My most memorable hog is the one that made me realize that I needed a catch dog... not just a bunch of rough curr dogs!
Back when I got my own pack of dogs started, we'd run 6 or 8 dogs on the ground and would catch every hog they bayed... until one cold winter morning. I guess it's been about 5 years ago when we bayed this big boar hog out in the national forest. We got into a group of hogs and had dogs all over the place. My old Rebel dog and Cheyenne bayed this big boy up in a briar patch, right up against the trunk of a blown down tree. All the dogs started coming in and every time one would get close to catch, he'd throw them through the air. My buddy's Tuff dog, a pup of Blue's, ran in and the hog grabbed him around the chest, put him on the ground and went to work on him. We thought he was a goner until another dog spun the hog off of him.
Finally, after about 20 minutes of watching 7 dogs get whipped they were all backed up and baying. Then Blue finally comes rolling in and I hollered "catch him Blue"! Now for the first 2 to 3 years of his life, Blue thought he was a catch dog. He would bay right in a hogs face and when the hog would hook him, he'd latch onto the jowl.
Well, when Blue tried to catch, that ol' boar tossed him about ten feet through the air... now we had 8 dogs baying! Now my buddy Stephen and I were watching this whole thing from about twenty feet away... and of course, we didn't have a gun with us!
That boar finally had enough and he broke and went deeper into the thicket where we couldn't see anymore. A few minutes later, my Cheyenne gyp comes out covered in blood. He ripped her inside the arm, through the arm pit and down the rib cage. I finally got the bleeding stopped and all the the dogs were slowly coming back in. That big boar hog whipped 8 dogs and walked away laughing.
A couple of months later, I bought Clifford from Craig... he's been catching hogs for me ever since.
