coonhound

It's been  a long time since Bear and Jared had a chance to catch up, but today they make up for lost time.  Jared has been on several episodes of the DU Supply Podcast sharing his knowledge and perspective.  Join Bear and Jared as they talk dogs and more.

In this episode Steve talks with Corey Gruver of Greenville, Pennsylvania.  Steve and Corey have a common denominator in their backgrounds, each having worked for United Kennel Club, the recognized chief registry of coonhounds worldwide.  Furthermore, each worked with coonhounds and coonhound activities in what is now the Hunting Ops Department. 

Steve became interested in having Corey share the Gone To The Dogs microphone as he recognized Gruver’s wide interest in several breeds and combinations of breeds of tree dogs. Steve wanted to, and does, explore the reasons his guest has chosen to enjoy several breeds instead of being a single-breed hunter as most are. 

While at UKC Gruver wrote several articles that piqued Steve’s interest as well convincing the host that his guest would be an interesting speaker and he certainly doesn’t disappoint.  He’s a very interesting guy and has no difficulty expressing himself on several subjects of interest to listeners of this podcast. 

Sit back and spend a couple of hours with Corey and you’ll readily see why Steve invited him to join the impressive list of hunters that have shared the Gone To The Dogs Podcast microphone with the old coon hunter. 

We cover a lot of ground on this one starting off with some Black tail studies, bad taxidermy and preserving pet ducks. We all have some good laughs, but it was also nice to hear Mark get deeper and explain what he looks for in a hound along with the true meaning of heart. He also talks about how some Plott dogs turned things around in the bear catching department. Some lion hunting tales and a couple guide/client mishaps get thrown in just for some more laughs as we wind things down.  Thanks for some great conversation Mark, we hope you all enjoy!

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!

Today Jason welcomes back his buddy Skip Conroy to just catch up after an eventful season.  After what seemed like months of phone tag, they two decided to just jump on a podcast and kill two birds with one stone.  The guys talk about dogs, their seasons trainwrecks and more so pull up a chair and join us.

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!

Bear sits down with Sam Natole. Bear and Sam are both "tall-hounds" houndsmen, but we discover that we have a share passion for, wait for it... Beagles! Sam shares his history with beagles and his revolutionary (my words not his) method of training his big game hound puppies with his beagles. This is one you are not going to want to miss!

In this episode we jump into the fast lane of coonhound competition hunting to talk with the owner and the handler of the 2023 Professional Kennel Club National Champion Wipeout Pharmer.   Owner Eric Henry and handler Steve Yant, each who hail from southeastern Missouri are veterans of the competitive coonhound circuit, having won prior National Championships.  Yant is a two-time winner of the prestigious event.

We talk about each hunter’s experience, some of the famous hounds they have owned and hunted, including two-time Super Stakes and one-time PKC Futurity winner Flatrock Thrasher.  There’s a lot of meat on this bone and those that love to see hounds compete, want to know how the pros do it in the breeding pen, the training woods and out on the cast, and just have that ole hankering for some great coon dog conversation will enjoy this one for sure.

In this episode Buddy, Chris and Jason delve into the world of mapping options for Garmin equipment, including the highly anticipated new addition, the Garmin Alpha 300i. Whether you're an outdoor enthusiast, hunter, or a dog trainer, having reliable and detailed maps is essential for a successful adventure.

In this episode, we not only discuss the advanced features of the Garmin Alpha 300i but also take a trip down memory lane to explore the older Garmin handhelds that have paved the way for today's technology. We reminisce about the discontinued "basecamp program," which was once the go-to platform for "Birdseye Imagery" downloads and the Garmin Huntview Plus map cards that are recently updated and currently available.

If you're curious about the mapping options available for your Garmin equipment or interested in understanding the transition from the old "basecamp program" to the current solutions, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready to unlock the potential of your Garmin devices and elevate your tracking and training experiences with advanced mapping functionalities.

Tune in to gain insights, tips, and recommendations to make the most of your Garmin equipment's mapping features. This episode will equip you with the knowledge to navigate with confidence.

If you would like more information, feel free to give us a call at 855-384-8687 and we would be happy to answer any questions. 

Today Steve hits the mic solo for your listening pleasure.  Gather 'round, pull up a seat and sit a spell with us.  

Kuba hails from the great land of Poland, and we have a fascinating conversation about his black-and-tan Polish Hound, and the hoops a prospective houndsmen needs to jump through in order to hunt in Poland, where the hunting and land rights are still managed in much the same way as they have been for centuries.

Steve finds Fred in the market for a new hound and coaxes him to spill the beans on a two-year-old Redbone (of course) female that Fred says is his only hound at the present.  The old friends talk about Fred’s recent hunts with fellow coon hunter Patty Bizitch, about treeing bears while coon hunting, about hunting spots where he maybe shouldn’t ought to go and the perennial summertime nemesis of coon hunters, snakes.   

Fred was in rare form for this one and Steve struggles to get a word in edgewise.  But that’s fine because like fine wine, Fred’s stories get better and better with age.

