uh, we
learned some about you. You're a wrestler, yeah, or you
(09:13):
wrestled in high school and college. Wrestled since I was
three years old and can continued down to high school college.
And so you're telling me that. So I was over
here in a conversation you're having the other day. So
a guy your size probably, uh what do you weigh? Onet? Okay,
(09:34):
So let's say some big, like two pound tough guy
shows up, starts giving you some lip. You gotta take
care of him if he is untrained. You feel like
I can handle myself. Yeah, I feel like I can
handle myself. Really. Yeah. I had a guy one time,
a good friend of mine that I really trust, who
(09:54):
is into uh I think it's yeah, And he's about
my eyes, you know, about one six one seventy something
like that, And he was talking about in the Turkey
Woods almost getting in a fight with this big guy
that they basically was on public land and they were
(10:15):
and they were on the same ridge, and uh, my
buddy had no idea there was anybody around, was working
this turkey and all of a sudden he hears somebody
walk in on him and they see each other, and
the guy gets mad at my buddy and comes over
and puts his finger in his chest and the dude
was like six to fifty pounds heavier, you know. And
(10:39):
uh and my smaller buddy who was training in jiu jitsu,
jiu jitsu said, Clay, it would have been no problem
for me. The reason I always thought that was cool
and I believed him, and they did not fight in
the Turkey Woods, But it would have been no big
deal to take him down. I mean, he was just
(11:00):
so confident because I asked him, I said, man, because
I actually knew who the other guy was too. Yeah,
And I said, do you really think you could have
taking that guy? And he was like, it's not even
a question. He said. Somebody big like that might get
some lucky, crazy big swing in at first. You know
(11:20):
that just like knocks you out, he said, But aside
from just sheer luck, he was like, I would have
taken that guy down and made him cry for his
mama in about twenty second. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah,
that's jiu jitsy. That's what it was made for for
the US little guys to be able to really, is
that right? Yeah? Handle the big guys. Do you ever
watching the UFC stuff? Actually, one of my good buddies
(11:42):
that I grew up with and uh wrestled in college with.
He actually fights in the UFC and he's doing pretty well. Yeah,
he just fought it just to hunter. So he's hunting
on he's fighting like on the like ye UFC, and
that's pretty big. He was on a Contender series and
(12:02):
he got the contract. He actually lives on the Poplar.
You ever fed him? No, I've wrastled with him plenty
of really have plenty of times. Yeah, I would practice,
we practice together and stuff. And yeah, he's a good friend.
Does he hunt? He does? He actually just shot a
buffalo off there Fort Pecrez just I want to say,
(12:26):
just a few months ago. Yeah, he's he hunts. He
who's our who's our boy down in Arkansas that we like?
You know that? Yeah, Bryce Mitchell. Yeah, and he's making
big ways. He's doing really well. He's got to get
he wants a cameo. He wants a cameo. I saw
(12:47):
an instagram we got him the other day sponsored he
gave the first light ones. Come on, hey, he's in Arkansas.
It's just a matter of time before we connect with
old Bryce here. Has got to get him to first
light fight charts. That's all. That's all we need for sure. No,
I thought it was really interesting. So last night we're
(13:08):
sitting around a fire with uh, well, not a propane fire.
We can't have fire out of here right now, a
real fire on the ground. Um, a cook stove. And
uh so there was two guys from California, and then
Ben O'Brien from Maryland, and then you from Montana, and
you are talking about wrestling. Man, I wouldn't tell I
(13:31):
wouldn't know where to tell you to go to watch
a high school wrestling match in Arkansas. I'm certain they
have them bear do you know if they have them? Yeah,
they do, I know that if they Oh really yeah,
those hippies up there. Yeah okay, man, we we just
we didn't have we didn't wrestle. And I think it's uh,
it really is a foreign sport too. If if you're
(13:52):
not you're either familiar with it and immersed in it
or you're just not, it's not it's it's not really
a spectator friendly sport if you don't understand what's going
on or have in some investment with the person it's
out there wrestling. It's really yeah, Okay, tell us about
your best fight and then we'll move on to some
cat hunt best fight, best match. I mean, it was
(14:17):
there one that just like stood out. There is one
that sticks out though that there were. So I did
pretty well as a little kid, and I didn't lose
like very often at all. I just remember losing to
this kid named Kelly Olds from Great Falls. Kelly, if
you're out there, yeah, I'll tell him to listen to him.
And he beat me in high school and we never
(14:39):
are as kids just in grade school and now we
never wrestled, but I always remember that loss. For some reason.
It was like a big deal at like a sixth
grade like state championship. But then in high school we
ended up wrestling one time only and we went into
like triple overtime and end up winning that match, and
that was more important to me than winning state that
(15:02):
sixth grade. You told me you wrestled up in white class,
so that's what you are talking about that I didn't understand.
There's always class a lot of different weight class Like
in college, there's the lightest is one, and I wrestled
there quite often, but a lot of times I would
have to wrestle up the next weight classes, which is
one thirty three. Both weren't very big guys, But I
(15:25):
was shocked to hear you'all talk about how you could
lose like twelve pounds in a day. Yeah. Yeah, you
got a lot of water weight, you guys carrying a
lot of water weight. Yeah, ten pounds is probably pretty
pretty easy for the outer person. The average person probably
floats in their sleep four to five pounds every night,
(15:46):
just from the time to go to bed to the
time you wake up in the morning. You'll lose four
to five pounds without going to the bathroom or anything.
I think I'll lose two to three. Yeah, I'm probably
about that too. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you're
probably right on there. Yeah, well I I've I've kind
of monitored that kind of stuff. But I was shocked
to hear y'all talk about how, you know, different people
(16:07):
at different times have kind of cheated the system a
little bit, or maybe not cheated the system, but just
like done crazy things. That's probably the most unhealthiest thing
about the sport is the weight loss thing. Again, and
and a lot of people find out later on that
they were helped wrestling at their natural weight. They did
better anyways. But you were wrestling up and beating some
(16:30):
bigger guys. Yeah, but a lot of those guys were
not bigger, not real bigger. They're just either a little
more muscular and maybe a little more a little more height,
but not real real big guys. Yeah, and uh, chase
your cowboy. You grew up on a ranch over here.
You guys have fifty head of horses and trained horses. Yeah,
(16:53):
we got a lot of heads. We got a lot
of horses. We got some young horses training, and got
some brood mares out of the place and run some
black angus cattle. And so you grew up on a horse.
Oh yeah, I grew up on hours. Did you rodeo
rodeo road bulls? Yep? Did you do very good with that?
I did all right? About my built for to be
(17:15):
like a bull rider. Yeah, my right legs metal from
the knee down. Yeah, that's there. That's where the where
I broke it from bride and bulls and everything's all
plated up and d Yeah is that on YouTube somewhere?
But yeah, I grew up on horses and rodeo a
(17:35):
little bit, and yeah, the whole families and you grew
up in a hunting family too. Yep, yep, everyone's hunted Grandpa, mom, dad,
and so we were telling that. We were just kind
of sitting around last night and I said something. I
brought up my bear hot chaps, which I do pretty
often because I'm so proud of them, my hair out
(17:57):
bear hot chaps. And Chase was like, my mom made
her mountain goat out of or what you tell? Yeah, yeah,
she's got mountain goat that they got. I don't know
when I was just young. She might have maybe before
she even had kids, but she's got a fair mountain goat.
(18:20):
H that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, um, let's see
lion hunting man, tell me about what it's like. Is
this good lion country? You know, I haven't really reached
my lion hunting far far reach, but I I don't
think I could be anywhere better. When I can drive
(18:43):
twenty miles from the house or or lesson, go put
up a couple of cats and be home by noon.
I mean, I think that's pretty good. When did your seat?
When are you usually hunting them here? December one is
when the season starts and ends. I think April and uh,
I don't have a scheduled job, so I kind of
(19:03):
go middle of the week as many times the end
of the week. I mean, if I'm off work, I'm
going as much as possible. And it's not uncommon. I mean,
it's not uncommon to cut a track every time you
go out and put up something. Now, is that in
snow or on dry ground? We we get a little
bit of both conditions we get in here in Montana.
I mean, as you're seeing, we get some cold weather
(19:26):
and some warm weather. And it's same through December, and
last December through April was pretty mild winter, so we
did a lot of I would say it's a mix
of I wouldn't want to say dry ground, but frozen ground,
bare ground and uh frozen bare ground and a little
bit of snow patchy um. How do you how do
(19:49):
you find the tracks up here? You know, mainly we
get around on snowmobiles or even just out of the pickup.
There's a lot of roads, fire roads or low an
old dogging roads that we can drive and usually you
can cut a track from there. But we do a
lot out of the snowmobiles or side by sides and
(20:11):
pull a little sled behind the snow bills with the
dogs in them and colbing ary. Let's know, if you
got a question about this lion hunting, what kind of
dogs do you run? I got a red tick and
I got a blue tick. A little fun. Yeah, both
of them are just two year old, so they're both pups.
And yeah, they're doing awesome right now. You we were
(20:32):
talking about your dogo. What what did you ever do
anything with him? Or is he just kind of you know,
when I got into the lion hunting, my DOGO was
already kind of tell us what a dogo is. I
don't know what dogo. Argentino. They're from, uh, the originata
out of Argentina, and they were bread for boars and pumas.
(20:54):
Actually is it a tree dog? No, it's not. It's uh,
it's almost like a it's a asked if breed. They're
large dogs, big blocky head. It looked like it looks
like pitbulls on like steroids. But they are. They call
him the perfect breed. They spent they bred them out
of eight different breeds. They can bind their over a
long period of time. Yeah, and they and they put
(21:15):
him to a test for a long time and when
they finally found like the right dog because they had
at first they were too temperamental because they bred some
horrible dog. I don't but it was a dog that
literally extinct itself just from aggression. So then they bread uno, yeah,
bread another dog into it to try to bring the
(21:37):
aggression down. So they spent a lot of time for temperament. Yea,
protecting yep. These dogs are very athletic. But he was
just a little too old when I got going. He
and uh, you know, I would like to take him
with just to see what he would treat or so
you never really hunted it in that. Yeah, he coyotes
(21:59):
that he he'll he'll go after coyotes. He does not
like coyotes, but he's they're they're really versatile dog, very versatile.
Like we could take him out to the cattle and
work around the cattle with them and take him back
home and you can throw a baby on him and
he's they're very versatile dogs. Yeah. One of the smartest
(22:20):
dogs were ever hunted with hog hunting growing up was
a DOGO and all the other dogs you you know,
round up whenever you called the pig and they would
still be going crazy. That DOGO you'd pull him off
and he's like, all right, my job is done, and
he would just sit over there, just a'll relaxed. But
whenever it was time, he was just so. You know
about dogs, Yeah, why have you never told me about him?
(22:42):
I have not come. They're cool, They're really cool. Why
didn't you ever tell bear about him? Great question, because
because I want to own one first, you're afraid we
go by one. They are great, like farm protect like
they're great family dogs, great, great family dogs. Yeah. One
of the best stories they come out of Argentina is
(23:05):
I think it was Argentina, but they were talking about
how the family dogo would in the very protective I
guess um. So they the dogo was going with some
this guy's daughters and it fought off I think a
mountain line and uh, it loft one of his size.
But you know, I don't remember if it actually took
down the mountain line or not. They say it did.
(23:27):
They say, you know this story too. Yeah, so it's
just like in the is this like in the dog
Joe Brochure. It's if you look it up, it's crazy.
They have like the lineage is so short, like the history.
They're not a this breed doesn't go that many years back.
It's very so you can really follow this history on
this dog. I think have been marketed and duped. I
(23:50):
think I think you all read the Dogo brochure and
there was some fancy slick marketing, probably from you know, somebody.
I'd say it one of the we had a we
mixed or we didn't, but the guys we hunted with
a mixed a dogo with a uh, half pit, half lab.
