10-22-10 hunt

Mike, I talked to Chris yesterday and he was giving me some ribbing because of the lack of October pork we have been catching lately. This kind of got me stirred up a little. So I had to dig around and find my lucky shirt. Sure glad I did. We got to go to one of our favorite spots this morning to do a little hog removal before deer season. We couldn't hunt our honey hole due to having calves pinned in the block for shipping in the morning. We turned out and hunted almost the entire creek line and I thought we weren't going to get on anything. Krystal was trying her best to foil the hunt before we even started. She brought a young dog that she is training and her "bad luck" Karma catchdog. We were about 500 yards from reaching the end of the creek when the dogs opened the first time. We had split bays one set of dogs ended up catching so Krystal turned Karma loose and told me to head to the second one. Krystal killed her sow. I got close to the bay to see the only dog there was the dog in training. Just as I was going to turn my catchdog loose the hog broke with the young dog in tow. The hog gave him the slip but was happy to see him stop and bay his own hog. After gathering all the dogs back up I decided to walk the dogs back down the creek in hopes of picking off another hog. It wasn't long before I saw Krystal's jagd and Mike's chief dog put their noses down and bolt off. I sat and waited and off in the distance I could hear the Jagd baying followed soon by Chief. I headed that way and dogs began to join the bay. Then Cleatus passed me and didn't bark once and caught I sent Cotton to help and ended up with another smaller sow. We were on the way out and the dogs took off again we waited for about 20 minutes then heard Chief open again. The other dogs joined in a it seemed we had split bays again. Krystal turned Karma loose and one bay broke with her following and the bay dogs caught another sow. I got close enough to watch two dogs trying to stop the other hog but it climbed a steep bank in the creek and was gone. Luckily Karma peeled off and went to help the other dogs that had started baying again. Krystal stuck that one and again we were headed to the truck. Cleatus and Chief wouldn't leave the area and after about 15 minutes of calling Cleatus started comming in but just as he got there Chief started barking again. Everything got there and all dogs were baying. Krystal wanted to send Karma to a bay so I followed with Cotton in case things got bad. The hog broke three times before Krystal was able to send Karma I waited for her to hit and soon after sent Cotton to back her up. We ended up with a good boar. Mike told us when we got back that the young dog in training had chased a hog back toward the bikes and bayed it for a while we were going to the other hog. The hog broke and headed toward us and Hagen was there baying the boar when I legged it. I sure enjoyed the hunt been a while since I have got to hear a good bay.
Lance, I hope you can read this over in Iraq. Your boy did real good today. I even got to hear him bay several times. He stayed gone all day. Stay safe and hurry back to your family and lets get in the woods.