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Author Topic: Teddy Roosevelt hunting javelina on the Nueces with dogs...  (Read 1389 times)
HuntingHeritage
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« on: February 15, 2021, 06:21:40 pm »

 
  I have been reading some of Teddy Roosevelt's writings about hunting with dogs and came across this and since it's public domain, I will paste some parts of the story and a link to the book online.

 From "HUNTING THE GRISLY AND OTHER SKETCHES by Theodore Roosevelt: An Account of the Big Game of the United States and its Chase with Horse, Hound, and Rifle
 This text was prepared from a 1902 edition, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. It was originally published in 1893. It is part II of "The Wilderness Hunter." "

 CHAPTER VI.—A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES.

 In the United States the peccary is only found in the southernmost corner of Texas. In April 1892, I made a flying visit to the ranch country of this region, starting from the town of Uvalde with a Texan friend, Mr. John
 Moore. My trip being very hurried, I had but a couple of days to devote to hunting.

 Our first halting-place was at a ranch on the Frio.....


When we reached the Frio ranch a herd of a thousand cattle had just been gathered, and two or three hundred beeves and young stock were being cut out to be driven northward over the trail. The cattle were worked in pens much more than in the North, and on all the ranches there were chutes with steering gates, by means of which individuals of a herd could be dexterously shifted into various corrals. The branding of the calves was done ordinarily in one of these corrals and on foot, the calf being always roped by both forelegs; otherwise the work of the cowpunchers was much like that of their brothers in the North. As a whole, however, they were distinctly more proficient with the rope, and at least half of them were Mexicans.

There were some bands of wild cattle living only in the densest timber of the river bottoms which were literally as wild as deer, and moreover very fierce and dangerous. The pursuit of these was exciting and hazardous in the extreme. The men who took part in it showed not only the utmost daring but the most consummate horsemanship and wonderful skill in the use of the rope, the coil being hurled with the force and precision of an iron quoit; a single man speedily overtaking, roping, throwing, and binding down the fiercest steer or bull.

There had been many peccaries, or, as the Mexicans and cowpunchers of the border usually call them, javalinas, round this ranch a few years before the date of my visit. Until 1886, or thereabouts, these little wild hogs were not much molested, and abounded in the dense chaparral around the lower Rio Grande. In that year, however, it was suddenly discovered that their hides had a market value, being worth four bits—that is, half a dollar—apiece; and many Mexicans and not a few shiftless Texans went into the business of hunting them as a means of livelihood. They were more easily killed than deer, and, as a result, they were speedily exterminated in many localities where they had formerly been numerous, and even where they were left were to be found only in greatly diminished numbers. On this particular Frio ranch the last little band had been killed nearly a year before. There were three of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of the cowboys stumbled on them early one morning while out with a dog. After half a mile's chase the three peccaries ran into a hollow pecan tree, and one of the cowboys, dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his knife to the end of a pole, and killed them all....

Having satisfied myself that there were no javalinas left on the Frio ranch, and being nearly at the end of my holiday, I was about to abandon the effort to get any, when a passing cowman happened to mention the fact that some were still to be found on the Nueces River thirty miles or thereabouts to the southward. Thither I determined to go, and next morning Moore and I started in a buggy drawn by a redoubtable horse, named Jim Swinger, which we were allowed to use because he bucked so under the saddle that nobody on the ranch could ride him....

.....The son of the ranchman, a tall, well-built young fellow, told me at once that there were peccaries in the neighborhood, and that he had himself shot one but two or three days before, and volunteered to lend us horses and pilot us to the game on the morrow, with the help of his two dogs. The last were big black curs with, as we were assured, "considerable hound" in them. One was at the time staying at the ranch house, the other was four or five miles off with a Mexican goat-herder, and it was arranged that early in the morning we should ride down to the latter place, taking the first dog with us and procuring his companion when we reached the goat-herder's house.

We rode away from the river on the dry uplands, where the timber, though thick, was small, consisting almost exclusively of the thorny mesquites. Mixed among them were prickly pears, standing as high as our heads on horseback, and Spanish bayonets, looking in the distance like small palms; and there were many other kinds of cactus, all with poisonous thorns. Two or three times the dogs got on an old trail and rushed off giving tongue, whereat we galloped madly after them, ducking and dodging through and among the clusters of spine-bearing tress and cactus, not without getting a considerable number of thorns in our hands and legs. It was very dry and hot. Where the javalinas live in droves in the river bottoms they often drink at the pools; but when some distance from water they seem to live quite comfortably on the prickly pear, slaking their thirst by eating its hard, juicy fibre.

At last, after several false alarms, and gallops which led to nothing, when it lacked but an hour of sundown we struck a band of five of the little wild hogs. They were running off through the mesquites with a peculiar hopping or bounding motion, and we all, dogs and men, tore after them instantly."

