Finally

Well, I finally got to make a couple or three runs. First time since deer season started. My nephew, my youngest boy( Cool

and his step brother(10) and myself loaded up last Saturday morning and made a hunt. Of course it's soup everywhere you go right now so we didn't get too far into the place and parked. There was a pond with some brush on the dam and behind it where the over flow runs. I cast the dogs to the big woods and they left with their feet on fire. About 50 yards out they hit the breaks and made a U turn. Right down behind the dam they went and the squeals commenced, killing pigs. It's about 150 yards to the big woods from there. As we are grabbing catch dogs, LuLu is smoking a big hog across there. She sucked her up and as they enter the woods she was hanging on trying to stop her. The squeals stopped and Raylynn and my Mojo pup went flying across to where LuLu was. She was bayed 50 yards into the woods. We catch her (200+) and the 2 gyps are gone. 350 yards later they are bayed again. This time a sow is backed up under some brush and briars overhanging in a little creek. She (180ish) made the mistake of rushing out at one of the dogs. The other 2 hammed her and she was caught. As soon as I got my hands on her, the gyps were gone again. I stuck her and made my pup leave her. In just a minutes they were bayed. It broke and ran about 375 yards and they had it caught (100 lbs maybe a little more). We caught the dogs, killed the hog, and went home. I was pleased with my fresh but soft dogs.
Then Monday, one of our land owners had some hunters down. Because the river had been out down there, they hadn't been able to find any hogs, they stalk hunt. He wanted us to take them so naturally we didn't say no. It rained pretty good the night before so there wasn't any fresh sign. Raylynn and LuLu had to work but they dug up a boar hog. He broke and made it about 600 yards. They had him bayed in the bend of a wet season drawl. We caught him and the dogs and went and cast the dogs in another spot. The hunters said they walked this area the evening before and didn't see anything. The dogs weren't in the woods a minute and were bayed. The hogs rallied and then busted. An unfortunate boar(120ish) got bayed on the tank dam and the catch dog knocked him into the water so I had to get wet. By the time I got them out, Raylynn and LuLu were .86 in the bottom. By the time we got down there they were bayed across the river. A couple of hogs came back over the leavey towards us so we sent a catch dog to one. Naturally they wound up in the river and then on the opposite bank then back in the river. They went under for a few seconds and came up apart. I told one of the hunters (a retired Illinois trooper) to shoot the hog and he did. We got the catch dog back across but the shooting busted the bay. The hog went all the way back to where it started and another 1.16 more. The place they ended up on is one of those places that we were told we could go get our dogs off of but the land owner isn't local and is a little peculiar. Since it had been so long since we have had to go in there, we wouldn't just go in. But....since I was pretty sure he was going to let us, we didn't try calling the dogs out. It took a couple hours or more but we got ahold of him and said it was fine. When we go to them, they were circling a group. Again we sent the catch dogs and caught everything. Those soft dogs were tired. They were on the ground for ten hours that day and had just hunted 2 days before for the first time in months. Again I was proud.
We made a other hunt the next day with 2 buddies dogs, all out of the same stuff I'm running, and they bagged 5 in about an hour and a half. The next hunt may be a disaster, but I was proud of the first 3.