coon dog

Janis recently became the proud owner of Mingus, a blue tick coon hound. Janis and Mingus have put some boot leather on the ground and have been putting lions up trees like it's going out of style. Janis tells us what it is like to become a houndman as a grown ass man!

This TRIBUTE TO CAS WALKER episode will no doubt hit the mark for older hunters that remember Cas’ ads in Full Cry magazines over a span of many years.  But everyone, no matter the age, should love the stories contained in this episode told by one of Cas’ closest associates, David West, a man that played in his tv show band and was his personal driver for many years. 

The stories are amazing! How Cas helped Dolly Parton get her start. How Cas fired the Everly Brothers from his show. How Cas lost a finger in a fight and retaliated by biting off his opponent’s ear. How he buried a man alive for 10 days in front of his store and how “Dog Dipping Day” grossed several thousands of dollars in grocery sales. And there’s the story of how Cas was the originator of the turkey drop stunt that became tv show WKRP In Cincinnati’s most famous episode. The story of Walker’s coon dog-selling technique alone is worth the listen and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Funny, funny stuff!

Fresh off their $100 K first place win in the Pro Sport extravaganza, the guys were ready to roll with candid answers to my sortedlist of questions. Smith the engineer, Strickland the greatest competition mind in the game, and Sizemore, the relative new comer with a $100 K win under his belt, reveal the inner workings of a team that’s become the force to be reckoned with when it comes to today’s game of exorbitant entry fees and enormous purses.   

Breeding, training, handling, dog work and travel are all on the table with Steve dealing the question cards.   It’s a great episode with these key members of a cutting-edge team, honed to razor sharpness at the absolute highest levels of coon hunting competition.   Big names, big personalities, big results.  You be the judge!

Steve catches up with Strickland for a fast-moving, wide-ranging conversation about his latest sensation, Lone Pine Lady, which he co-owns with last week’s guest Randy Smith and with which he won the recent ProSport truck hunt in Claremore, Oklahoma.  Strickland discusses his partnership with Smith, how Lady got his attention and how he and the three-year old Treeing Walker got on the winning track.  This one is for listeners than wonder what it’s like and what it takes to play in the majors; an entertaining hour and eight minutes that you will probably listen to again.  

Our guests for this episode are two of the most passionate among the ranks.    One is an established veteran, a breeder, trainer and competitor, on the big stage and the other a pleasure hunter that lives for the hunt and “the locate” that quickens the heartbeat of coon hunters across the broad spectrum of the sport.  The thing they share in common is a passion for coon hunting that can only be described as off the charts. Coon hunters at all levels of experience will enjoy these conversations.  When done, there will be no doubt that our guests have gone to the dogs. 

Special guests Jim Garrison, Morris Hardy and Nubbin Moore provide insight into what it means to reach the golden years in a sport many have enjoyed all their lives.  Garrison shares his own experience at age 72 in addition to the life of longtime friend Warren Wilson who lived and hunted to the age of 97.  Morris Hardy, a lifelong coon hunter and English fancier shares what keeps him going several nights a week at the age of 78.  Steve’s traveling buddy Nubbin Moore, who just celebrated his 82nd birthday, shares his views on whether or not he’s too old to quit.This is an episode for all coon hunters and hound people.  Humorous at times, the guests show the spirit that has kept them at it longer than most and reminds us, that if we keep at it long enough, we each will face the decision one day.   

Audible books, for many, are replacing hardcopy for many reasons but mainly for convenience.  Hunters particularly enjoy the ability to listen while logging windshield time to and from the hunt.  Testing the waters so to speak, Steve has chosen to read an essay from his book titled Time Travel.  The piece spotlights Steve’s physical journey to the land of 1950’s author and self-proclaimed “perfect” hunter/houndsman Samuel J. Hunnicutt who wrote the cherished Twenty Years Hunting and Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains.  Steve read the book in the 1950s and it remains one of his favorites.

Additionally, Steve visits by phone with octogenarian coon hunter Fred Moran the Redbone Man to catch up on the night-hunting exploits of one of the sport’s oldest and most active hunters.  The visit is vintage Moran with hunting stories and humor to burn.   

Want to hear the rest of Steve's story?  Make sure to check out "GONE TO THE DOGS - A COON HUNTER'S JOURNEY" 

 Steve Fielder Books

Gone to the Dogs  (dusupply.com)

Jim Meeks was, at his peak, known as one of the hardest hunters in the sport of raccoon hunting.He is most noted for his association with the Yadkin River strain of Treeing Walkers.  He takes no credit for naming the strain but no man has hunted and promoted more of the famous dogs from the line.  Hounds like Yadkin River Tom, Jeff, Champ, Chico, and Tar Rattler lace his conversations like rawhide on a well-worn pair of Irish Setters.  Jim Meeks and Yadkin River Walkers are forever intertwined. 

