Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
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Speaker 1: Clay Nucom and I'm the host of the Bear Hunting
Speaker 1: Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world
Speaker 1: of hunting's icon of North American wilderness better. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about tactics here conservation, but will also bring you into
Speaker 1: some of the wildest country on the planet chasing their
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: doing a couple of episodes here with Houndsman and their Hounds.
Speaker 1: On this podcast, we're meeting with my good friends Steve Hurt.
Speaker 1: Steve is seventy years old and they've they're pictures of
Speaker 1: Steve with with the plot hounds when he was four
Speaker 1: years old. Steve has been around in his whole life
Speaker 1: and he has has been instrumental and is that one
Speaker 1: of the well the main guy aside from his late father,
Speaker 1: in developing the Bluff Creek strain of big game and
Speaker 1: coon hounds. So this is super interesting podcast. Steve is opinionated.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like a guy that's confident enough
Speaker 1: to talk about truly what he believes. And so you're
Speaker 1: gonna hear Steve uh talk about his hounds and and
Speaker 1: he's proud of him and he's dedicated a good part
Speaker 1: of his life to breeding these dogs, and he's he's
Speaker 1: he's had dogs all over the country on every available
Speaker 1: type of game, and he's got he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of credential. You're gonna enjoy this podcast with Steve. And
Speaker 1: I just want to say that I I gravitate towards
Speaker 1: people who know who they are and that know what
Speaker 1: they have and so sometimes confidence and boldness can be
Speaker 1: mistaken for arrogance, and that's not the case here in
Speaker 1: my opinion. So you're gonna you're gonna like this podcast
Speaker 1: with Steve for sure. I want to bring your attention
Speaker 1: where we're talking about houndsman. I want to bring your
Speaker 1: attention to the Houndsman XP podcast. Chris pal and Steve
Speaker 1: Fielders good friends of ours, and they started a podcast
Speaker 1: several months ago. They they produced several well, I think
Speaker 1: they've produced. Uh, I don't know how any podcasts. Eight
Speaker 1: to tend podcast. Hey, these guys are dedicated houndsmen and
Speaker 1: their podcast is all about hounds. They're talking to coon hunters,
Speaker 1: they're talking to breeders, they're talking to big game houndsman.
Speaker 1: They're talking to guys from the East, from the West,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's a great podcast. If you enjoy hounds,
Speaker 1: you need to be subscribed to these guys. Lastly, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about our friends at the Western Bear Foundation.
Speaker 1: The Western Bear Foundation is representing hunters and bear hunters
Speaker 1: specifically in the hot bed of the West where there's
Speaker 1: a lot of conflict mitigation that is going on between
Speaker 1: those that do not understand our ways as hunters and
Speaker 1: are against us and those that simply don't have an
Speaker 1: opinion about hunting but need to. And the hunters it's
Speaker 1: like there's three different groups, and Western Bear Foundation is
Speaker 1: is putting a great face on hunters and creating a
Speaker 1: new narrative. Western Bear Foundation their gold is to keep
Speaker 1: bears on the landscape and they're doing things with the
Speaker 1: finances that they produce, and just their mission is to
Speaker 1: UH is to keep hunters in the woods and bears
Speaker 1: on the landscape. And Joe con Dallas out there does
Speaker 1: a great job. There a membership driven organization, nonprofit and
Speaker 1: if you're a bear hunter, even if you don't live
Speaker 1: out there, I encourage you to be a member of
Speaker 1: the Western Bear Foundation. Check them out at the Western
Speaker 1: Bear Foundation dot org. Lastly, we're gonna, like I said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing three podcasts. This first one with
Speaker 1: Steve Heard about Bluff Creek plots. The second podcast with
Speaker 1: Steve Heard is about breeding big game hounds, which will
Speaker 1: be released a week after this one. The third podcast
Speaker 1: about hounds, we we went to California. We went to
Speaker 1: the Greenhorn Mountains of California to interview Advance Advanced seventy
Speaker 1: eight years old, and he just wrote a book called
Speaker 1: Trained by a Hound Dog. It's an incredible, incredible book
Speaker 1: about his twenty five year career as an outfitter outfitting
Speaker 1: for bear and mountain lions in California, Montana, Nevada, and Utah.