(24:11):
It's it's crazy, but man, one of the best dogs
that they used that just was really well balanced was
a quarter It was a quarter pit, quarter lab and
half dogo or something like that. And uh, his name
was Buckshot. And he was so smart, like he would
go out there and uh he would he would bay
(24:33):
until he had help and then he would go to
go in and catch like he just knew when to
do what and uh if if it was big, he'd
stay back. You know, he just he didn't. He got
end up getting run over on the road though, you
know highway got him. Yeah, they're they're great dogs. I'd
like taking with my hounds outline hunting and see if
(24:54):
he even knows it. Sounds like they were bred to
be kind of bay and catch dogs. Yeah. Yeah, I
don't even know if he'd know what to do with
the track. He probably just look at and look at
me my trail. He wouldn't treat no. Well, are I
gotta tell this story about our So we've got a
squirrel dog named Timber and he's he's he's earned the
(25:18):
position of being the only dog we have that didn't
pinned up or or you know, contained in some way,
and we let him out a lot and they come
in the house and stuff. But we have to kindel
these hunting dogs most of the time just because they
will go off and go hunting. But Tim he sticks
around the house. And uh, my wife just sent us
a video. Tim is like an ultimate character of a dog,
(25:42):
like he's he's actually becoming a solid squirrel dog. Um,
he's a feist and trinker. But he will sing to
a harmonica like nobody's business. You play harmonica and he
he will sing like a like a angel as American
got talent. Yeah exactly. So anyway, we've been we've been
(26:06):
watching videos of tim while we were elk hunting today.
But no dogs. Um, so what's a big cat for
up here in northeast. I would say the average tom,
like a like a good mature average Tom would be
around a hundred and fifty two hundred sixty pounds. Big
(26:28):
Tom would be around that mark. I think that two
hundred mark is maybe few and far between. There might
be a couple of them roaming around. But yeah, that's
a b C cat. Yeah, I feel like that's pretty um,
pretty standard. Would you say most people would be like
(26:49):
I mean if you were talking about Ottaho or even
New Mexico or Arizona. I mean cats, A big cat,
A big cat, yeah, and a two hundred pound cat
is a world class cat anywhere anywhere? Do you know
much about like these cats up here? Make Boone and Crockett.
You know, in the bear world and in the line
of the world, there's certain places where they have bigger
skull cat last year and I haven't got the skull
(27:14):
back from getting beetled. But he should be done and
dried and everything. But I wouldn't be surprised if he
is close to Boone and Crockett. Definitely Pop and young
I showed him to my recurve, but mhm, definitely would be. Yeah,
but there is I know that there is an area
in Montana that consistently is in the Boone and Crockett. Yeah,
(27:39):
and I want to say it's over by bailings like
Yellow Stump, like County or something that consistently is in
the books for Boone and Crockett. But up in this
area isn't known for book cat. I mean, I don't
think there's a lot of guys that are turning it
in though either. You know, well, that's always been really
interesting to me with It's in the same way with
(28:00):
bears is that there's there's certain sections of the continent
that just produced big bears. And it's not because they
live longer there. I mean, they do have to live
long to grow big skulls. But but it's all just
about regional genetics. Yeah, they're not necessarily the biggest animal either,
(28:21):
That's right. And it's not necessarily the biggest bodied animal.
Just you know, some some bears are going to have,
you know, exceptionally long skulls or the skulls, you know what.
I'm sure it's the same for bears with cats. I mean,
I'm not too familiar with the bear skulls, but the cats.
You might see a punkin headed cat, but he just
might be a healthy cat and have quite a bit
(28:42):
of fat and muscle built. British Columbia is probably the
go to place for big book cats, Is that right? Yeah,
I would say so. There's an outfitter up there that
I know of that consistently put up two pounders cats.
It's probably a little bit of Bergman's law. Of familiar
with Bergman's law about things. The farther from the equator
(29:06):
you get, the big larger the animals. I know. I
know that there are some things that it seems to
be true with and others that not so much, like
moose and stuff. They say, Yeah, I just wonder the
big cats have anything, you know. I'm sure there. I'm
sure there is something to do that too. I just
(29:26):
think colder tamps too, you know those, I think they're
always constantly in survival mode and having to eat and
having to stay on top of it. Whereas a cat
that's living in whether like this through the summer, I mean,
they might not have to roam so hard. Do you
see any trends in the way these cats moved through
(29:48):
this country? You do? And there I'm really lucky, Like
right behind the house is like a hot spot for females,
so come when the breeding sea and starts for them,
which is really kind of random, it seems like, but
it seems like we get a lot of the toms
that locate but you see them. Really they have a
(30:13):
wide range, very wide range. Yeah, they do they I think.
I think I've heard the same thing. And I've never
spoken with a mounta lion biologist or anything, but but
I think they can have kittens any time of year.
I think so too. It's not it's not like a
bear or like a white tail or an elk that
(30:35):
that fawns or kids. It has kittens at a certain time.
And that's what I mean. Like, it seems like when
a female comes into heat over by us, and it
seems like we have a really strong female population over
there by the house, and it seems like we get
a couple of toms that are resident tom's for a
few weeks at that females and heat, and then you
(30:56):
might not see a tom for a month. Do you
find that those cats like like traveling, like where you
find tracks? Do you find tracks in the same places consistently?
So a lot of a lot of the road crossing
spots that we find them you find that there's a
creek bottom there that they might have been hunting that
(31:17):
creek bottom, working that creek bottom, and then they'll cross
section and go up put another logging trail or up
a deer trail or just a side road. Yeah, but
a lot of the and that's how a lot of
the tracks are that we find, or they're either working
the timber line. You'll just see them cutting back and
forth through there where there's a heavy, small like two
(31:39):
track or something that's not traveled often. And yeah, it
seems like to make one cross. But yeah, for we
do see this a lot of the same tracks in
the same areas. What's a long line race for you, Well,
a long one would be my cat. We treat him
once in three d yards and then he jumped the
(32:02):
tree and didn't tree again for over seven and a
half miles. Was it a hot race after that? No,
the dogs actually lost him for a second. We don't
know how. I think we had too many pups cut
in the race. And when that cat jumped, things just
got crazy and dogs ran over top tracks and ran
(32:23):
around and they just kept going and we ended up
cutting the track back again up on top right by
the pickup. The the cat ended up arounding made a
big circle. Yeah. We had a couple of dogs in
the box. We heard them barking like crazy, and we
ended up going back up top by the pickup, and
he ran right by the pickup. And I think he
ran so far because he cut through his like a
(32:46):
stubble field, like an open field, and just kept where
there was no like an old wheat field and just
nothing to tree, nothing to so I just think he
kept running. Yeah. But yeah, for our average race, though,
I would say, is anywhere from our average long race
would be like a mile really a mile and a
(33:07):
half or so. They get, they get a lot of
country to run. It seems like, well, what about the
couldtrare I mean, wouldn't you cold trail him something cold trail? Yeah?
Oh yeah, our cold trailing can be we do where
where I line hunt out though, we have a good
opportunity to kind of circle our tracks and say, okay,
(33:29):
the cat is in this. I just let's take a
minute and describe. Like someone that's never lined it might
not understand. So let's say there's you're in a you're
in a block of country, and there's a road that
runs north and south here, and then a mile away
there's another road that runs north and south, and a
mile away there's another road that runs north and south.
(33:50):
And you cut a track on the one of these roads,
and you could say the cats running east to west.
And so you go, well, let's go see if he's
crossed yep, across other road yep. And you go drive
the other road and sure enough, he's crossed it. So
you go, well, let's go let's not start there, let's
keep going. So you drive over and you drive on
the other road, and he hadn't crossed there yet yep.
(34:12):
So you determine that he is still in between B
and C yep, And so you go back two road
B and turn out on that track exactly. So, because
there's less roads, you have shorter races, because the houndsmen
are doing some of the work. Yeah, yep. And I
think we get a lot of chance to help out
(34:34):
our dogs, and these pups get a young It's good
for young dogs because they're getting to see a lot
of cats and getting to work a lot of tracks
and tracks that you can help him on. You make
them work through it, but you're giving him a good
fighting t Tell me what you mean by help him on?
You get you get a chance to say, hey, this
cat is definitely in here. And when I cut you loose,
(34:55):
I know that you should find him. But if you
do not, I get in there and I know I
can help you sort it out. So you're you'll be
walking around looking for fresh tracks in the snow. You
see a track, you call the dogs over and help
them out a little bit. So that's what that means. Yeah,
I like to late. I like to let my dogs
work a little bit before I call them over, just
(35:16):
so they're not so quick to rely on to be
standing over top of the tracks, so when the going
gets tough, they're not looking at me. I like to
I'll go and stand by it. But I like to
see what they do if they if they get sorted out. Yeah. Man,
I'm really intrigued by lion hunting. You know, I coon
hunt in in the line of dogs that I have
(35:39):
are from a long line of big game dogs, bear
and lion dogs. My dogs we've only run coon with
in Arkansas because that's all it's legal there. But man,
there's something really intriguing to me about lion hunting, and
I think I think it has a lot to do
with just the incredible and I'm all that mountain lion
(36:02):
is I mean, just the fact that we've got this
hundred and fifty pound cat in North America that's one
of the most well the most efficient predator on our continent.
Would you all say that's true? I mean, if you
heard that. I heard people say that, but I would
say that's true too, And I would and I I'm
drawn to him like that because the simple fact is,
(36:22):
how many people can you honestly say, I've seen a
mountain line And you could count on probably less than
one hand on how many people have been out in
the woods and seen a mountain line. Right, there's such
an elusive you can live in good mountain lion country
your whole life and never see one. I mean, nothing
beats taken a person to see their first mountain lion. Yeah,
(36:45):
I mean the first time they look up in that
tree and see a cat that size and it's it's
cool there. You would never want to do that, though,
is that right? That is not right? That is not right.
You do want to do that? You know what I
have I've seen one mountain lion. Uh, that wasn't being
(37:07):
pursued by dogs or something in British Columbia. Yep, I
was were spring bear hunting in British Columbia, just total chance,
just driving down the road to go bear hunting, and
ah in a lion jumps out in the middle of
the road, sees us and runs down the middle of
the road for probably a hundred yards. And how many
days in hours do you think you've spent in the
(37:27):
field around mountain lions And that's the only one, well
I've seen. Here's what I think is I think I
was extremely lucky. Yep, I don't think if you did
looked at the statistics in the time I've actually spent
in really good lion country, I I think I got lucky.
I say the same thing. I mean, I can't even
count how many countless hours riding a horse are being
(37:50):
in lion country hunting elk or mule deer, or even
with the dogs that just you I've never I've seen
two with all of them really just crossing the road
to you know what's funny about that? Everybody and they're
probably se This is my big pet peeve about people
from the South, is that about seventy of people in
(38:14):
Arkansas say they've seen a mountain line there if you
figured that out yet, everybody thinks they've seen a mountain
line and we don't even have them. Now we do
have we have a few chase just to the last
couple of years that it's like officially been documented that
we have mountain lions in Arkansas. A guy killed one,
(38:37):
uh down in South Arkansas while he was deer hunting,
killed a lion called game and fish like, hey, I
shot this thing, and um and uh, I have some
buddies um in Southwest Arkansas that uh for a while,
they're we're pretty regularly sending me uh lion photos. Like
(38:58):
it takes a lot to convince me. Like if somebody
sends me a line photo and it's like, hey, I
got this on a trail camera and you know, West Arkansas,
unless I know them and know their character, like did
you get that off the internet, I'm just like, okay, man, Well,
this was one of my good friends who I knew
was telling the truth, and he was getting cell cam
(39:20):
pictures under a deer feeder, which is classic Southwest Arkansas,
a tripod deer feeder, and uh he sent me the
picture like two minutes after it was taken. You know
what I'm saying, Like the time stamp on it was like,
holy cow, that was like ten minutes ago. Um. And anyway,
So there are lines. But I'm being funny when I
(39:41):
say everybody in Arkansas says they see the line, because
they do. People are like so many people are like, yep,
I heard a mountain line screaming back behind my grandma's house.
That's what people say. And I, I just I just
don't buy it. I don't either. I don't buy it.
You know how many times if you heard a mountain
lion scream not in a tree, I know they I
(40:04):
don't even I don't even know if I have in
a tree. I've heard them, yeah, hissing, but I don't
know if I even have in a tree. A lot
of the lines, we can't go to sleep really yeah,
just get up there and yeah, and I kind of
did some research into it, and I think it's just
like wired into them. You know. That was like we
talked about with other animals, like how they feel safe
(40:25):
when they're up in a just a stress. Yeah, just
once they're up there. You know what a coon when
many times they will lay up in the tree and
shut their eyes. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that
they're sleeping, but but they I think, I don't know.
They certainly don't have the ability to reason that their
(40:47):
eyes glow when humans shine light in their eyes. But
that's what it feels like. It feels like they're hiding
and they know their eyes shine. It's like shut their
eyes and just lay there. But you know, it's just
a For a coon, I would assume it's a it's
a fear response. Protective response. Might be the same thing
with a cat. Might be I don't know. Some of
those big bears, these guys tree uh, and most time
(41:09):
a big bear won't climb a tree, but uh, they'll
stay on the ground. But sometimes they'll say, a big bear,
I'll just I mean, he'll just be up there just
like doesn't have a care in the world, you know.
