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October 2010 - Hunt with Ladogos
A fantastic experience to feel this hunting tradition among friends deep
under my skin. Finally,after a year of waiting I was able again to travel to
the US and visit some good old friends.
I arrived at TX ,Dallas Forth Worth around midnight the 26th ofcourse together
with 2 puppies..
I was awaited by my long time friend Marvin Garrett (LA Dogos) and his buddy
Mason House (digemdown) who I met a year ago. Marvin arranged everything for me
so we could have some good time hunting in the week I was their guest.At the
airport there was also a third person waiting for us,Britton Huish from Arizona
who would join us too.As we all got installed in Marvins pickup and his private
chauffeur Mason : ) drove us to his house,(thank you very much for all your
attention and hospitality Mason!!!!)as we would stay there until Wednesday.We
got settled quickly,had a short sleep and woke up at about 04 .30 AM loaded all
the dogs and joined with Masons hunting buddies Kory(KD`s Black Mouth) ,Dee
(Muleman)and Clint and left to a spot about 45 minutes from Mc Kinney.It was a
really awesome looking and huge farmers property with lots of
pools,farmland,cowpastures,bushes,treelines etc. We were allowed to hunt there
as hogs were tearing his property down. Mason thought it would be best to start
when it still was dark and this is how it went .
The curdogs were offloaded and the race was started ;-)
We unloaded them along a treeline and some disappeared in it and started
working.It did not took long before there was a bay going on so we released
the catchdog DeÀngelo and a big sow got caught soon after.
As soon as we got stuck that sow in a 3 feet deep pond and the curs were
rolling out again on another fresh trail and pretty soon another bay!
Same procedure with the catchdog De Angelo and another sow was “bagged”.
When we released the curdogs first time we spotted 3 hogs disappearing from the
treeline moving north over an open field so as soon as we finished the second
sow the dogs started working the track of the hogs gone north and not before
long time we could hear a hog squeeling and this time it were the curs who found
and caught a little boarhog . .Great work of the dogs!!!!!!!!! Rick was there
with Dee and they stuck the hog.
After this we all started to work that area around a creek and a lot of high
grass and about a few minutes there was another bay going on, so we tried to
get there as close as possible and released DeAngelo and
Diego (Masons dogo) then we heard some grunting and then nothing;the bay broke
..Well, cannot get them all in one time : )
We gave the dogs quite some time to try to get them on them again but we were a
bit concerned with the dogos being loose close to a cow pasture so we called the
dogos in.
After a while we started to cruise around the property to see if the curs could
wind some more and enjoyed very much the nature and looking for fresh signs.We
crossed the cow pasture and none of the dogs payed
attention to them fortunately.
As it got pretty hot and the dogs got tired too we called it an end and took our
time to take some nice pictures of the dogs and people who did their job.
3 hogs down not bad at all,the biggest was a sow of about a 275 pounds (130KG)
The second day Mason decided to try that property again so at about the same
time we landed there,released all the curs and let them work.They cruised along
quite a long time but never on a fresh track and we also did not find any new
signs on the newly plowed fields,so Mason stopped at this spot and said he had
another one at Blue Rigde.So we packed evertything up and rolled out towards
Blue Ridge.
Just before we arrived it Mason pointed out some hogtrails on a big plowed
field and there were pretty broad and it looked hig hogtrail
intersections!!!!!!!!!!!! So this promised to be a good spot too.
As we arrived at the property Mason had a talk with the owner who was plowing
and got some good info.
He was happy to see some hunters to get rid of some hogs !
So we found a nice spot to park the trucks and unloaded the fourwheelers and
dogs.
As we cruised around the barbwired fence line we suddenly noticed that the dogs
started winding so we let the first pack go!
It did not took us a long time to hear a bay going on so we waited a bit to see
how this continued but the bay broke after some time and some dogs came already
back.We drove a bit further along the fenceline and suddenly Marvin spotted an
old hog trail.He said hey what,let me take some dogs and I check this trail out.
After about a ten minutes we could hear hear some dogs barking and some time
later we it was a solid bay. Suddenly we all got in a hurry and got the
catchdogs of the fourwheelers and rushed on towards the bay.