Speaker 1: Incredible man, incredible story. So get ready for the next
Speaker 1: couple of hound episodes. And hey, if you're not a houndsman,
Speaker 1: listen to these. I feel like it's important for all
Speaker 1: of us to get behind all legal methods of hunting
Speaker 1: and to stay and how if we're gonna stand, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to stand together. And I think you'll you'll
Speaker 1: enjoy learn about hounds, learn about these guys and here
Speaker 1: and the passion that they have for doing what they do.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bear Honey Magazine podcast. This is a
Speaker 1: this is a pretty special day for me to get
Speaker 1: to sit with uh a man that really has had
Speaker 1: quite a bit influence in my life the last few
Speaker 1: years through hounds, and that's Steve Heard and he's got
Speaker 1: with his son Colton Heard. Um we are we're at
Speaker 1: a truck stop not far from Stillwell Water, Still Water, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and uh we live about six hours apart, and UH,
Speaker 1: I was gonna come all the way to see it,
Speaker 1: and he said, Steve said, well I'll meet you. So
Speaker 1: that's what we did. But I'll give a little introduction Steve,
Speaker 1: with my history with you. That what we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about, um, and then I'm just gonna turn it
Speaker 1: over to you and you can just talk all you
Speaker 1: want for two hours. Now. Now, Steve, Steve heard is
Speaker 1: A is a and this is the truth. A legendary
Speaker 1: iconic Plot breeder. He and his dad. His father's passed away.
Speaker 1: But Steve, Steve's how old are you? Steve six seventy
Speaker 1: years old? Okay, Steve seventy years old. Steve has been
Speaker 1: And this is what we're gonna get into, is your
Speaker 1: history with Plot big game hounds. UM. But uh, the
Speaker 1: breed strain of Bluff Creek Plot is what Stephen Colton
Speaker 1: have have perpetuated. Yes, it's a family line of dogs.
Speaker 1: And let me just give a little bit of a
Speaker 1: little bit of context for people who may not understand
Speaker 1: big game Hounds or may not even understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: But so the Plot hound is a is a u
Speaker 1: k C registered breed of hound. UM. And but inside
Speaker 1: of this breed there's different strains. There's many different strains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so and so like big game hunters, coon hunters,
Speaker 1: hog hunters. You would know if your plot man, you
Speaker 1: would know, you know what strain is better for what
Speaker 1: for what right and and and there would be like
Speaker 1: these household names like Bluff Creek and and where we
Speaker 1: kind of varied off most people was so many people
Speaker 1: were breeding straightly for bear, strictly for hoges. I would
Speaker 1: name names, but I won't yet or or you know,
Speaker 1: or or strictly for night champion coon dogs. And we
Speaker 1: believed still do that you can take a really well
Speaker 1: bred dog if it's bread right and you and you
Speaker 1: give them the opportunities. We believe that a well bred
Speaker 1: dog can be used on all game, and we have
Speaker 1: the dogs to prove it. And a lot of people do. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not the only ones. But I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that that some people believe that when I bread
Speaker 1: grand night champion dogs into my bear dogs, that I
Speaker 1: would lose some bear qualities. And what I did was
Speaker 1: I increased a lot of the qualities of intelligence and
Speaker 1: locating that people had lost by breeding only for bear
Speaker 1: or only for hoges. And and and when you on
Speaker 1: once again in cats in the mountains, are in Bobcats.
Speaker 1: Anywhere you you need a locating building and a lot
Speaker 1: of people have bread that out and we intentionally use
Speaker 1: the intelligence and the locating ability to to solidify our
Speaker 1: strain and make it make it so that people everfore
Speaker 1: we're looking for can And also, you know, people call
Speaker 1: me for hog dog, we have them. If you want
Speaker 1: a cat dog I had, you know, we've had them
Speaker 1: and our bear dog. Yes, I mean, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that other strange don't. But we but
Speaker 1: we specialized in having dogs that could you could just
Speaker 1: turn loose. And people say, well, how did you do
Speaker 1: you tell that dog when you go to Bearer Country
Speaker 1: that that that's what you're supposed to run? For some reason,
Speaker 1: we've been really lucky or something, and we go hog
Speaker 1: hunt country, we run hogs. If we go to Bearer country,
Speaker 1: we run bear We go coon hunting out a U k.