Just some of the little ones will be moving around
and you can tell they're kind of that's definitely nervous. Yeah,
that's definitely. You see this a lot of similarities that way.
When you catch a younger cat, it seems like they
(41:31):
can't pick a branch or pick a picky. They're wanting
to crawl around that tree or jump out of the tree.
And these are pretty short trees around here for the
most part. Yeah, yeah, they're it's nothing for a cat
to climb up six feet is all, seven feet is
all and just get out of the get out of
the reach of the dog. Yet, do you ever do
(41:53):
you eat much mountain line? Yes? I do. Every chance
we get. If someone doesn't want their cat or just
wants a couple of pieces of it, we collect everything. Yeah, Cob,
we've you ever had mountain lion? I have not, bear John, Yeah,
we remember you killed yours week. Do you remember how
we cooked it? I remember we cooked in a lot
(42:15):
of different ways. Yeah, because we had a whole mountain lion, right, yeah,
yeah we did. Yeah, we cooked. I remember we cooked one.
We cooked one part of the line like a kind
of treated it like a pork loin a croc pot,
put like vegetables and little chicken broth in there and
just kind of let it cook all day. And that
was great. Um My, my wife's some of my wife's
(42:41):
co workers came to our house, like twenty five of them,
and I fed him grilled mountain lion and bear steak
off just a charcoal grill. And uh they loved it.
Did they not bear? Yeah? They did. We did pulled
pork sandwiches. Uh, some steaks. I guess it'd be pulled
pluma sandwiches are yeah. Yeah, but it's a yeah, there's there.
(43:06):
It's very versatile meat. It's it's it's great meat. It's
uh so lion meat. It's very very light colored, I
mean like a chicken pork ish, yes, and very fine grain,
very fine grain. It's if I feel like it's finer
grain than pork. But yeah, great stuff. What's the what's
(43:30):
the biggest cat you caught up here? I would say
my cat was probably the biggest cat we got and
he was about hy pounds. Yeah, that was probably the
biggest cat that I think. We've caught the rest of them.
They're hard to wait in a tree, so yeah, we've
caught some big ones in. And how did you get
(43:52):
into running helms? Because I seem to remember when we
were talking yesterday, you said that your your parents didn't
have home. No, I didn't grow up with hounds. My
buddy down the road who we all hunt with and
I was camping more with earlier this week. Him and
his family ran red bones and I remember going over
there every time they had puppies, and every time they
(44:13):
would go, I would beg to go with them, and
they dragged me along every now and again. And I
always said, man, as soon as I have my own place,
the first thing, I'm getting his hound dogs. And I
bought my house and not long after came hound dogs.
Did you stick with some of the lines from around here? No? Actually,
(44:34):
on a whim, we I feel like I'm so lucky
with that. The first dog I got. We. I started
doing a bunch of research and kind of figured out
some guys who had some good dogs and found out
there was a litter in Wheatland, Wyoming from a line
of dogs and it's kind of like that blue Tick lining,
but he's got that My blue Tick does have a
(44:55):
little walker in him, but he's from like that camera
bod and uh pretty heavy camera and blood. And I
heard from a few people that these guys dogs did great.
So I was like, well, we'll reach out. And I
kind of wasn't that serious, but I was, well, you
you were playing the Yeah, you're playing the sloge. Yeah.
(45:15):
So I asked them and they said, yeah, we got
some and I was like, okay, well, I'm interested in
one and told him we'd get one, and I didn't
plan I planned on having it shipped up here. Well,
the girlfriend couldn't wait a day. She drove all the
way from Wheitland, Wyoming. I think it's sixteen or eighteen
hours somewhere in there. One drove all the way down
(45:37):
there and had to pick up that puppy. She was
just as excited to have one at the house. So
she picked up that puppy and came straight home, made
a whole round trip and a day. Yeah, the camera
and line of blue ticks. Are they known as big
Game Dog Big Game Dogs? Yep? Yeah. Dale Cameron just
passed earlier that this year, So kind of interesting. See
(45:59):
what been with all that bloodline? A lot of people
run that camera bloodline. You know what I've been looking
and maybe somebody can help us out if they're listening
to this podcast. You know, we have a Legendary Barehound
column in Bear Hunting Magazine or print magazine where we
every issue we we basically do a story on the
deceased bear dog. Legendary bear dog and uh, I've I
(46:24):
know a lot of guys have used the camera dogs
for bear in the West, and I've been wanting. I've
wanted to find somebody that that had a dog that
you know, we could hook up with, but we haven't
a guy who has a good blue tick dog out
of a lot of that camera. Have you heard of
that Steve Phipps. No, he has some really good blue
(46:46):
tick dogs people are pretty high on. He's out of
that Utah area. Actually, that's who we're thinking about getting
our next up. From what We've been talking to him
back and forth and a few guys run his dogs
up here. He has a dog that he was pretty
high on that passed away, and I think his name
was Frost or something Freeze, something like that, but he
(47:06):
ran camera. His bloodlines are heavy camera bloodlines, that old school,
big headed, big eared Yeah block here blue ticks, Um,
what size are your dogs? My red tick? And he
came from New Mexico. I actually got him as a
nine month old pup. I was kind of talking to
(47:28):
a guy named Mike Leonard. Quite a few hounds and
know him in the big game world, and UH was
talking back and forth and he said, I got too
many pups. We just had a big old wreck tonight.
Dogs pops running all over the place. He's like, I'll
give you a pup. And everyone in the hounds the
world knows what i'll give you a pup means. It's
(47:48):
usually not a good one. But I took him on
and he's about forty pounds, and uh, my blue tick
he's about fifty pounds. He's they're bigger dogs. I would
say that was I was figured you'd say they were
bigger than that. You know, they're two years old, and
I think they're gonna fill out bigger. I bet you
(48:10):
that red tick fills out to be about fifty and
that blue tick feels out to be about pounds. I'd
like to They're both in phenomenal shape. Though. Them dogs,
they they stayed pretty we I'm lucky. I live in
a rural area and my dogs they hardly ever penned up.
I got I got twenty acres of my own and
(48:32):
then there's a property right behind us that it's just
open and they let us. They don't mind our dogs.
The other neighbors don't mind our dogs. So we kind
of just keep an eye on them, and as long
as we're out about doing stuff, there free to roam,
and then we we run them pretty regularly three or
four days a week. And yeah, they stay in pretty
(48:54):
good shape. That's great, man, that's great. Well, I'm yeah,
look forward to see how your how your lion hunting
goes this this kind of country would be. It just
feels like it would be a fun place to lion hunt.
You know. I'm the only place I have I have
lion hunted is in Idaho northern in the Panhandle of Idaho,
(49:16):
which is great lion country. And uh it was it
was with my friend Leon Brown Clark fork out fitting
up there and uh we had a great heart with him, um,
about three or four years ago. And uh, but boy,
that's tough country. I mean it's straight up, straight down
big mountains, um, which is cool. Um. And not that
(49:39):
this would be any easier, it just feels like more accessible.
It is more accessible. You know. Do you ever tree
a cat over on the other side of a canyon
and glass it up to see it before you get there?
Very rarely, but if we we do every now and again.
But everything is so accessible here, and you find yourself
with the garments saying okay, we know where they're at,
(50:01):
so just making your loop around, you know. But yeah, yeah,
and then you guys running bobcats sometimes to your Yeah,
we get bobcats, and uh, you have to buy your
trappers license in October to be able to take a bobcat.
That's that's your that's your stipulation. So you have to
buy it for October one. So coming up here soon,
(50:23):
people need to be buying there. Yeah you get I
heard you talking to Bryce earlier about something you do
with your You did with one of your pups, trying
to get it to tree better. Do you remember what
you Bryce was having the same problem I was with
that red dog. He came from dry ground bludlines, which
actually so did his red dog that he's having trouble with,
(50:45):
and a lot I started doing a bunch of research.
These old houndsmen were saying, Yeah, these old these older
dry ground bloodlines are not great. They're not great tree dogs.
They're great running dogs, but not the greatest tree dog.
And tree dog would mean that when they smell game
that has gone up a tree, they stay at the
tree and bark. And good tree dog, that's what he's
(51:07):
gonna do, whether he's they don't bear coon lying, he's
going to stay at the tree and bark, and that's
got to be something that's somewhat natively in them. I mean,
you know, in the bloodline, but what you were, but
you can you can encourage it. Yeah, I was telling
Rice what I did was so I did a lot
(51:29):
of research, and the guys are doing it various different ways.
But the way I was finding guys said that they
had the most success was when you get him up
in a tree with the other dogs, let him get excited,
pet him up, bring the other dogs away, and if
he tries to leave that tree, just give him a
little bit of a vibrate or you know, tone no,
just a little bit of stimulations saying hey, no, that's
(51:50):
I don't want you to come back to this tree.
And then he gets back on the tree, give him
a pet him up again and let him know he's
doing good. And then then tie him up to the
tree or tie him up close to the tree, and
lead all the other dogs away and hopefully that dog
is staying treating. If he tries to leave again, give
him a vibrate and if he goes back to train
and say hey, come back up there and pet the
dog up and say good job dog. And uh I
(52:12):
did that for two three trees in a row and
pretty soon that dog has been treating great ever since.
You know, you're you're as a trainer, dog trainer, or
any kind of animal trainer. You're just trying to find
a way to communicate to that animal what you wanted
to do. And a mule, a horse, a dog, all
(52:38):
he knows is um well with a with a horse
or mule, it's pressure and release. But with a dog
it's it's praise or no praise, no praise or getting scolded.
I guess there's three there's three things there. But yeah,
I don't think you could you could train a dog.
(52:59):
I've had a lot of people asked me, well, do
you think I could train my you know, my German
wire hair, you know, be a coon dog. And it's like, no,
you couldn't. I mean you just you know, you might
be able to train a real smart dog to do something,
but there's a part of it that's bred into them.
(53:19):
But if we had the trainer, the handler you know,
works to try to enhance that and as much as possible.
And every dog is different, like I One thing I
didn't tell Bryce was this dog was very timid, Like
he's not a dog that I can scold. Even if
I scold, this dog shuts down, it's that he's gone.
It doesn't do me any good to scold. Like no
(53:42):
shocking stimulation at all to this dog. This dog doesn't
get any of that because he just doesn't respond to that.
It's all praise or no praise with him, so a
lot of it. Like that's why I stuck with just
the vibrate, just give him something saying hey, no, because
a lot of times at home I told my dogs
and if they don't listen, or they can't hear me,
(54:02):
or they if the tone didn't get their attention, I'll
hit the vibry button. Then they both know, hey, we
better go home now wherever they're at. Yeah, yeah, I
could tell, like the way that you talked about your
dogs yesterday, you really are patient with them, you know,
and uh work with them and just you know, give
them time to come into things, even the way that
(54:24):
you invite them into the family and stuff. Yeah. I
was telling Clay that earlier today about just horses that
might I'm I find myself being more patient with animals
than I do with people. I just think that I
just think they're a lot easier to deal with you
know what you're getting, you know. And yeah, and my
dogs are a part of the family. I mean my
(54:45):
dogs there, they're their tools, but they are part of
the family. Yeah, they definitely. I mean, there's no such
I don't think. I don't think if I had if
I had fifteen dogs and only two of them hunted,
let's just say I'd still have fifteen dogs, because I
wouldn't be able to get rid of any of them. Chase,
(55:06):
do you have any inside into like what you think
needs to be developed or changed inside the broader hound
hunting community, so that are our image, are are the
way we communicate with the world. Who we are would
be better received and understood, so that this this sport
(55:30):
would continue as game management, you know. And actually kind
of from being an outsider in a sense not growing
up with towns all my life, I always seen the
you hear hounsmen are like, forgive me about high school girls,
you know, picker him back and forth. Oh I got
the best dogs. Oh this guy, Oh if this guy
(55:52):
he kills everything? Are this guy? This guy runs everything
like this guy for somebody to say something good about exactly,
So when I came into it, I made a point
that I wasn't going to be a part of any group.
That if this guy wanted to run with me or
didn't want to, I would make myself available to everybody
that if I can go with you, great, you know,
(56:14):
if I can help you out, great, If I find
a track, let's run it together. Just because this sport
already and just the hunting you talked about all the time,
low hanging fruit, you know, and guarding the gate. It's
just that we need to do a better job of
lifting up each other and helping people get into the sport.