 You can read the rest and more here

 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3337/3337-h/3337-h.htm#link2HCH0006

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t-dog
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« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2021, 07:58:14 pm »

That’s a neat read hunting heritage, thanks


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The Old Man
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« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2021, 09:56:15 am »

I read about him bear hunting with a famous black scout and guide "Holt Collier" back in the very early 1900's. Ol'Teddy hunted a little of everything everywhere and was quite the sportin man.  Holt Collier was legendary himself I wish I could remember where that was found as it would fit this thread very well.
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« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2021, 10:59:51 am »

  There was a article on Teddy hunting with Ben Lily in La. or Ms. back in the early 1900's. I think Frank C. Hibben might have mentioned Holt Collier in one of his books. Could have been "Hunting American Bears" or  "Ben Liiy'sTales" by Neil B. Carmony
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Bayou Cajun Plotts
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« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2021, 11:38:54 am »

  Yessir thank you both for the comments I will dig and find the stuff about bear hunting with both Lily and Collier, Holt Collier had a big part to play in the invention of the "Teddy Bear"...

 But I thought this was more in line with the spirit of the forum.

 https://www.civilwarmonitor.com/blog/the-day-holt-collier-killed-hogzilla
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HuntingHeritage
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« Reply #5 on: February 16, 2021, 11:50:47 am »

  Yessir thank you both for the comments I will dig and find the stuff about bear hunting with both Lily and Collier, Holt Collier had a big part to play in the invention of the "Teddy Bear"...

 But I thought this was more in line with the spirit of the forum.

 https://www.civilwarmonitor.com/blog/the-day-holt-collier-killed-hogzilla

 By that I meant the story about the big hog and not the Teddy bear.

 Anyone that likes books about hunting should check out Gutenberg.org quite a few public domain books there including some of President Roosevelt's

 For me Edward Thomas Seton author of " Lobo King of the Currampaw " is about as good as it gets.

 Here is a piece from his story about his dog "Bingo" contained in the same book "Wild Animals I have known"

 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3031/3031-h/3031-h.htm#link2H_4_0004

 BINGO, The Story of My Dog

IT WAS EARLY in November, 1882, and the Manitoba winter had just set in. I was tilting back in my chair for a few lazy moments after breakfast, idly alternating my gaze from the one window-pane of our shanty, through which was framed a bit of the prairie and the end of our cowshed, to the old rhyme of the 'Franckelyn's dogge' pinned on the logs near by. But the dreamy mixture of rhyme and view was quickly dispelled by the sight of a large gray animal dashing across the prairie into the cowshed, with a smaller black and white animal in hot pursuit.

"A wolf," I exclaimed, and seizing a rifle dashed out to help the dog. But before I could get there they had left the stable, and after a short run over the snow the wolf again turned at bay, and the dog, our neighbor's collie, circled about watching his chance to snap.

I fired a couple of long shots, which had the effect only of setting them off again over the prairie. After another run this matchless dog closed and seized the wolf by the haunch, but again retreated to avoid the fierce return chop. Then there was another stand at bay, and again a race over the snow. Every few hundred yards this scene was repeated, the dog managing so that each fresh rush should be toward the settlement, while the wolf vainly tried to break back toward the dark belt of trees in the east. At last after a mile of this fighting and running I overtook them, and the dog, seeing that he now had good backing, closed in for the finish.

After a few seconds the whirl of struggling animals resolved itself into a wolf, on his back, with a bleeding collie gripping his throat, and it was now easy for me to step up and end the fight by putting a ball through the wolf's head.

Then, when this dog of marvellous wind saw that his foe was dead, he gave him no second glance, but set out at a lope for a farm four miles across the snow where he had left his master when first the wolf was started. He was a wonderful dog, and even if I had not come he undoubtedly would have killed the wolf alone, as I learned he had already done with others of the kind, in spite of the fact that the wolf, though of the smaller or prairie race, was much larger than himself. I was filled with admiration for the dog's prowess and at once sought to buy him at any price. The scornful reply of his owner was, "Why don't you try to buy one of the children?"

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« Reply #6 on: February 16, 2021, 02:37:36 pm »

Hunting Heritage, I have had the book "Wild Animals I have known" since I was a kid. Still have it in my book case.
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Bayou Cajun Plotts
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« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2021, 02:55:14 pm »

Hunting Heritage, I have had the book "Wild Animals I have known" since I was a kid. Still have it in my book case.
That is awesome Cajun!

 I saw Disney movie version “The Legend Of Lobo” as a kid and read anything of his that I could get my hands on after that.

 I would think most of his works would be in the public domain now.

 I might have to start an online library of public domain hunting books to counter the attempted purge in public schools of this kind of book.

 I guess the internet is still good for somethings lol


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Lefty LaRue
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« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2021, 10:55:08 am »

I needed some good material while I was sitting on the commode this morning,

Thanks fellas! Hahahaha


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Cajun
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« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2021, 05:54:49 pm »

Dug this up out of my book case. I knew I had it somewhere. Tells about his Africa hunts, So American and Carribou hunts. He has hunted all over the world.


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Bayou Cajun Plotts
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HuntingHeritage
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« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2021, 07:06:49 pm »

Dug this up out of my book case. I knew I had it somewhere. Tells about his Africa hunts, So American and Carribou hunts. He has hunted all over the world.[/img]


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 Wow thanks Cajun! I am going to have to read that one, Teddy was something else.
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