Speaker 1: C Hunt, we hunt coon. So and it's maybe it's
Speaker 1: intelligence again. Well, we let me give a little bit
Speaker 1: of context too of of how I know you Okay,
Speaker 1: four years ago I think so, Well, it was about
Speaker 1: four years ago we started to do the legendary Bearhound
Speaker 1: series and Barony magazine. You were the first one, Steve.
Speaker 1: Somebody told me, well, I saw a picture of bear
Speaker 1: Path Gunner. Uh somewhere. It wasn't in the magazine. I
Speaker 1: think it was on social media and uh. And it
Speaker 1: was just this beautiful picture of this big plot dot
Speaker 1: well not a big plot dog, beautiful plot dog with
Speaker 1: a big bear. And somebody said, this is a legendary dog.
Speaker 1: And I I said, man, I'd like to write an
Speaker 1: article about that dog. I didn't know that dog from Adam,
Speaker 1: not from Adam. I've sent a few messages and I said,
Speaker 1: do y'all know anything about this bear Path Gunner dog?
Speaker 1: And four people at the same time, said Steve Hert.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like messages coming in from every direction.
Speaker 1: And uh. And somebody gave me your phone number. I
Speaker 1: called you. I said, I'd like to write an article
Speaker 1: about this dog. I want to say that since that time,
Speaker 1: the Legendary Bearhound series in our magazine has been highly successful.
Speaker 1: Fantasy I think we've done twenty six articles. Uh so
Speaker 1: I think we're on twenty six right now. But so
Speaker 1: let's let's just start right there. And Colton, I want
Speaker 1: you to jump into because you've been around these dogs
Speaker 1: your whole life. And uh, um, but we can well okay,
Speaker 1: then I'm getting ahead of myself yourself. He he. We
Speaker 1: wrote this article, I got to know you, and uh
Speaker 1: two or three months after the article came out, we
Speaker 1: were looking for a dog, and honestly, we weren't even
Speaker 1: looking for a hunting dog. It was just the kids
Speaker 1: were of age. We hadn't had a dog in several years,
Speaker 1: and I thought, man, it'd be cool just to have
Speaker 1: just a hound dog that could just be our pet,
Speaker 1: because I'm an old coon hunter. But I had been
Speaker 1: out of coon hunting for twenty years. I really had
Speaker 1: and had no plans of getting back into it. Um.
Speaker 1: I called you, said, Steve, I'm looking for a dog
Speaker 1: that we could just I mean, I don't even know
Speaker 1: why I called you, because it was stupid to call you,
Speaker 1: because you don't you don't give You don't sell dogs
Speaker 1: of people that don't really hunt. These aren't pets. But
Speaker 1: I called you and you said, man, will you tell
Speaker 1: me what you said? Well, you you told me what
Speaker 1: that you were looking for. And I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: you have kids, and and I'm I just love it.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is how some people get
Speaker 1: a dog. For me, is that they have young kids
Speaker 1: and they're wanting those kids to see something for real
Speaker 1: for the first time maybe. And so I decided, you
Speaker 1: know what, I had a really well bred puff and
Speaker 1: I knew how what this pup probably do on Okay,
Speaker 1: should have went to a bear hunter, probably, but I
Speaker 1: just kind of knew what this was gonna do. And
Speaker 1: she was kind of a leftover from litter. She was
Speaker 1: six months old, but she was already doing the right stuff.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know what, I have one. I
Speaker 1: have one right here, and I'm just gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and move you up on the list and let you
Speaker 1: you know, if you want this this dog, will you
Speaker 1: meet me and and we'll you know, we'll meet and
Speaker 1: you take this dog. And I think she's going to
Speaker 1: be exactly what you're looking for, not only as a
Speaker 1: friend for the family, but also as one of the
Speaker 1: best hunting dogs that you've seen. Well, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you what I tell everybody, Steve, at that time,
Speaker 1: I hardly knew you. Okay, this is several years ago,
Speaker 1: and we met you and Colton was there, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Randy was there and Uh, here's this little you know,
Speaker 1: skinny plot dog six months old and you told me,
Speaker 1: you told me everything that that dog would be doing,
Speaker 1: and when it would be doing it. You were like,
Speaker 1: nine months old. It's gonna start doing this and this
Speaker 1: and this, and you're gonna have to run it with
Speaker 1: pretty good coon dogs or it's gonna it's it's gonna
Speaker 1: do under the tree. You're gonna have to and and
Speaker 1: I walked away, and I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I said, if this dog does half of what Steve
Speaker 1: heard said it's gonna do, I'm gonna be happy. And
Speaker 1: I mean to the day that dog did everything that
Speaker 1: you said and let me just jump to the chase.