(56:37):
I mean, there's people that want in, but it's intimidating.
I mean, owning a dog's intimidating enough. But it's a
big commitment. It is a it's a huge commitment. But
getting somebody involved and taking them along it goes a
long ways. I Mean, there's so many people that I
know that I've never even thought about hound hunting, including
my own family, that since I've taken him, they they've
(57:00):
learned so much about the sport to where now when
they have a conversation with somebody, it's an educated conversation
about it. Yeah, you get a chance to educate somebody
about the species you're chasing about the process. Like I
have a drive track system and I have the handheld system,
and I always give my handheld to whoever we're with.
(57:22):
I don't care where I can. I'll figure out where
my dogs are. But I like them to want them
to be involved the tracking system so they could track
the dogs, understand what's going on in the race yep,
and kind of see the layout of the land and
see how things work and maybe what they're doing and
looking down and saying, why are these dogs doing all
(57:42):
these circles up here? Oh? While they probably lost it
and they're working it out or something, you know, kind
of just getting involved in I just think we could
do a better job of bringing people in and lifting
each other up. Yeah. Man, that uh, that's very very
well said. And uh, I think it takes people saying
(58:03):
that kind of stuff and then living it, not just
saying it but living it. That that changes the culture.
And and and I don't know what it would be.
It's probably in many things in life, but for some reason,
the hound community does have that reputation. I don't I
don't really know why. But if guy's being kind of competitive,
(58:26):
and you know, if one guy has good dogs, he's
he has a hard time complimenting somebody else's dogs. And
you know, that's just an old world mentality. You know
that we've got to just brand and just the next
the new generation of hunters that's coming up. You know,
it's just like we're for each other. If there's a
successful houndsmen down the road from you, that's a win
(58:48):
for you. It's not a loss for you, even if
he's hunting the same ground as you, and you know it.
I think the whole uh lifting up and communicating. You're
getting a chance to communicate with that guy down the
road and maybe if you don't like something that he's doing,
instead of talking about it to somebody else, maybe go
hunting with him and do things a little bit, show
(59:09):
them something a little different. Yeah, I think we've got
to clean ourselves up. I mean, because what's happening in
the world today as we live in we live in
a world of information. We live in a world with
no secrets. Like used to houndsman and hunting in general
could kind of hide back in the shadows, nobody really
(59:30):
knew what was going on except for us, and uh,
we can't do that anymore. I mean the world knows
like everything now is exposed and uh and and that's
not necessarily a bad thing. That's just the nature of
the world we live in. So all of a sudden
we have to become really good at telling our story.
(59:51):
And telling our story goes right down to the to
the fabric of individual relationships that people have, like you know,
you saying, you know you've introduce is your family too
in a positive way to hound hunting, And so when
they're in a conversation at the baseball game or the
wrestling match, if you're way up here, um and someone
says something about hounds, they go, yeah, man, Chase runs hounds,
(01:00:14):
and it's great and we you know it just it
cast this positive light as opposed to someone that doesn't understand,
and you know, you would just have to tell our story.
You wouldn't believe how many times that that actually did happen,
Like at high school basketball games with my little sister
when she was in high school, that the coach would say, hell,
(01:00:34):
I see your dad showed me a picture of a cat.
He's like, that's just crazy. I didn't know that they
were around. And you get to talk to him about
it and stuff and then someone else like, you know,
I didn't know that there were so many lions and
stuff like that. That's pretty cool. That are they scary
or you know, you just get a chance to explain
what's around and what they are why. I mean, yeah,
(01:00:57):
they're among us. Yeah. She spent a lot of times
educating people. Yeah. I try to the best of my
ability whenever I get a chance to. I mean, I
work at the railroad and there's guys that get locked
in a train with me for twelve hours and they
get to here at one where what's your what's your
favorite what's your favorite thing to hunt? You know, lions
(01:01:20):
And for the simple fact I wasn't trying to bait
you into that. I thought you might say bo hunting
now in September. You know, I do love that, but
nothing beats anything with hounds and anything with dogs in general.
I just love dogs. So anything where you can and
I mean anything that you can bring a kid to
and he doesn't have to be quiet. He could be
(01:01:41):
drinking hot chocolate and eating candy all day and riding
around in a snow bill or going for a walk.
A lot of movement. You're getting to pet you would
never want to do that. Would I would? Oh you would? Okay, okay, yeah,
get a pet up the dogs. You know, it's a
it's a very involved sport where you can really impact somebody.
(01:02:04):
I mean it makes an impression. Yeah, well, there's there's
a lot of skill that and it's so counterintuitive, like
to the person that knows nothing that has no context
for hounds and and being a houndsman and running big
game and specifically lions. People have this idea and I'm
(01:02:27):
not talking about it the hunting community. I think we're
turning the tide on this wrong philosophy. People are like,
oh wow, it's so it's so easy to to tree
game with hounds. That's taken away the hunt. It's not
fair chase all these ridiculous old world ideas, but when
(01:02:50):
in fact it's actually totally opposite. How you know, I've
said it so many times in so many places. A
lot of the houndsmen that I know are some of
the best outdoor warsman in hunting. I would agree. I mean,
because the dedication that you have to understanding the game
that you're after, because it's not just the dogs that
(01:03:11):
are doing the work. I had a real good hounds.
And tell me one time when I was training a
young coon dog that wasn't getting out and hunting quite
as good as I wanted to. I just wanted to
be able to turn that dog loose in the middle
of town and it just go and find the coon out,
you know, along And he he said, Clay, part of
being a houseman is putting your dog close to where
(01:03:32):
the game is, you know. And he was like, you
need to become a better coon hunter and you'll make
that dog good coon dog. And uh, you know, I
took his point, and uh, but but the point is
is that there's a lot more than goes into it
than just turning some dog loose. And it goes in trees, lying,
(01:03:52):
the dedication of that dog, understanding lions, understanding where they are,
understanding scent, understanding the of the land, uh, understanding the
prey movements. I mean, like, you're not gonna look for
line tracks and places that are void of big game
because you know, they gotta you know, there's just there's
a lot to it, you know. Yeah, And I mean
(01:04:14):
there's a lot of parallels that. I mean, the dogs
they have to be smart. They're not just running out
there and chasing everything. They got to sort through rabbits, foxes, coyotes, deer, elk,
moose to find that lion and good conditions and bad
conditions and then you could. It takes a lot for
(01:04:36):
a dog. And them dogs are athletes. These dogs put
in a lot of work exercising there. They got to
be incredible athletes. Yeah, and same for coons. I mean
them dogs, they're locating ability then just being able to
go find a coon that swam across the creek or
across the river. And yeah, yep, Well there's a there's
(01:04:59):
a lot more to it than just turning loose a dog.
A lot of skill, a lot of a lot of
dedication involved in it, and um and that's what I
have seen, seen it with my own eyes with a
lot of guys. So it's pretty incredible. But man, we're
gonna try to kill an elk in the morning. We've
got one morning left and then we're heading out. We
(01:05:20):
got one morning left, but I think we got ourselves
set up good for a good morning. Yeah. We so
this afternoon we saw we saw a very large bull
probably a mile away in a place that we can't hunt.
But we feel like it's possible that he's gonna come
into where we can hunt, and uh, because he did
(01:05:42):
it yesterday. Yep, we saw this bull on our side
this morning. He quickly crossed over into the place we
can't hunt. Um, but we also saw a nice, nice
bull on our mountain right at dark. We didn't spook him.
We feel agree he'll be in there somewhere. He's gotta
(01:06:02):
be gott to be in there somewhere. I would think
he looked pretty comfortable, like he was moving anywhere too crazy. Yeah,
so man, we just need we just need a little
bit of luck and maybe on the last morning, who
knows no better way to do it though, last morning,
last morning. Then we got a long drive home, Kobe. Yeah,
(01:06:24):
you're gonna have fun driving lostly right, I'm kiding man,
getting home and getting ready for bear season, yeah starting
up this weekend, right, Yeah, we're gonna get home and
turn around and go bear hunting, bear season, deer season,
so swinging up. Yeah, exciting time of year for sure.
This time next year, maybe bear sharing some of the driving. Yeah,
(01:06:49):
well he's not that old. Yeah, Well, like we need
to we need to get you tuned up on pulling
the trailer hopefully we can get the trailer out of here.
I think we can. I think so we got it
in here. It's very rough road getting our little trailer
in here. There was no turning back. It was either
(01:07:10):
forward or let's just say I was surprised when I
seen the trailer. That trailer has been some places. Man,
it's brought brought a lot of joy in amazement everyone
that's driven by I think. So these guys did what
I think they think they pick up somewhere off in
edge somewhere. Yeah. Well, all right, Well, thanks Chase. It's
(01:07:34):
been a pleasure hanging out with you, and appreciate the
help and good luck with your lion hunting this year,
and hopefully we'll have good luck l cutting in the morning. Yep,
thanks for having me on right on bear Any closing thoughts, Nope,
you know I can tell you don't want to line hunt.
(01:07:54):
Colby closing thoughts. I can tell you don't want to
line hunt either. Pull those where's back into you. Yeah,
I always ready to go, man, he's ready to go.
I'm so I'm so jibbed about lion hunting. I might
try to climb the tree and do something I don't
know just climb the tree to get you know, close
(01:08:17):
to the action view of what would be like to
be treat Yeah. Yeah, it'd be like an old Jerry
Clower joke, except for a mountain line to stebble links.
There you go, all right, guys, keep the wild blazes
wild because that's where the birds live, where the cats lives.
(01:08:39):
That you she s
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
you by Outdoor Edge in their complete lineup of knives
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if you decide to purchase any products from the website,
enter the discount code Nation thirty. That's the word nation
(01:31):
with the number thirty. After that, no spaces Nation thirty
and you will receive thirty off your purchase. My name
is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting
Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world
of hunting the icon and the North American Wilderness Prepare.
(01:55):
We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring
you into some of the wildest country on the planet.
Chasing there. We're still up in northeast Montana at Elk
Camp and on this week's podcast, we've got our new buddy,
(02:15):
Chase Dirten here with us. We've been l cutting some
with Chase. Our conversation with him goes into wrestling, it
goes into can a kind of little guy that's really
trained in hand to hand combat be the bigger guy
most Most of what we talked about was hound hunting
(02:36):
up here in Montana. So we had a fun conversation
with chase that you're going to enjoy. Be sure to
look up, check out follow on Instagram, listen to the
podcast of our friends at W Hunting Supply Buddy Woodburry
and his team. And when I say that, me and
(02:57):
Kobe have been there, Me and Kobe have been up
to the W headquarters and have they have met these
guys and gals, and they're all dedicated houndsmen. They know
their products. And what I like about the W team
is that they are they are dedicated to the hound
sports and more. They're they're they're more than a business,
(03:19):
their mission oriented business. And they also have the greatest
customer service around. And they've got the greatest selection of
hound related supplies that you're gonna need, from garments to
dog lucius and collars, to custom merchandise hats and shirts
and everything. Hey, do yourself a favorite check out W
(03:40):
Supply column on the phone, ask him a question about
your garment and you're gonna be happy with these guys.
Our buddies also over at the Western Bear Foundation Joe
Condelis and the Western Bear Guys. It's a nonprofit hunting
conservation organization for bears in the West, fighting the good
fight for hunters and conservationists in for Bears. These guys
(04:02):
are a membership driven organization. So by you joining the
Western Bear Foundation, you are contributing to the mass of
our way of life being preserved as hunters and as conservationists.
So check out our good friends over at the Western
Bear Foundation. You're gonna enjoy this podcast from our Elk
(04:27):
camp in northeast Montana. Boys, we are officially under the
Big Sky, the big night Sky of Montana. Yes we are.
The sunset's gone though, the sunset's gone. What We've got
a beautiful crescent moon over here, and there's been a
(04:48):
bunch of smoke up here. So we're we're in uh,
northeast Montana. We describe about where we are, Chase say,
it's northeast central Montana. Okay, we're a hundred and fifty
miles from the Canadian border. Yeah that's correct. Yeah, well
we are. We're at Elk camp still and uh we've
(05:13):
got let me introduce the crowd to you. To my left,
we've got one Bear, John newcom Bear. So Hi everybody, Hi,
this is your second podcasting A road to be on.