Jim and Steve have been sharing conversations around the barns at the Grand American for over forty years.  This episode is but the latest collection of coonhound-related chatter that flows when the two get together.  Readers have enjoyed Jim’s writing in coonhound magazines through the decades as well.  Never claiming to be a competition hunter, his Just Coon Hunting columns are ripe with some of the most entertaining stories to be found.  Coon hunters wet behind the ears and long in the tooth alike will enjoy this episode recorded live at the largest annual gathering of coon hunters in the nation, the incomparable Grand American.   

The conversation involves coon hunting and has just enough canine nutrition and puppy rearing to quality the effort as time well spent.  Some listeners require useful information in their choices of podcasts.  For most, the conversation will qualify as an hour and half of typical dog talk by three guys with a combined history of 180 years of following hounds and a passion that has only grown stronger through the years.  When you’ve gone to the dogs, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been.  What really matters is that you enjoyed the trip.

Mark is a veteran, having finished several Grand Nite Champions including his current Grand (2) Walker dog that has earned the prestigious titles in the woods and on the bench.  He recently finished a thirteen-month-old Plott dog that he and Steve co-own to Dual Champion in UKC.  Kesten is a young hunter that hunts as hard as anyone in the game and has a fifteen-month old coon treeing artist to show for the effort.  He and Steve partner on an All Grand Track Man female that routinely requires a deep reach into the resource bag for answers to the questions she routinely inspires.  

The discussion is light-hearted and serves as an introduction to the boys as continuing members of the Gone To The Dogs broadcast team. This episode reveals why Steve chose Mark and Kesten as partners, both as trainer/handlers and as friends.  This is an episode ripe with frank admissions of shortcomings as well as modest admissions of success.  It’s an all-around good-time in an episode that will surely entertain.

Thanksgiving is a special time to express our appreciation for our hunting buddies everywhere and that’s what this episode is all about.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Alvin Withey has been hunting dogs longer than a lot of our listeners have been on this earth and he has the stories and the knowledge to show for it.  From a young boy Alvin has been drawn to dogs, especially of the bear hunting variety.  Eddie and Alvin swap stories from their days of hunting together, the dogs that kicked their bear hunting into high gear, and some interesting tales of clients they have guided over the years. Alvin also paints a picture of the past when good dogs were not real common and what lengths they had to go to for a good one.

Risk was injured in a HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) jump that ended his SERE active-duty career, but he continues to teach military skills to soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.   Steve and Courtney hunted together throughout Steve’s tenure with the American Kennel Club in Raleigh, North Carolina from 2006 to about 2013. 

Born in Nebraska and growing up in southern California, Courtney’s mother took her family back home to Iowa where he hooked up with a coon hunting uncle and started a lifelong journey with the hounds of the night.

This is a multifaceted conversation about hunting in Washington State, New Mexico, Missouri and North Carolina.  The boys discuss favorite hounds and a myriad of coon hunting’s most recognizable personalities, including Jess Dickerson and the late Timothy Ball, both of which Risk was and is well-acquainted.

Risk reveals his affinity for Iowa-Style Walker dogs and how he includes the slogan of the 19-time National Championship-winning University of Iowa wrestling program in the names of his hounds having Hawkeye roots.   

This a good conversation for coon hunters that appreciate the wide scope of the sport whether geographically or from the standpoint of interesting personalities one meets along the way.You’ll count this one as time well spent.    

Steve calls it the Twilight Zone of coon hunting podcasts. It’s the new effort by South Carolinian Daniel Felker and his cohorts in crime, Dustin Faulkner and Ryan James called Coon Hunting Confidential on the Hound’s Tooth Podcasting Network. You can find it on all the podcast player apps on the world wide web.  In Felker’s words, the show “explores anything and everything coon hunting” including “cryptids, the paranormal, the unexplained and a whole lot of crazy.”  With all that going on in a one-hour podcast, Steve figured there had to be a lot of unchartered territory that he could explore and that’s just what listeners will find in this, the longest Gone to the Dogs podcast to date. 

Felkner and Company, to borrow from the Addams Family theme, are “creepy and they’re kooky” and “they’re all together ooky.” Check them out as Fielder and Felkner take a walk on the dark side of coon hunting, and we don’t just mean taking a walk in the dark of night. It’s as close as a coon hunter can get to “the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition…” It’s the Gone to the Dogs Podcast and it’s happening now.  

Steve and Sid Underwood met in 1983 when each was attached to the Field Operations Department of the world’s largest working dog registry, the United Kennel Club.  Underwood’s role as a Field Representative, largely serving the expansive Texas territory, rapidly gained him national attention although his was already a household name among Lone Star State coon hunters.  His involvement with coon hunting and particularly Treeing Walkers anchored him deeply, even as a young man, into the bedrock of coon hunting history in that part of the world.  He hunted with, or at least found himself in the company of, some of the sport’s most significant hounds and the men that hunted them.

In this episode, old friends talk about the UKC days, the fascinating aura of the Texas State Championship, and spend a whole lot of time analyzing the way things were and are, now and then.