Speaker 1: It became to us a legendary hound. Ferns five years old. Now,
Speaker 1: wells should be five and November it should be five.
Speaker 1: And November we started hunting her. We hunted her a
Speaker 1: hundred knights the first uh. And again we weren't even
Speaker 1: looking for a coon dog. It was just like we
Speaker 1: started hunting and the kids started loving it, and Fern
Speaker 1: was tree and coons and doing good stuff and we
Speaker 1: just had the time of our life. And it, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, really, my kids will never forget that when
Speaker 1: when we went from the time she was uh nine
Speaker 1: months old till the time she was about two years old,
Speaker 1: we just hunted the hair off of her. Here, here's
Speaker 1: what I was trying to costion you. If you go
Speaker 1: hunting with somebody that has other breeds of dogs and
Speaker 1: little Fern opens first, or a plothhound opens first, a
Speaker 1: lot of people immediately say the pups gotta be running trash.
Speaker 1: But you know what that they she was bred to
Speaker 1: have a better nose than those other dogs. She just
Speaker 1: simply was and and and and and also she was
Speaker 1: read to be independent. She was read just to not
Speaker 1: have to have somebody show her how to start to
Speaker 1: do something. She was She was just naturally. Everything is
Speaker 1: supposed to be natural. And that's reason I've never owned
Speaker 1: a shocking color. I've never shot. We don't shock our dogs,
Speaker 1: and we want everything to be natural. If you have
Speaker 1: to shock them off of this and shock him off this,
Speaker 1: then the next puppies that they have, you're shocked them
Speaker 1: off and shocked them off. So we just let them
Speaker 1: do natural training and it worked. It's still working. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this since. You know, if you want
Speaker 1: to back up sixty six years. Now, Well, that's a
Speaker 1: great place to start. So I've told my story. Tell
Speaker 1: me about your history with Buff Creek. Po Okay. We're
Speaker 1: sitting there in the house and Dad got a True
Speaker 1: magazine and in it was a story called the the
Speaker 1: Hounds of Plot Valley, and my dad sit down and
Speaker 1: read this this thing. He was just so intrigued. And
Speaker 1: then he's tried to read it to my mom and
Speaker 1: she was, uh, huh, yeah, how she was doing the
Speaker 1: dices or whatever. But I, with my big ears, I
Speaker 1: was sitting there just thinking, oh my gosh, I love
Speaker 1: these stories. A dog that has the nose of bloodhound,
Speaker 1: the speed of a grayhound, the grid of of a
Speaker 1: of a pit bull, the intelligence of a colleague. This
Speaker 1: is what they actually said, you know. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that they were all exaggerations, but but so much more.
Speaker 1: And Dad said, I've got to have one. I've got
Speaker 1: to have one of My mom said yeah, sure, and
Speaker 1: so so he was just he just had to have him.