So Bear has been like the Camp Gopher Camp photeographer
camp just hand. So we've been Boston him around, Chase,
(05:36):
just make him do stuff. He's been pretty andy. Yeah
he Uh I had him today go through all our
attack and uh, I had some leather conditioner. But so
we got we got bear and we got the bear check.
Colby moorehead. Colby's uh, Colby's powering through. He's been taking
(05:56):
the morning shift on all the alk hunts, and the
morning shifts have been the usually the exciting ones. Yeah. Yeah.
And then we've got new to the podcast, Chase Dirt.
And Chase is our new buddy that we just met. Um.
Now we've communicated a little bit before, but we just
met really this week. And uh, you're a local up
(06:20):
here man. Yeah. Yeah, it's been good to get to
know you guys and hang out for a few days. Yeah.
So you uh you grew up right here in northeast Montana. Yeah,
I grew up about twenty miles from here. Yeah, from
where we're hunting in. Yeah. Well you've been a you've
been a big help to us. Just you know, you
(06:40):
kind of pointed us in the right direction a couple
of times. Um, and uh. And then this afternoon we
hunted together so so we had several guys that left
this afternoon, so only only me and Colby and Bear
were left at camp. And Chase has been camping with
us for about a day. And anyway, we all went
hunt in this afternoon, had a pretty exciting twenty minutes
(07:03):
of elk hunting. Uh Man, It's tough when they only
give you that short period of time, the last just
a little bit of daylight. It's very tough. Yeah, And
I feel like that's how it goes all the time.
It was pretty quiet. I mean, I thought we weren't
going to see anything, and then you spotted them bulls
and put some cows, and I just decided I got
(07:24):
a feeling, well, them guys are just now coming out
a better head over a rage, and go look over
there and see what I could find, and ended up
seeing a couple peaks to us, Yeah, peek out last
minutes of light and we had to go make a
play and we and we weren't able to really do it.
(07:46):
If we just if we have seen him, you know,
twenty minutes earlier, we probably could have. We could have
made something happen for sure. But it was a it
was a cow in a bull over on our side
of the hill. The tough part of this hunting is years.
You can see a long way, so you often see elk,
but it's hard to just it's hard to describe. But
(08:07):
you might be three and fifty yards from elk and
there might be three ridges in between you and them,
and these elk are super prone to move. They're just
moving and maybe you know all elk do that, but
but you know by the time you get there, they
may not be there. So it's a it's a challenge. Yeah,
I feel like this country is perfect ralk too. They
(08:29):
got the deep bluffs and cuts to washouts to just
get behind and take off running. And then they got
these timber I mean, we sat right above these elk
all all night and didn't know and didn't know it.
They came out less than fifty yards from where I
was sitting, So they've been sitting there all all night
(08:52):
since we've been down there. No kid crazy. UM. So
I want to talk to Chase some about his uh,
lion hunting, he's a houndsman lion hunter, um, and also
some about the elk hunting around here. But uh, we
learned some about you. You're a wrestler, yeah, or you
(09:13):
wrestled in high school and college. Wrestled since I was
three years old and can continued down to high school college.
And so you're telling me that. So I was over
here in a conversation you're having the other day. So
a guy your size probably, uh what do you weigh? Onet? Okay,
(09:34):
So let's say some big, like two pound tough guy
shows up, starts giving you some lip. You gotta take
care of him if he is untrained. You feel like
I can handle myself. Yeah, I feel like I can
handle myself. Really. Yeah. I had a guy one time,
a good friend of mine that I really trust, who
(09:54):
is into uh I think it's yeah, And he's about
my eyes, you know, about one six one seventy something
like that, And he was talking about in the Turkey
Woods almost getting in a fight with this big guy
that they basically was on public land and they were
(10:15):
and they were on the same ridge, and uh, my
buddy had no idea there was anybody around, was working
this turkey and all of a sudden he hears somebody
walk in on him and they see each other, and
the guy gets mad at my buddy and comes over
and puts his finger in his chest and the dude
was like six to fifty pounds heavier, you know. And
(10:39):
uh and my smaller buddy who was training in jiu jitsu,
jiu jitsu said, Clay, it would have been no problem
for me. The reason I always thought that was cool
and I believed him, and they did not fight in
the Turkey Woods, But it would have been no big
deal to take him down. I mean, he was just
(11:00):
so confident because I asked him, I said, man, because
I actually knew who the other guy was too. Yeah,
And I said, do you really think you could have
taking that guy? And he was like, it's not even
a question. He said. Somebody big like that might get
some lucky, crazy big swing in at first. You know
(11:20):
that just like knocks you out, he said, But aside
from just sheer luck, he was like, I would have
taken that guy down and made him cry for his
mama in about twenty second. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah,
that's jiu jitsy. That's what it was made for for
the US little guys to be able to really, is
that right? Yeah? Handle the big guys. Do you ever
watching the UFC stuff? Actually, one of my good buddies
(11:42):
that I grew up with and uh wrestled in college with.
He actually fights in the UFC and he's doing pretty well. Yeah,
he just fought it just to hunter. So he's hunting
on he's fighting like on the like ye UFC, and
that's pretty big. He was on a Contender series and
(12:02):
he got the contract. He actually lives on the Poplar.
You ever fed him? No, I've wrastled with him plenty
of really have plenty of times. Yeah, I would practice,
we practice together and stuff. And yeah, he's a good friend.
Does he hunt? He does? He actually just shot a
buffalo off there Fort Pecrez just I want to say,
(12:26):
just a few months ago. Yeah, he's he hunts. He
who's our who's our boy down in Arkansas that we like?
You know that? Yeah, Bryce Mitchell. Yeah, and he's making
big ways. He's doing really well. He's got to get
he wants a cameo. He wants a cameo. I saw
(12:47):
an instagram we got him the other day sponsored he
gave the first light ones. Come on, hey, he's in Arkansas.
It's just a matter of time before we connect with
old Bryce here. Has got to get him to first
light fight charts. That's all. That's all we need for sure. No,
I thought it was really interesting. So last night we're
(13:08):
sitting around a fire with uh, well, not a propane fire.
We can't have fire out of here right now, a
real fire on the ground. Um, a cook stove. And
uh so there was two guys from California, and then
Ben O'Brien from Maryland, and then you from Montana, and
you are talking about wrestling. Man, I wouldn't tell I
(13:31):
wouldn't know where to tell you to go to watch
a high school wrestling match in Arkansas. I'm certain they
have them bear do you know if they have them? Yeah,
they do, I know that if they Oh really yeah,
those hippies up there. Yeah okay, man, we we just
we didn't have we didn't wrestle. And I think it's uh,
it really is a foreign sport too. If if you're
(13:52):
not you're either familiar with it and immersed in it
or you're just not, it's not it's it's not really
a spectator friendly sport if you don't understand what's going
on or have in some investment with the person it's
out there wrestling. It's really yeah, Okay, tell us about
your best fight and then we'll move on to some
cat hunt best fight, best match. I mean, it was
(14:17):
there one that just like stood out. There is one
that sticks out though that there were. So I did
pretty well as a little kid, and I didn't lose
like very often at all. I just remember losing to
this kid named Kelly Olds from Great Falls. Kelly, if
you're out there, yeah, I'll tell him to listen to him.
And he beat me in high school and we never
(14:39):
are as kids just in grade school and now we
never wrestled, but I always remember that loss. For some reason.
It was like a big deal at like a sixth
grade like state championship. But then in high school we
ended up wrestling one time only and we went into
like triple overtime and end up winning that match, and
that was more important to me than winning state that
(15:02):
sixth grade. You told me you wrestled up in white class,
so that's what you are talking about that I didn't understand.
There's always class a lot of different weight class Like
in college, there's the lightest is one, and I wrestled
there quite often, but a lot of times I would
have to wrestle up the next weight classes, which is
one thirty three. Both weren't very big guys, But I
(15:25):
was shocked to hear you'all talk about how you could
lose like twelve pounds in a day. Yeah. Yeah, you
got a lot of water weight, you guys carrying a
lot of water weight. Yeah, ten pounds is probably pretty
pretty easy for the outer person. The average person probably
floats in their sleep four to five pounds every night,
(15:46):
just from the time to go to bed to the
time you wake up in the morning. You'll lose four
to five pounds without going to the bathroom or anything.
I think I'll lose two to three. Yeah, I'm probably
about that too. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you're
probably right on there. Yeah, well I I've I've kind
of monitored that kind of stuff. But I was shocked
to hear y'all talk about how, you know, different people
(16:07):
at different times have kind of cheated the system a
little bit, or maybe not cheated the system, but just
like done crazy things. That's probably the most unhealthiest thing
about the sport is the weight loss thing. Again, and
and a lot of people find out later on that
they were helped wrestling at their natural weight. They did
better anyways. But you were wrestling up and beating some
(16:30):
bigger guys. Yeah, but a lot of those guys were
not bigger, not real bigger. They're just either a little
more muscular and maybe a little more a little more height,
but not real real big guys. Yeah, and uh, chase
your cowboy. You grew up on a ranch over here.
You guys have fifty head of horses and trained horses. Yeah,
(16:53):
we got a lot of heads. We got a lot
of horses. We got some young horses training, and got
some brood mares out of the place and run some
black angus cattle. And so you grew up on a horse.
Oh yeah, I grew up on hours. Did you rodeo
rodeo road bulls? Yep? Did you do very good with that?
I did all right? About my built for to be
(17:15):
like a bull rider. Yeah, my right legs metal from
the knee down. Yeah, that's there. That's where the where
I broke it from bride and bulls and everything's all
plated up and d Yeah is that on YouTube somewhere?
But yeah, I grew up on horses and rodeo a
(17:35):
little bit, and yeah, the whole families and you grew
up in a hunting family too. Yep, yep, everyone's hunted Grandpa, mom, dad,
and so we were telling that. We were just kind
of sitting around last night and I said something. I
brought up my bear hot chaps, which I do pretty
often because I'm so proud of them, my hair out
(17:57):
bear hot chaps. And Chase was like, my mom made
her mountain goat out of or what you tell? Yeah, yeah,
she's got mountain goat that they got. I don't know
when I was just young. She might have maybe before
she even had kids, but she's got a fair mountain goat.
(18:20):
H that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, um, let's see
lion hunting man, tell me about what it's like. Is
this good lion country? You know, I haven't really reached
my lion hunting far far reach, but I I don't
think I could be anywhere better. When I can drive
(18:43):
twenty miles from the house or or lesson, go put
up a couple of cats and be home by noon.
I mean, I think that's pretty good. When did your seat?
When are you usually hunting them here? December one is
when the season starts and ends. I think April and uh,
I don't have a scheduled job, so I kind of
(19:03):
go middle of the week as many times the end
of the week. I mean, if I'm off work, I'm
going as much as possible. And it's not uncommon. I mean,
it's not uncommon to cut a track every time you
go out and put up something. Now, is that in
snow or on dry ground? We we get a little
bit of both conditions we get in here in Montana.
I mean, as you're seeing, we get some cold weather
(19:26):
and some warm weather. And it's same through December, and
last December through April was pretty mild winter, so we
did a lot of I would say it's a mix
of I wouldn't want to say dry ground, but frozen ground,
bare ground and uh frozen bare ground and a little
bit of snow patchy um. How do you how do
(19:49):
you find the tracks up here? You know, mainly we
get around on snowmobiles or even just out of the pickup.
There's a lot of roads, fire roads or low an
old dogging roads that we can drive and usually you
can cut a track from there. But we do a
lot out of the snowmobiles or side by sides and
(20:11):
pull a little sled behind the snow bills with the
dogs in them and colbing ary. Let's know, if you
got a question about this lion hunting, what kind of
dogs do you run? I got a red tick and
I got a blue tick. A little fun. Yeah, both
of them are just two year old, so they're both pups.
And yeah, they're doing awesome right now. You we were
(20:32):
talking about your dogo. What what did you ever do
anything with him? Or is he just kind of you know,
when I got into the lion hunting, my DOGO was
already kind of tell us what a dogo is. I
don't know what dogo. Argentino. They're from, uh, the originata
out of Argentina, and they were bread for boars and pumas.