The trail was easy in the beginning but then suddenly it became very thick with
lots of ragweeds(the worst I have ever seen ) and it took a long time to get
further, and struggled on trough a 3 feet deep creek and became quite closed
so Marvin told me to release DeAngelo and also Masons bulldog got released and
not before long we could hear the bay broke so we stood silent and waited and
shortly after we could hear the sweet sound of squeeling hog : )
Britton was first at the spot so he could leg and stick his first hog!
It looked like he enjoyed it a lot! We took quickly some pictures as the dogs
rolled out again.
After a few minutes a bay was starting again so we slowly tried to get close to
it again going trough the creek and as closer we got the hotter the bay so time
for the catchdogs again and not before long another caught hog,again a sow. This
one got hobbled as Korey .
As we passed the creek we saw a lot of hogsign so we got the curdogs working
again and aftera few minutes we could hear a piglet squeeling ,we had a lot of
dogs on the ground and we didn`t want this one to be killed : ) so fortunately
Dee was able to catch it himself before the dogs got it,it was well hidden in
the dense underwood.
Anyway as we looked at the piglet the dogs stayed tense and a few seconds after
we spotted a little piglet black, without stripes taking off with the dogs on
its tail, we could hear the dogs yipping on the trail and suddenly they came our
way again but on the other side of the creek. As we stood and watch there we
suddenly looked at a big old boar easily trotting around,stopping up,looking at
us and then disappearing again in the underwood…………shortly after one curdog came
and worked the track and hereafter another one but had to work hard and lost
distance with this boar.
We decided to call it a day as the dogs were getting really tired and it became
too hot too.
As we gathered outside the fence line Ricky still had to call his dog back (was
still on the track of that boar )
Anyway a great day of hunting,with really good dogwork!
A HUGE THANK YOU to all the guys who made this possible,Marvin,Mason,Dee (thanks
for the great dinner with the famous Texas steak! And for taking us on a hunt
and see your old dog work!) ,Korey,Ricky.
It was a lot of fun being together with you all – great to get to know you
better and see your dogs working at its best!
Had a great time in Texas, this year was a BLAST! Something me and Britton will
never forget!
After a day of relaxing at Masons place we left on Wednesday to
Minden,Louisiana,Marvin`s place.
At Friday night Mason and his wife Amanda arrived and we got out hunting
Saturday evening around Shreveport , Marvin`s good old honey spot.
On this hunt we did not have Boots and Sadie with us as they worn off their
footpads on the previous hunts so they needed rest to get good feet again.
Anyway, a good time to work the young dogs and Mason took his bitch Pearl who is
very experienced.
We started hunting at Saturday the first of October, late evening together with
Bud and Mason, at the spot there were a lot of gas riggs that are productive and
some others in construction so a lot of disturbance(24 hours a day) for the
wildlife,3 years ago it was only farmland.
I got my new Garmin checked - it was a great opportunity to get it tested and
get used to it, glad I got it tested since there was a failure in it and I got
it switched to another one. THANK you Marvin for all the driving for me!
As we cruised around towards the place where Marvin wanted to start we flashed
already quite some deer and a lot of skunks : ) and a possum but no hogs. Marvin
decided to check out the spot where he 2 weeks ago had seen a lot of signs and
start the dogs from there.
Within a few minutes we had three skunks and a possum before we came to the
start spot so the dogs proved to be real “meatdogs” as Marvin joked - so now
they were warmed up for the real stuff : )
As we arrived at the spot the dogs slowly started working some tracks and soon
we had a bay going on ,so we waited anxiously if it would hold and tried to get
closer to them but the bay broke and just had to wait for them dogs to get that
hog bayed up again. This went on for about almost 2 hours until finally there
was a solid bay so we released DeAngelo and waited for some squelling but it
was silent so we just followed the garmin and when we got real close we could
hear a bit,so we rushed in and hobbled the little boarhog.
Again good work of the dogs!
At Sunday night we got smoked ,there were several good bays on different placed
but they never hold long enough and Pearl was on one track for several hours
but could not stop the boar alone and when we looked at the Garmin we could see
that she worked for 23 miles on that track in circles !!!!
Very impressive!
Again time to express my gratitude to Marvin, Melinda and Mason who spend so
much time with me,hosting me,taking me out hunting and feeding me, guys, this
was priceless!
Hope one day to get you all over to Europe on some good hunting!
After such a trip it takes a couple of month to get that grin of my face : )))
Peter
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