Speaker 1: So there was two. There was two Plot Hounds for
Speaker 1: sale locally, and Dad went about both of them, and
Speaker 1: both of them were decent dogs, but they still weren't
Speaker 1: quite what he was looking for So he started writing
Speaker 1: letters to people in North Carolina, Arkansas, Uh, any place
Speaker 1: in there where may be there might be some kind
Speaker 1: of Plot influence. Well, he just put a man's name,
Speaker 1: you know, Clyde Chiller, Cody that here, and and and
Speaker 1: and a town, no zip code, no nothing. But we we
Speaker 1: didn't happen back then, okay. Well, most of the letters
Speaker 1: were returned, but sometimes he would get a letter back.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden he started hearing from some
Speaker 1: of those old people Rags Nichols, and some of those
Speaker 1: old Clyde Burnett and some of those old timers that
Speaker 1: were part of the Plot family either through lineage, you know,
Speaker 1: through being cousins or whatever, or had got some of
Speaker 1: the early stock. So Dad said what he was looking for,
Speaker 1: he wanted a true plotoun Okay. So after cutting through
Speaker 1: the chief and what year would this have been? This
Speaker 1: this would have been nineteen spring of fifty do probably okay?
Speaker 1: And I would have been four years old, okay. And
Speaker 1: so finally he found out what he wanted. He wanted
Speaker 1: the bloodline of smoke in Cubby, which would have been
Speaker 1: like Smiths, North Carolina, Tom or Nickel Stormy. But then
Speaker 1: on the bottom side, he wanted plots Fanny and at
Speaker 1: a lady plot because all good dogs at the time
Speaker 1: that that the super dogs went back to lady plot. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: at this time to plots just became uk C registered.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, forty seven I was borning for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so this is kind of like a new breed
Speaker 1: of But they were established in the in the southern
Speaker 1: Appalachians in North Carolina. They had a terrible reputation other
Speaker 1: places around the states because people were reading brittle dogs
Speaker 1: that had no plot let in them and sending them
Speaker 1: off his plotound trying trying to Okay, So anyway, Dad,
Speaker 1: The main thing that that Dad learned, and the main
Speaker 1: thing that I got up picked up then and still
Speaker 1: carry with me now is don't don't don't take the phonies.
Speaker 1: Make sure make sure that what you get is the
Speaker 1: real true plotoun So they said, well, what pedigree are
Speaker 1: you looking for? I mean, he asked them, what should
Speaker 1: I be looking for it? They told him. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he opens up Full Crime magazine. There's
Speaker 1: a little bit ad in there from Rube Rosander from
Speaker 1: from New Mexico, and it says one one plot mail
Speaker 1: fifteen months old, I believe, rear Grand Chief, and then
Speaker 1: one plot female rear Grand Trouble, her sire North Carolina,
Speaker 1: Tom her mother plots Fanning, and my dad just, oh
Speaker 1: my god, oh my god. So he had some surplus
Speaker 1: World War two weapons, him and him and a cousin,
Speaker 1: and they sold those and immediately sent sixty dollars and
Speaker 1: fifty cents or whatever it was down at to buy
Speaker 1: those two dogs. Okay, and within about two weeks I
Speaker 1: was there, walked out of the house and Dad had
Speaker 1: just got back from the train station in Protection, Kansas,
Speaker 1: and two big heavy wooden crates set him on the
Speaker 1: ground and out step for real, like from where the
Speaker 1: red fern grows, exactly an out step rear Grand Trouble
Speaker 1: into my heart started founding, Oh my god, I've never
Speaker 1: seen a dog that looked like that. Look at this thing.
Speaker 1: And if you see the pictures you understand what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about hand right then was was the start that
Speaker 1: day was a startup. So we took her hunting by herself.
Speaker 1: The male dog would not hardly run it. He was
Speaker 1: wells bred, and he would not hardly run a coon
Speaker 1: at all, okay, a raccoon. And but we took Trouble
Speaker 1: by ourself and she went up the creek that took me.