(20:54):
Actually is it a tree dog? No, it's not. It's uh,
it's almost like a it's a asked if breed. They're
large dogs, big blocky head. It looked like it looks
like pitbulls on like steroids. But they are. They call
him the perfect breed. They spent they bred them out
of eight different breeds. They can bind their over a
long period of time. Yeah, and they and they put
(21:15):
him to a test for a long time and when
they finally found like the right dog because they had
at first they were too temperamental because they bred some
horrible dog. I don't but it was a dog that
literally extinct itself just from aggression. So then they bread uno, yeah,
bread another dog into it to try to bring the
(21:37):
aggression down. So they spent a lot of time for temperament. Yea,
protecting yep. These dogs are very athletic. But he was
just a little too old when I got going. He
and uh, you know, I would like to take him
with just to see what he would treat or so
you never really hunted it in that. Yeah, he coyotes
(21:59):
that he he'll he'll go after coyotes. He does not
like coyotes, but he's they're they're really versatile dog, very versatile.
Like we could take him out to the cattle and
work around the cattle with them and take him back
home and you can throw a baby on him and
he's they're very versatile dogs. Yeah. One of the smartest
(22:20):
dogs were ever hunted with hog hunting growing up was
a DOGO and all the other dogs you you know,
round up whenever you called the pig and they would
still be going crazy. That DOGO you'd pull him off
and he's like, all right, my job is done, and
he would just sit over there, just a'll relaxed. But
whenever it was time, he was just so. You know
about dogs, Yeah, why have you never told me about him?
(22:42):
I have not come. They're cool, They're really cool. Why
didn't you ever tell bear about him? Great question, because
because I want to own one first, you're afraid we
go by one. They are great, like farm protect like
they're great family dogs, great, great family dogs. Yeah. One
of the best stories they come out of Argentina is
(23:05):
I think it was Argentina, but they were talking about
how the family dogo would in the very protective I
guess um. So they the dogo was going with some
this guy's daughters and it fought off I think a
mountain line and uh, it loft one of his size.
But you know, I don't remember if it actually took
down the mountain line or not. They say it did.
(23:27):
They say, you know this story too. Yeah, so it's
just like in the is this like in the dog
Joe Brochure. It's if you look it up, it's crazy.
They have like the lineage is so short, like the history.
They're not a this breed doesn't go that many years back.
It's very so you can really follow this history on
this dog. I think have been marketed and duped. I
(23:50):
think I think you all read the Dogo brochure and
there was some fancy slick marketing, probably from you know, somebody.
I'd say it one of the we had a we
mixed or we didn't, but the guys we hunted with
a mixed a dogo with a uh, half pit, half lab.
(24:11):
It's it's crazy, but man, one of the best dogs
that they used that just was really well balanced was
a quarter It was a quarter pit, quarter lab and
half dogo or something like that. And uh, his name
was Buckshot. And he was so smart, like he would
go out there and uh he would he would bay
(24:33):
until he had help and then he would go to
go in and catch like he just knew when to
do what and uh if if it was big, he'd
stay back. You know, he just he didn't. He got
end up getting run over on the road though, you
know highway got him. Yeah, they're they're great dogs. I'd
like taking with my hounds outline hunting and see if
(24:54):
he even knows it. Sounds like they were bred to
be kind of bay and catch dogs. Yeah. Yeah, I
don't even know if he'd know what to do with
the track. He probably just look at and look at
me my trail. He wouldn't treat no. Well, are I
gotta tell this story about our So we've got a
squirrel dog named Timber and he's he's he's earned the
(25:18):
position of being the only dog we have that didn't
pinned up or or you know, contained in some way,
and we let him out a lot and they come
in the house and stuff. But we have to kindel
these hunting dogs most of the time just because they
will go off and go hunting. But Tim he sticks
around the house. And uh, my wife just sent us
a video. Tim is like an ultimate character of a dog,
(25:42):
like he's he's actually becoming a solid squirrel dog. Um,
he's a feist and trinker. But he will sing to
a harmonica like nobody's business. You play harmonica and he
he will sing like a like a angel as American
got talent. Yeah exactly. So anyway, we've been we've been
(26:06):
watching videos of tim while we were elk hunting today.
But no dogs. Um, so what's a big cat for
up here in northeast. I would say the average tom,
like a like a good mature average Tom would be
around a hundred and fifty two hundred sixty pounds. Big
(26:28):
Tom would be around that mark. I think that two
hundred mark is maybe few and far between. There might
be a couple of them roaming around. But yeah, that's
a b C cat. Yeah, I feel like that's pretty um,
pretty standard. Would you say most people would be like
(26:49):
I mean if you were talking about Ottaho or even
New Mexico or Arizona. I mean cats, A big cat,
A big cat, yeah, and a two hundred pound cat
is a world class cat anywhere anywhere? Do you know
much about like these cats up here? Make Boone and Crockett.
You know, in the bear world and in the line
of the world, there's certain places where they have bigger
skull cat last year and I haven't got the skull
(27:14):
back from getting beetled. But he should be done and
dried and everything. But I wouldn't be surprised if he
is close to Boone and Crockett. Definitely Pop and young
I showed him to my recurve, but mhm, definitely would be. Yeah,
but there is I know that there is an area
in Montana that consistently is in the Boone and Crockett. Yeah,
(27:39):
and I want to say it's over by bailings like
Yellow Stump, like County or something that consistently is in
the books for Boone and Crockett. But up in this
area isn't known for book cat. I mean, I don't
think there's a lot of guys that are turning it
in though either. You know, well, that's always been really
interesting to me with It's in the same way with
(28:00):
bears is that there's there's certain sections of the continent
that just produced big bears. And it's not because they
live longer there. I mean, they do have to live
long to grow big skulls. But but it's all just
about regional genetics. Yeah, they're not necessarily the biggest animal either,
(28:21):
That's right. And it's not necessarily the biggest bodied animal.
Just you know, some some bears are going to have,
you know, exceptionally long skulls or the skulls, you know what.
I'm sure it's the same for bears with cats. I mean,
I'm not too familiar with the bear skulls, but the cats.
You might see a punkin headed cat, but he just
might be a healthy cat and have quite a bit
(28:42):
of fat and muscle built. British Columbia is probably the
go to place for big book cats, Is that right? Yeah,
I would say so. There's an outfitter up there that
I know of that consistently put up two pounders cats.
It's probably a little bit of Bergman's law. Of familiar
with Bergman's law about things. The farther from the equator
(29:06):
you get, the big larger the animals. I know. I
know that there are some things that it seems to
be true with and others that not so much, like
moose and stuff. They say, Yeah, I just wonder the
big cats have anything, you know. I'm sure there. I'm
sure there is something to do that too. I just
(29:26):
think colder tamps too, you know those, I think they're
always constantly in survival mode and having to eat and
having to stay on top of it. Whereas a cat
that's living in whether like this through the summer, I mean,
they might not have to roam so hard. Do you
see any trends in the way these cats moved through
(29:48):
this country? You do? And there I'm really lucky, Like
right behind the house is like a hot spot for females,
so come when the breeding sea and starts for them,
which is really kind of random, it seems like, but
it seems like we get a lot of the toms
that locate but you see them. Really they have a
(30:13):
wide range, very wide range. Yeah, they do they I think.
I think I've heard the same thing. And I've never
spoken with a mounta lion biologist or anything, but but
I think they can have kittens any time of year.
I think so too. It's not it's not like a
bear or like a white tail or an elk that
(30:35):
that fawns or kids. It has kittens at a certain time.
And that's what I mean. Like, it seems like when
a female comes into heat over by us, and it
seems like we have a really strong female population over
there by the house, and it seems like we get
a couple of toms that are resident tom's for a
few weeks at that females and heat, and then you
(30:56):
might not see a tom for a month. Do you
find that those cats like like traveling, like where you
find tracks? Do you find tracks in the same places consistently?
So a lot of a lot of the road crossing
spots that we find them you find that there's a
creek bottom there that they might have been hunting that
(31:17):
creek bottom, working that creek bottom, and then they'll cross
section and go up put another logging trail or up
a deer trail or just a side road. Yeah, but
a lot of the and that's how a lot of
the tracks are that we find, or they're either working
the timber line. You'll just see them cutting back and
forth through there where there's a heavy, small like two
(31:39):
track or something that's not traveled often. And yeah, it
seems like to make one cross. But yeah, for we
do see this a lot of the same tracks in
the same areas. What's a long line race for you, Well,
a long one would be my cat. We treat him
once in three d yards and then he jumped the
(32:02):
tree and didn't tree again for over seven and a
half miles. Was it a hot race after that? No,
the dogs actually lost him for a second. We don't
know how. I think we had too many pups cut
in the race. And when that cat jumped, things just
got crazy and dogs ran over top tracks and ran
(32:23):
around and they just kept going and we ended up
cutting the track back again up on top right by
the pickup. The the cat ended up arounding made a
big circle. Yeah. We had a couple of dogs in
the box. We heard them barking like crazy, and we
ended up going back up top by the pickup, and
he ran right by the pickup. And I think he
ran so far because he cut through his like a
(32:46):
stubble field, like an open field, and just kept where
there was no like an old wheat field and just
nothing to tree, nothing to so I just think he
kept running. Yeah. But yeah, for our average race, though,
I would say, is anywhere from our average long race
would be like a mile really a mile and a
(33:07):
half or so. They get, they get a lot of
country to run. It seems like, well, what about the
couldtrare I mean, wouldn't you cold trail him something cold trail? Yeah?
Oh yeah, our cold trailing can be we do where
where I line hunt out though, we have a good
opportunity to kind of circle our tracks and say, okay,
(33:29):
the cat is in this. I just let's take a
minute and describe. Like someone that's never lined it might
not understand. So let's say there's you're in a you're
in a block of country, and there's a road that
runs north and south here, and then a mile away
there's another road that runs north and south, and a
mile away there's another road that runs north and south.
(33:50):
And you cut a track on the one of these roads,
and you could say the cats running east to west.
And so you go, well, let's go see if he's
crossed yep, across other road yep. And you go drive
the other road and sure enough, he's crossed it. So
you go, well, let's go let's not start there, let's
keep going. So you drive over and you drive on
the other road, and he hadn't crossed there yet yep.
(34:12):
So you determine that he is still in between B
and C yep, And so you go back two road
B and turn out on that track exactly. So, because
there's less roads, you have shorter races, because the houndsmen
are doing some of the work. Yeah, yep. And I
think we get a lot of chance to help out
(34:34):
our dogs, and these pups get a young It's good
for young dogs because they're getting to see a lot
of cats and getting to work a lot of tracks
and tracks that you can help him on. You make
them work through it, but you're giving him a good
fighting t Tell me what you mean by help him on?
You get you get a chance to say, hey, this
cat is definitely in here. And when I cut you loose,
(34:55):
I know that you should find him. But if you
do not, I get in there and I know I
can help you sort it out. So you're you'll be
walking around looking for fresh tracks in the snow. You
see a track, you call the dogs over and help
them out a little bit. So that's what that means. Yeah,
I like to late. I like to let my dogs
work a little bit before I call them over, just
(35:16):
so they're not so quick to rely on to be
standing over top of the tracks, so when the going
gets tough, they're not looking at me. I like to
I'll go and stand by it. But I like to
see what they do if they if they get sorted out. Yeah. Man,
I'm really intrigued by lion hunting. You know, I coon
hunt in in the line of dogs that I have
(35:39):
are from a long line of big game dogs, bear
and lion dogs. My dogs we've only run coon with
in Arkansas because that's all it's legal there. But man,
there's something really intriguing to me about lion hunting, and
I think I think it has a lot to do
with just the incredible and I'm all that mountain lion
(36:02):
is I mean, just the fact that we've got this
hundred and fifty pound cat in North America that's one
of the most well the most efficient predator on our continent.
Would you all say that's true? I mean, if you
heard that. I heard people say that, but I would
say that's true too, And I would and I I'm
drawn to him like that because the simple fact is,
(36:22):
how many people can you honestly say, I've seen a
mountain line And you could count on probably less than
one hand on how many people have been out in
the woods and seen a mountain line. Right, there's such
an elusive you can live in good mountain lion country
your whole life and never see one. I mean, nothing
beats taken a person to see their first mountain lion. Yeah,
(36:45):
I mean the first time they look up in that
tree and see a cat that size and it's it's
cool there. You would never want to do that, though,
is that right? That is not right? That is not right.
You do want to do that? You know what I
have I've seen one mountain lion. Uh, that wasn't being
(37:07):
pursued by dogs or something in British Columbia. Yep, I
was were spring bear hunting in British Columbia, just total chance,
just driving down the road to go bear hunting, and
ah in a lion jumps out in the middle of
the road, sees us and runs down the middle of
the road for probably a hundred yards. And how many
days in hours do you think you've spent in the
(37:27):
field around mountain lions And that's the only one, well
I've seen. Here's what I think is I think I
was extremely lucky. Yep, I don't think if you did
looked at the statistics in the time I've actually spent
in really good lion country, I I think I got lucky.