The United Kennel Club’s annual Tournament of Champions, open to coonhounds that have earned the registry’s prestigious Nite Champion title, has rapidly become  the most-sought-after competition in the realm of purebred coonhounds.  Held annually in Greencastle, Indiana, the annual competition consists of more than one thousand eligible coonhounds competing for the overall win.

Our guest in this episode is Jeff Ricklefs, a former guest on this podcast, who emerged the overall champion with a Treeing Walker Coonhound owned by John Strickland and Doug Galbreath of Kentucky named Grand Nite Champion Strick’s Hardtimes Hobo.  Hobo took home the $50 thousand top prize for his owners in a commanding performance that is rarely seen at this level.. 

In this episode, Ricklefs recaps his exciting run for the title and the big check.  Jeff is a podcaster’s dream, an articulate speaker with tremendous recall and the ability to put the listener in the truck and in the woods in the fast lane of competition as no one else can.  This is a great episode!

Who is in charge? What does Becky tolerate and not tolerate? We also talk about finding a balance between positive reinforcement and effective discipline and how that looks different for each individual hound.

“The morning Lilly joined us in camp, he had come on foot through the thick woods, followed by his two dogs, and had neither eaten nor drunk for twenty-four hours; for he did not like to drink the swamp water,” said Roosevelt. “It had rained hard throughout the night and he had no shelter, no rubber coat, nothing but the clothes he was wearing and the ground was too wet for him to lie on, so he perched in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much as if he had been a wild turkey.”   - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, describing his first meeting with hound-hunting legend Ben Lilly.

Our guest this week typifies the Ben Lilly persona as much as any modern-day hunter in existence. A single man, a man that hunts his pack of Treeing Walker coonhounds bear and coon on foot in the rugged environs of southwest Virginia, and a man that hunts alone. 

Frequent guest Kesten Jessee introduced Steve to Adam Barnhart and the result is this interesting episode that we’ve sub-titled, Going It Alone.  If you’ve wondered how Lily was able to travel the great southwest on foot, enduring incredible hardship in following his hounds, this episode will provide some insight.   Although armed with modern electronics to aide in following the hounds, which is considerably better than Lily’s method of tying a hound to his belt to provide direction, the mere suggestion of bear hunting alone as does Barnhart, should pique the interest of anyone that has hunted bears with hounds under today’s considerably better conditions. 

When your soon to be 5 year old says all they want to do for their birthday is go bobcat hunting, you know what needs to be done.  You pack enough rations for 6 days, gather your best friends and say a houndsmans prayer for all the stars to line up… or at least not be a total train wreck.  Jason and the boys recap the hunt that produced a lot more than just a bobcat. It produced memories with family and friends that will last a lifetime and beyond. 

Steve Fielder’s Coon Hunting Conversations group page, overseen by his friend Alan Bridges of Georgia, is the most popular gathering spot for coon hunters on Facebook.  With 10,600 members and an active weekly participation by nearly 8000, the site’s popularity lies in the “friendly conversation” concept that has been the mainstay of the group since its inception. Coon hunters share stories of their experiences, post photos and video clips of their dogs and offer help to fellow hunters on a wide range of dog-hunting topics without fear of reprisal by fellow members.

One year ago, retired Army Lieutenant Charles Pudil of Alabama began to post hunting stories on the page and immediately gained a wide audience of readers.  Steve found Pudil’s (pronounced Pew Dell) stories particularly entertaining and invited him to join in this conversation on Gone To The Dogs. If you enjoy Pudil’s stories on the screen, you’ll enjoy them in this episode even more.  

Bob joins from his new home, and shares his thoughts on plott hounds, plott folks, and surviving COVID by the skin of his teeth. We talk in length about Plottfest 2023, dubbed “PlottOber Fest” which will take place the 5th-8th of October in Canton North Carolina. (Bear is going to be there!) It's good to be back on the podcast horse and good to hear Bob is still kicking! For more information about Plottfest and other great events go to: https://www.mountainmemoriesproductions.com/ find them on Facebook and Instagram @mountainmemoriesproductions For more information about Bob Plott and his books go to: www.bobplott.com

Steve and guest Kesten Jessee catch up on the last week’s activities which include Steve’s recent trip to Tennessee and Virginia and a recap of Kesten’s coon season.The partners discuss their current projects Clyde, Phancy and Fever, confessing their strengths and shortcomings.The episode finishes with the boys describing their ideas of the perfect hound.  This one is full of tips for beginning or novice hunters and comes off as a good old-fashioned bull shooting session of the first degree.  If you’re looking for the deep and profound, you may want to move along.  If you want some coon talk without the frills, pull up a chair and pour yourself a long one.  Before you know it, you’ll be up to your boots and gone to the dogs. 

The Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association convention is just one of those places you find a ton of familiar faces.  Luckily this year Buddy and Jason were able to sit down with Mark Zepp and Ross Ellwanger for some unconventional shop talk.  If you’re a listener to this podcast we assume you know who Double U is, but today Buddy dives a little deeper into the company, our values and more.  This is a great episode for all of you that like to see what goes on “behind the green curtain”.