Texas is one of Steve’s favorite coon hunting destinations and he spares no effort to share with listeners the fascinating, unique style that is Texas coon hunting, something he first experienced way back in 1969.  

This one is as comfortable as a well-worn pair of Wranglers and as satisfying as a stop at a Texas crossroads café for chicken-fried steaks.  Pour yourself a tall iced tea, settle back and we’ll go coon hunting Texas-style with one of the sport’s most interesting figures, Sid Underwood.  

Listeners will also enjoy the debut of weekly podcast visits by storyteller supreme, Fred Moran.  

Vendors play an extremely important role in hound sports.  Houndsmen, and especially those whose activities take them into the outdoors in early morning or late evening hours realize the importance of a bright, dependable, portable source of light in order to safely and successfully follow our hounds.   This episode features a vendor that has been involved in the design and manufacture of his Bright Eyes brand of lights, primarily for coon hunters, for more than twenty years.  A coon hunter with a penchant for Black and Tan Coonhounds, Ray Conrad has served as national president for one of the nation's largest breed associations, The American Black and Tan Coonhound Association.  As an entrepreneur, Conrad has continually brought new products to the forefront at major coonhound events and in his advertisements in major coonhound publications.  Ray's story of his commitment to always produce something new is an interesting and informative journey into the behind-the-scenes world of one of our sport's most innovative vendors.     

Elijah Burnett, at age 26, epitomizes the fledgling hound or tree dog enthusiast of today.Motivated,  intrigued and thirsty for all the knowledge he can garner to enhance his experience, he also is uniquely possessed of the one quality many in his age group seem to find the hardest to grasp, the patience to let the training work.   Since the inception of Gone To The Dogs Podcast, the goal has been to communicate with the Elijahs of our sport,  in the ways you will hear in this enjoyable episode.    Like the prophet of old who was taken to Heaven in a fiery chariot only to bring miracles and help to those in trouble, it will be the modern-day Elijahs that will preserve, promote and protect our sport for present and future generations.   To the future and beyond! 

Andy White checked all the boxes in my search for a unique guest for this podcast. Andy hunts coons in an unlikely place in the country, he works close to nature in both of his occupational pursuits, and he hunts a breed of dog of which I have no experience but is a breed in which I’ve been interested for a long period of time, the Yellow Black Mouthed Cur. Andy and I discuss coon hunting in the frigid North, coon populations, unique hunting methods and the size of the native U. P. raccoon. Andy also draws the differences in hunting with the cur dogs and the English Coonhound he recently acquired. If you have wondered if perhaps a cur dog is for you, this episode should answer your questions about the breed.  You may want to put on a wool hunting coat, add a log to the fire and grab something to warm your innards as we go coon hunting Yooper-style.

Each of the four players in this episode have hunted coons for sixty years or more. Their combined age of 297 autumns is nearly 300 years and each year now. They gather to follow hounds in the big woods of the Arkansas delta. 

At the heart of their annual hunt is the endless discussion at mealtimes and around the camp when hounds are fed and watered and beverages poured, of the memories of bygone hounds or hunters gone on to their rewards that continue into the wee, small hours, only to be rejoined over steaming cups of coffee and heaping plates at the breaking of each new day. 

These are the coon hunting conversations that form the foundation of the experience that continues to motivate these men to come year after year to the White River Refuge. Join Nubbin Moore, Morris Hardy, Randy Smith and Steve as they talk dogs and all things coon hunting in this, the last Gone To The Dogs podcast of the 2021 year. Happy New Year!

Steve has spent at least four Decembers at the White River Refuge hunting camp with the featured guest of this episode.  The two hunting buddies take a break from the camp’s routine of eating, sleeping, hunting, and yarn-stretching to record an episode chronicling the life of one of coon hunting’s most unique figures, retired Army veteran Keith Durkee.  As the resident Yankee in a camp full of southern rednecks, Durkee gives as much as he takes when the North vs. South ribbing starts.  Keith has coon hunted all across the nation and is a veteran competition hunter.  He won the prestigious AKC World Championship with a Treeing Walker hound of his own breeding.  The depth of his hound knowledge is legion and his insight into the way the competition game works is educational.  You’ll enjoy the story that begins on an island off the coast of Maine, moves to the Pacific northwest and settles in the piney woods of central Alabama.You’ll learn what a “yad” is and come away with the feeling that interpreting the English language may not always be as easy as it seems.  With the December Arkansas sun peeping through the bunkhouse window, Durkee and Fielder get down to the nitty-gritty of why they follow the hounds of the night, and will put a craving on the listener to put it all into motion when the sun goes down.        

Robert has had a mountain cur almost his entire life. He has bred and maintained his own line which then turned into its own breed for the last 50 years. As a full time guide he had to have good dogs to find game for clients and as the popularity of his dogs grew the registry was born. Enjoy as Robert recounts some of his great dogs and about his 70 plus years with these dogs chasing a variety of game in the mountains of Tennessee.