I say the same thing. I mean, I can't even
count how many countless hours riding a horse are being
(37:50):
in lion country hunting elk or mule deer, or even
with the dogs that just you I've never I've seen
two with all of them really just crossing the road
to you know what's funny about that? Everybody and they're
probably se This is my big pet peeve about people
from the South, is that about seventy of people in
(38:14):
Arkansas say they've seen a mountain line there if you
figured that out yet, everybody thinks they've seen a mountain
line and we don't even have them. Now we do
have we have a few chase just to the last
couple of years that it's like officially been documented that
we have mountain lions in Arkansas. A guy killed one,
(38:37):
uh down in South Arkansas while he was deer hunting,
killed a lion called game and fish like, hey, I
shot this thing, and um and uh, I have some
buddies um in Southwest Arkansas that uh for a while,
they're we're pretty regularly sending me uh lion photos. Like
(38:58):
it takes a lot to convince me. Like if somebody
sends me a line photo and it's like, hey, I
got this on a trail camera and you know, West Arkansas,
unless I know them and know their character, like did
you get that off the internet, I'm just like, okay, man, Well,
this was one of my good friends who I knew
was telling the truth, and he was getting cell cam
(39:20):
pictures under a deer feeder, which is classic Southwest Arkansas,
a tripod deer feeder, and uh he sent me the
picture like two minutes after it was taken. You know
what I'm saying, Like the time stamp on it was like,
holy cow, that was like ten minutes ago. Um. And anyway,
So there are lines. But I'm being funny when I
(39:41):
say everybody in Arkansas says they see the line, because
they do. People are like so many people are like, yep,
I heard a mountain line screaming back behind my grandma's house.
That's what people say. And I, I just I just
don't buy it. I don't either. I don't buy it.
You know how many times if you heard a mountain
lion scream not in a tree, I know they I
(40:04):
don't even I don't even know if I have in
a tree. I've heard them, yeah, hissing, but I don't
know if I even have in a tree. A lot
of the lines, we can't go to sleep really yeah,
just get up there and yeah, and I kind of
did some research into it, and I think it's just
like wired into them. You know. That was like we
talked about with other animals, like how they feel safe
(40:25):
when they're up in a just a stress. Yeah, just
once they're up there. You know what a coon when
many times they will lay up in the tree and
shut their eyes. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that
they're sleeping, but but they I think, I don't know.
They certainly don't have the ability to reason that their
(40:47):
eyes glow when humans shine light in their eyes. But
that's what it feels like. It feels like they're hiding
and they know their eyes shine. It's like shut their
eyes and just lay there. But you know, it's just
a For a coon, I would assume it's a it's
a fear response. Protective response. Might be the same thing
with a cat. Might be I don't know. Some of
those big bears, these guys tree uh, and most time
(41:09):
a big bear won't climb a tree, but uh, they'll
stay on the ground. But sometimes they'll say, a big bear,
I'll just I mean, he'll just be up there just
like doesn't have a care in the world, you know.
Just some of the little ones will be moving around
and you can tell they're kind of that's definitely nervous. Yeah,
that's definitely. You see this a lot of similarities that way.
When you catch a younger cat, it seems like they
(41:31):
can't pick a branch or pick a picky. They're wanting
to crawl around that tree or jump out of the tree.
And these are pretty short trees around here for the
most part. Yeah, yeah, they're it's nothing for a cat
to climb up six feet is all, seven feet is
all and just get out of the get out of
the reach of the dog. Yet, do you ever do
(41:53):
you eat much mountain line? Yes? I do. Every chance
we get. If someone doesn't want their cat or just
wants a couple of pieces of it, we collect everything. Yeah, Cob,
we've you ever had mountain lion? I have not, bear John, Yeah,
we remember you killed yours week. Do you remember how
we cooked it? I remember we cooked in a lot
(42:15):
of different ways. Yeah, because we had a whole mountain lion, right, yeah,
yeah we did. Yeah, we cooked. I remember we cooked one.
We cooked one part of the line like a kind
of treated it like a pork loin a croc pot,
put like vegetables and little chicken broth in there and
just kind of let it cook all day. And that
was great. Um My, my wife's some of my wife's
(42:41):
co workers came to our house, like twenty five of them,
and I fed him grilled mountain lion and bear steak
off just a charcoal grill. And uh they loved it.
Did they not bear? Yeah? They did. We did pulled
pork sandwiches. Uh, some steaks. I guess it'd be pulled
pluma sandwiches are yeah. Yeah, but it's a yeah, there's there.
(43:06):
It's very versatile meat. It's it's it's great meat. It's
uh so lion meat. It's very very light colored, I
mean like a chicken pork ish, yes, and very fine grain,
very fine grain. It's if I feel like it's finer
grain than pork. But yeah, great stuff. What's the what's
(43:30):
the biggest cat you caught up here? I would say
my cat was probably the biggest cat we got and
he was about hy pounds. Yeah, that was probably the
biggest cat that I think. We've caught the rest of them.
They're hard to wait in a tree, so yeah, we've
caught some big ones in. And how did you get
(43:52):
into running helms? Because I seem to remember when we
were talking yesterday, you said that your your parents didn't
have home. No, I didn't grow up with hounds. My
buddy down the road who we all hunt with and
I was camping more with earlier this week. Him and
his family ran red bones and I remember going over
there every time they had puppies, and every time they
(44:13):
would go, I would beg to go with them, and
they dragged me along every now and again. And I
always said, man, as soon as I have my own place,
the first thing, I'm getting his hound dogs. And I
bought my house and not long after came hound dogs.
Did you stick with some of the lines from around here? No? Actually,
(44:34):
on a whim, we I feel like I'm so lucky
with that. The first dog I got. We. I started
doing a bunch of research and kind of figured out
some guys who had some good dogs and found out
there was a litter in Wheatland, Wyoming from a line
of dogs and it's kind of like that blue Tick lining,
but he's got that My blue Tick does have a
(44:55):
little walker in him, but he's from like that camera
bod and uh pretty heavy camera and blood. And I
heard from a few people that these guys dogs did great.
So I was like, well, we'll reach out. And I
kind of wasn't that serious, but I was, well, you
you were playing the Yeah, you're playing the sloge. Yeah.
(45:15):
So I asked them and they said, yeah, we got
some and I was like, okay, well, I'm interested in
one and told him we'd get one, and I didn't
plan I planned on having it shipped up here. Well,
the girlfriend couldn't wait a day. She drove all the
way from Wheitland, Wyoming. I think it's sixteen or eighteen
hours somewhere in there. One drove all the way down
(45:37):
there and had to pick up that puppy. She was
just as excited to have one at the house. So
she picked up that puppy and came straight home, made
a whole round trip and a day. Yeah, the camera
and line of blue ticks. Are they known as big
Game Dog Big Game Dogs? Yep? Yeah. Dale Cameron just
passed earlier that this year, So kind of interesting. See
(45:59):
what been with all that bloodline? A lot of people
run that camera bloodline. You know what I've been looking
and maybe somebody can help us out if they're listening
to this podcast. You know, we have a Legendary Barehound
column in Bear Hunting Magazine or print magazine where we
every issue we we basically do a story on the
deceased bear dog. Legendary bear dog and uh, I've I
(46:24):
know a lot of guys have used the camera dogs
for bear in the West, and I've been wanting. I've
wanted to find somebody that that had a dog that
you know, we could hook up with, but we haven't
a guy who has a good blue tick dog out
of a lot of that camera. Have you heard of
that Steve Phipps. No, he has some really good blue
(46:46):
tick dogs people are pretty high on. He's out of
that Utah area. Actually, that's who we're thinking about getting
our next up. From what We've been talking to him
back and forth and a few guys run his dogs
up here. He has a dog that he was pretty
high on that passed away, and I think his name
was Frost or something Freeze, something like that, but he
(47:06):
ran camera. His bloodlines are heavy camera bloodlines, that old school,
big headed, big eared Yeah block here blue ticks, Um,
what size are your dogs? My red tick? And he
came from New Mexico. I actually got him as a
nine month old pup. I was kind of talking to
(47:28):
a guy named Mike Leonard. Quite a few hounds and
know him in the big game world, and UH was
talking back and forth and he said, I got too
many pups. We just had a big old wreck tonight.
Dogs pops running all over the place. He's like, I'll
give you a pup. And everyone in the hounds the
world knows what i'll give you a pup means. It's
(47:48):
usually not a good one. But I took him on
and he's about forty pounds, and uh, my blue tick
he's about fifty pounds. He's they're bigger dogs. I would
say that was I was figured you'd say they were
bigger than that. You know, they're two years old, and
I think they're gonna fill out bigger. I bet you
(48:10):
that red tick fills out to be about fifty and
that blue tick feels out to be about pounds. I'd
like to They're both in phenomenal shape. Though. Them dogs,
they they stayed pretty we I'm lucky. I live in
a rural area and my dogs they hardly ever penned up.
I got I got twenty acres of my own and
(48:32):
then there's a property right behind us that it's just
open and they let us. They don't mind our dogs.
The other neighbors don't mind our dogs. So we kind
of just keep an eye on them, and as long
as we're out about doing stuff, there free to roam,
and then we we run them pretty regularly three or
four days a week. And yeah, they stay in pretty
(48:54):
good shape. That's great, man, that's great. Well, I'm yeah,
look forward to see how your how your lion hunting
goes this this kind of country would be. It just
feels like it would be a fun place to lion hunt.
You know. I'm the only place I have I have
lion hunted is in Idaho northern in the Panhandle of Idaho,
(49:16):
which is great lion country. And uh it was it
was with my friend Leon Brown Clark fork out fitting
up there and uh we had a great heart with him, um,
about three or four years ago. And uh, but boy,
that's tough country. I mean it's straight up, straight down
big mountains, um, which is cool. Um. And not that
(49:39):
this would be any easier, it just feels like more accessible.
It is more accessible. You know. Do you ever tree
a cat over on the other side of a canyon
and glass it up to see it before you get there?
Very rarely, but if we we do every now and again.
But everything is so accessible here, and you find yourself
with the garments saying okay, we know where they're at,
(50:01):
so just making your loop around, you know. But yeah, yeah,
and then you guys running bobcats sometimes to your Yeah,
we get bobcats, and uh, you have to buy your
trappers license in October to be able to take a bobcat.
That's that's your that's your stipulation. So you have to
buy it for October one. So coming up here soon,
(50:23):
people need to be buying there. Yeah you get I
heard you talking to Bryce earlier about something you do
with your You did with one of your pups, trying
to get it to tree better. Do you remember what
you Bryce was having the same problem I was with
that red dog. He came from dry ground bludlines, which
actually so did his red dog that he's having trouble with,
(50:45):
and a lot I started doing a bunch of research.
These old houndsmen were saying, Yeah, these old these older
dry ground bloodlines are not great. They're not great tree dogs.
They're great running dogs, but not the greatest tree dog.
And tree dog would mean that when they smell game
that has gone up a tree, they stay at the
tree and bark. And good tree dog, that's what he's
(51:07):
gonna do, whether he's they don't bear coon lying, he's
going to stay at the tree and bark, and that's
got to be something that's somewhat natively in them. I mean,
you know, in the bloodline, but what you were, but
you can you can encourage it. Yeah, I was telling
Rice what I did was so I did a lot
(51:29):
of research, and the guys are doing it various different ways.
But the way I was finding guys said that they
had the most success was when you get him up
in a tree with the other dogs, let him get excited,
pet him up, bring the other dogs away, and if
he tries to leave that tree, just give him a
little bit of a vibrate or you know, tone no,
just a little bit of stimulations saying hey, no, that's
(51:50):
I don't want you to come back to this tree.
And then he gets back on the tree, give him
a pet him up again and let him know he's
doing good. And then then tie him up to the
tree or tie him up close to the tree, and
lead all the other dogs away and hopefully that dog
is staying treating. If he tries to leave again, give
him a vibrate and if he goes back to train
and say hey, come back up there and pet the
dog up and say good job dog. And uh I
(52:12):
did that for two three trees in a row and
pretty soon that dog has been treating great ever since.
You know, you're you're as a trainer, dog trainer, or
any kind of animal trainer. You're just trying to find
a way to communicate to that animal what you wanted
to do. And a mule, a horse, a dog, all
(52:38):
he knows is um well with a with a horse
or mule, it's pressure and release. But with a dog
it's it's praise or no praise, no praise or getting scolded.
