Perfect morning 8/31/08

With the exception of it being a little hotter than I like, the weather conditions this morning were absolutely perfect for running dogs. It was definitely the best we have seen all year.

We made a spur of the moment trip to a spot in Tow and turned out a little after sunrise, about 7:00. It was still pretty cool out, the ground was moist and the dew was settling thick.

We hadn't even gotten Matter, our mini truck, unloaded yet when we got the first bark. Yuki struck a shoat out in a big Mesquite flat by our parking spot. It was destined to be a good day.

As we went to Yuki, MudBug the Plott opened up to our right, across the entrance road, by the tank. It was another shoat and that deed was done quick.

We decided to take the dogs back to our starting spot and head in the other direction, along our normal hunting rout. We made it a little ways and had lost MudBug somewhere behind us so we stopped to wait. As we waited for her and listened expecting her second strike of the morning, we saw Brutus and Lucifer work across the road about 1000 yards out, looking like they were on a mission. About a minute later, we get bark #3 of the morning from Brutus and Lucifer and the rest of the dogs take off to assist. Lucifer had a shoat and Brutus had a 125lb sow.

As we got the sow taken care of and everything quieted down a little we heard another bark. One of the pups, Ox, had gone and struck himself a pig on the hill. All of the dogs went to assist and all of them except MudBug got side tracked on the way. In the end, Ox and MudBug lost their pig but.......

The rest of the pack had picked up another 170lb sow and stopped her about a mile and a half away at the base of the hill. I finally got to that pig and I was whooped! I cut Ollie, the catch dog, loose from about 200yards out and just kind of ambled my way in. I stuck the pig and made it back to about where I had cut Ollie loose before anyone else even caught up.

As Julie and I were walking dogs back to find Mike, She and I and all of the dogs were really huffing. We had 5 pigs down in a matter of an hour and a half or so and we had ran from one end of 1200ac to the other and half way back again.

The dogs were not really hunting any more, mostly just walking about 100yards in front of us, when I saw Lucfer duck off in the woods to our left. I didn't really think much about it because I didn't think he had the energy to finish a track anyway.

True to Lucifer form however, he opens up a minute or two later a couple of hundred yards out and of course it was a runner. All of the dogs honored the bay but they all fell out REALLY quick. Only Lucifer and Ox stuck with the pig for any time. Ox broke off about 15minutes into the race and by that time, Lucifer was well outside of ear shot.

About that time, Mike finally shows up with Matter and we got the tracker out again but could not pick up any signal. We knew where the last bark we could hear was so we loaded up the rest of the dogs on Matter and head in that direction. About 30 minutes later, we found my dog but he was flat give out so we ended the day with a 2.5 hour hunt, 7 pigs struck and 5 pigs caught.

All in all, It was a perfect morning.

Steve