I guess there's three there's three things there. But yeah,
I don't think you could you could train a dog.
(52:59):
I've had a lot of people asked me, well, do
you think I could train my you know, my German
wire hair, you know, be a coon dog. And it's like, no,
you couldn't. I mean you just you know, you might
be able to train a real smart dog to do something,
but there's a part of it that's bred into them.
(53:19):
But if we had the trainer, the handler you know,
works to try to enhance that and as much as possible.
And every dog is different, like I One thing I
didn't tell Bryce was this dog was very timid, Like
he's not a dog that I can scold. Even if
I scold, this dog shuts down, it's that he's gone.
It doesn't do me any good to scold. Like no
(53:42):
shocking stimulation at all to this dog. This dog doesn't
get any of that because he just doesn't respond to that.
It's all praise or no praise with him, so a
lot of it. Like that's why I stuck with just
the vibrate, just give him something saying hey, no, because
a lot of times at home I told my dogs
and if they don't listen, or they can't hear me,
(54:02):
or they if the tone didn't get their attention, I'll
hit the vibry button. Then they both know, hey, we
better go home now wherever they're at. Yeah, yeah, I
could tell, like the way that you talked about your
dogs yesterday, you really are patient with them, you know,
and uh work with them and just you know, give
them time to come into things, even the way that
(54:24):
you invite them into the family and stuff. Yeah. I
was telling Clay that earlier today about just horses that
might I'm I find myself being more patient with animals
than I do with people. I just think that I
just think they're a lot easier to deal with you
know what you're getting, you know. And yeah, and my
dogs are a part of the family. I mean my
(54:45):
dogs there, they're their tools, but they are part of
the family. Yeah, they definitely. I mean, there's no such
I don't think. I don't think if I had if
I had fifteen dogs and only two of them hunted,
let's just say I'd still have fifteen dogs, because I
wouldn't be able to get rid of any of them. Chase,
(55:06):
do you have any inside into like what you think
needs to be developed or changed inside the broader hound
hunting community, so that are our image, are are the
way we communicate with the world. Who we are would
be better received and understood, so that this this sport
(55:30):
would continue as game management, you know. And actually kind
of from being an outsider in a sense not growing
up with towns all my life, I always seen the
you hear hounsmen are like, forgive me about high school girls,
you know, picker him back and forth. Oh I got
the best dogs. Oh this guy, Oh if this guy
(55:52):
he kills everything? Are this guy? This guy runs everything
like this guy for somebody to say something good about exactly,
So when I came into it, I made a point
that I wasn't going to be a part of any group.
That if this guy wanted to run with me or
didn't want to, I would make myself available to everybody
that if I can go with you, great, you know,
(56:14):
if I can help you out, great, If I find
a track, let's run it together. Just because this sport
already and just the hunting you talked about all the time,
low hanging fruit, you know, and guarding the gate. It's
just that we need to do a better job of
lifting up each other and helping people get into the sport.
(56:37):
I mean, there's people that want in, but it's intimidating.
I mean, owning a dog's intimidating enough. But it's a
big commitment. It is a it's a huge commitment. But
getting somebody involved and taking them along it goes a
long ways. I Mean, there's so many people that I
know that I've never even thought about hound hunting, including
my own family, that since I've taken him, they they've
(57:00):
learned so much about the sport to where now when
they have a conversation with somebody, it's an educated conversation
about it. Yeah, you get a chance to educate somebody
about the species you're chasing about the process. Like I
have a drive track system and I have the handheld system,
and I always give my handheld to whoever we're with.
(57:22):
I don't care where I can. I'll figure out where
my dogs are. But I like them to want them
to be involved the tracking system so they could track
the dogs, understand what's going on in the race yep,
and kind of see the layout of the land and
see how things work and maybe what they're doing and
looking down and saying, why are these dogs doing all
(57:42):
these circles up here? Oh? While they probably lost it
and they're working it out or something, you know, kind
of just getting involved in I just think we could
do a better job of bringing people in and lifting
each other up. Yeah. Man, that uh, that's very very
well said. And uh, I think it takes people saying
(58:03):
that kind of stuff and then living it, not just
saying it but living it. That that changes the culture.
And and and I don't know what it would be.
It's probably in many things in life, but for some reason,
the hound community does have that reputation. I don't I
don't really know why. But if guy's being kind of competitive,
(58:26):
and you know, if one guy has good dogs, he's
he has a hard time complimenting somebody else's dogs. And
you know, that's just an old world mentality. You know
that we've got to just brand and just the next
the new generation of hunters that's coming up. You know,
it's just like we're for each other. If there's a
successful houndsmen down the road from you, that's a win
(58:48):
for you. It's not a loss for you, even if
he's hunting the same ground as you, and you know it.
I think the whole uh lifting up and communicating. You're
getting a chance to communicate with that guy down the
road and maybe if you don't like something that he's doing,
instead of talking about it to somebody else, maybe go
hunting with him and do things a little bit, show
(59:09):
them something a little different. Yeah, I think we've got
to clean ourselves up. I mean, because what's happening in
the world today as we live in we live in
a world of information. We live in a world with
no secrets. Like used to houndsman and hunting in general
could kind of hide back in the shadows, nobody really
(59:30):
knew what was going on except for us, and uh,
we can't do that anymore. I mean the world knows
like everything now is exposed and uh and and that's
not necessarily a bad thing. That's just the nature of
the world we live in. So all of a sudden
we have to become really good at telling our story.
(59:51):
And telling our story goes right down to the to
the fabric of individual relationships that people have, like you know,
you saying, you know you've introduce is your family too
in a positive way to hound hunting, And so when
they're in a conversation at the baseball game or the
wrestling match, if you're way up here, um and someone
says something about hounds, they go, yeah, man, Chase runs hounds,
(01:00:14):
and it's great and we you know it just it
cast this positive light as opposed to someone that doesn't understand,
and you know, you would just have to tell our story.
You wouldn't believe how many times that that actually did happen,
Like at high school basketball games with my little sister
when she was in high school, that the coach would say, hell,
(01:00:34):
I see your dad showed me a picture of a cat.
He's like, that's just crazy. I didn't know that they
were around. And you get to talk to him about
it and stuff and then someone else like, you know,
I didn't know that there were so many lions and
stuff like that. That's pretty cool. That are they scary
or you know, you just get a chance to explain
what's around and what they are why. I mean, yeah,
(01:00:57):
they're among us. Yeah. She spent a lot of times
educating people. Yeah. I try to the best of my
ability whenever I get a chance to. I mean, I
work at the railroad and there's guys that get locked
in a train with me for twelve hours and they
get to here at one where what's your what's your
favorite what's your favorite thing to hunt? You know, lions
(01:01:20):
And for the simple fact I wasn't trying to bait
you into that. I thought you might say bo hunting
now in September. You know, I do love that, but
nothing beats anything with hounds and anything with dogs in general.
I just love dogs. So anything where you can and
I mean anything that you can bring a kid to
and he doesn't have to be quiet. He could be
(01:01:41):
drinking hot chocolate and eating candy all day and riding
around in a snow bill or going for a walk.
A lot of movement. You're getting to pet you would
never want to do that. Would I would? Oh you would? Okay, okay, yeah,
get a pet up the dogs. You know, it's a
it's a very involved sport where you can really impact somebody.
(01:02:04):
I mean it makes an impression. Yeah, well, there's there's
a lot of skill that and it's so counterintuitive, like
to the person that knows nothing that has no context
for hounds and and being a houndsman and running big
game and specifically lions. People have this idea and I'm
(01:02:27):
not talking about it the hunting community. I think we're
turning the tide on this wrong philosophy. People are like,
oh wow, it's so it's so easy to to tree
game with hounds. That's taken away the hunt. It's not
fair chase all these ridiculous old world ideas, but when
(01:02:50):
in fact it's actually totally opposite. How you know, I've
said it so many times in so many places. A
lot of the houndsmen that I know are some of
the best outdoor warsman in hunting. I would agree. I mean,
because the dedication that you have to understanding the game
that you're after, because it's not just the dogs that
(01:03:11):
are doing the work. I had a real good hounds.
And tell me one time when I was training a
young coon dog that wasn't getting out and hunting quite
as good as I wanted to. I just wanted to
be able to turn that dog loose in the middle
of town and it just go and find the coon out,
you know, along And he he said, Clay, part of
being a houseman is putting your dog close to where
(01:03:32):
the game is, you know. And he was like, you
need to become a better coon hunter and you'll make
that dog good coon dog. And uh, you know, I
took his point, and uh, but but the point is
is that there's a lot more than goes into it
than just turning some dog loose. And it goes in trees, lying,
(01:03:52):
the dedication of that dog, understanding lions, understanding where they are,
understanding scent, understanding the of the land, uh, understanding the
prey movements. I mean, like, you're not gonna look for
line tracks and places that are void of big game
because you know, they gotta you know, there's just there's
a lot to it, you know. Yeah, And I mean
(01:04:14):
there's a lot of parallels that. I mean, the dogs
they have to be smart. They're not just running out
there and chasing everything. They got to sort through rabbits, foxes, coyotes, deer, elk,
moose to find that lion and good conditions and bad
conditions and then you could. It takes a lot for
(01:04:36):
a dog. And them dogs are athletes. These dogs put
in a lot of work exercising there. They got to
be incredible athletes. Yeah, and same for coons. I mean
them dogs, they're locating ability then just being able to
go find a coon that swam across the creek or
across the river. And yeah, yep, Well there's a there's
(01:04:59):
a lot more to it than just turning loose a dog.
A lot of skill, a lot of a lot of
dedication involved in it, and um and that's what I
have seen, seen it with my own eyes with a
lot of guys. So it's pretty incredible. But man, we're
gonna try to kill an elk in the morning. We've
got one morning left and then we're heading out. We
(01:05:20):
got one morning left, but I think we got ourselves
set up good for a good morning. Yeah. We so
this afternoon we saw we saw a very large bull
probably a mile away in a place that we can't hunt.
But we feel like it's possible that he's gonna come
into where we can hunt, and uh, because he did
(01:05:42):
it yesterday. Yep, we saw this bull on our side
this morning. He quickly crossed over into the place we
can't hunt. Um, but we also saw a nice, nice
bull on our mountain right at dark. We didn't spook him.
We feel agree he'll be in there somewhere. He's gotta
(01:06:02):
be gott to be in there somewhere. I would think
he looked pretty comfortable, like he was moving anywhere too crazy. Yeah,
so man, we just need we just need a little
bit of luck and maybe on the last morning, who
knows no better way to do it though, last morning,
last morning. Then we got a long drive home, Kobe. Yeah,
(01:06:24):
you're gonna have fun driving lostly right, I'm kiding man,
getting home and getting ready for bear season, yeah starting
up this weekend, right, Yeah, we're gonna get home and
turn around and go bear hunting, bear season, deer season,
so swinging up. Yeah, exciting time of year for sure.
This time next year, maybe bear sharing some of the driving. Yeah,
(01:06:49):
well he's not that old. Yeah, Well, like we need
to we need to get you tuned up on pulling
the trailer hopefully we can get the trailer out of here.
I think we can. I think so we got it
in here. It's very rough road getting our little trailer
in here. There was no turning back. It was either
(01:07:10):
forward or let's just say I was surprised when I
seen the trailer. That trailer has been some places. Man,
it's brought brought a lot of joy in amazement everyone
that's driven by I think. So these guys did what
I think they think they pick up somewhere off in
edge somewhere. Yeah. Well, all right, Well, thanks Chase. It's
(01:07:34):
been a pleasure hanging out with you, and appreciate the
help and good luck with your lion hunting this year,
and hopefully we'll have good luck l cutting in the morning. Yep,
thanks for having me on right on bear Any closing thoughts, Nope,
you know I can tell you don't want to line hunt.
(01:07:54):
Colby closing thoughts. I can tell you don't want to
line hunt either. Pull those where's back into you. Yeah,
I always ready to go, man, he's ready to go.
I'm so I'm so jibbed about lion hunting. I might
try to climb the tree and do something I don't
know just climb the tree to get you know, close
(01:08:17):
to the action view of what would be like to
be treat Yeah. Yeah, it'd be like an old Jerry
Clower joke, except for a mountain line to stebble links.
There you go, all right, guys, keep the wild blazes
wild because that's where the birds live, where the cats lives.
(01:08:39):
That you she s
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