Speaker 1: I followed with him right there where you live, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: right out right on Bluff Creek. And she went straight
Speaker 1: up Bluff Creek, had a track, ran a coon down,
Speaker 1: went the hole, got it, pulled it up, killed it,
Speaker 1: just just like that. Dad said, Yep, that's what they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do that. That's what he's supposed to That's
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do right there. So so and
Speaker 1: on that day and Bluff Creek plots where yeah, they
Speaker 1: were steff and he used the name Herds for the
Speaker 1: first for the first three letters, and then he thought
Speaker 1: it would just be kind of cool. We lived on
Speaker 1: Bluff Creek, so he changed some by Bluff Creek by
Speaker 1: Ozark Chief to Trouble Letter, Bluff Greek Drive, Bluff Greek
Speaker 1: Cindy Sue, Bluff Creek Leader. You know all those dogs
Speaker 1: okay on that letter. So so and uh we had
Speaker 1: and said where you're Protection cans is, Maybe we have already.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a losing track of you. You guys live
Speaker 1: in Protection, Kansas, So Bluff Creek is in Kansas. Oh
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh yeah, it just comes around on the
Speaker 1: west side of Protection, Kansas and it goes right through
Speaker 1: our farm. Uh. If you have a real good arm,
Speaker 1: you can throw a baseball from my house into Bluff Creek, Okay.
Speaker 1: And and all of our pups, every pup that we've
Speaker 1: ever had, including Fern and Bold and all that letter
Speaker 1: and every pup we've ever had, including when I was little,
Speaker 1: my dad would let me take the pup that we had,
Speaker 1: puffs running loose, and when we would take a twenty
Speaker 1: two single shot rifle my brother Stanley and go down
Speaker 1: and sometimes three raccoons in the middle of afternoon with
Speaker 1: those block pups, you know, and we shoot it out
Speaker 1: to him and dragged home by the tail, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they weighed ten pounds or seven or something. But
Speaker 1: so that but we've always been right there. And and
Speaker 1: so your dad was wanting to get these dogs for
Speaker 1: what well, because he was he was coon hunting dogs
Speaker 1: from from Missouri. And they were high tan dogs. Okay,
Speaker 1: they were black saddle with black with with with yellow
Speaker 1: trim Okay, buckskin trim buck and Lady was their name.
Speaker 1: So he but he wanted that. But he also because
Speaker 1: they were bare bread, he wanted to sin puffs, sell pups.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody got a little everybody that farm back,
Speaker 1: they need a little extra money. And so he wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to sellpups. He was hunter, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh he could hunt it hard. But from the beginning
Speaker 1: he had in his mind that he wanted to send
Speaker 1: But but I hate to even tell this, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you. My dad was invited by from people
Speaker 1: from Washington and from North Carolina and all everybody has
Speaker 1: always invited to go bear hunting. And he never got
Speaker 1: to leave the farm to go want bear hunting one
Speaker 1: single time. But in nineteen fifty he bread trouble in
Speaker 1: the in the spring, thinking the fall anyway, he read
Speaker 1: the first the first time he bread to to to
Speaker 1: the chief dog, and those pups were mediocre to have
Speaker 1: fair dogs. And he sent them maybe to Nebraska places
Speaker 1: and have made really good coon dog. But then then
Speaker 1: from then on he started breeding for bear dogs. And
Speaker 1: he bread to Owen's heavy to Ozark Chief and to
Speaker 1: hurt Smoky, and and all those pups went to bear country.
Speaker 1: And Dad, I mean, it's funny people from Kentucky and
Speaker 1: from Tennessee and from North Carolina. We're buying pups from
Speaker 1: Kansas to go bear hunting with. And we always thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of odd, but but Dad had the blood.
Speaker 1: Dad had that that special. So was that the first
Speaker 1: litter that the dogs started excelling on big games? Oh,
Speaker 1: just immediately and once again he read a big Creek lady. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those dogs went to Michigan and places and and they
Speaker 1: were they were way above average quality. But Dad was
Speaker 1: looking for something. He wanted those dogs like like in
Speaker 1: that magazine Arcle. He wanted to be fat, colder nose, faster,
Speaker 1: harder treers, harder fighter. He wanted the epitome of what
Speaker 1: a plotoun should be. And when he read Ozark Chief,
Speaker 1: obviously I think that would have been the third cross
Speaker 1: heard Smoky. Those dogs went up to to to Washington
Speaker 1: State place like that, and they all excel. Landry's Captain
Speaker 1: kid was one of those, and they became his Dad's
Speaker 1: reputation started growing immediately with because people say, this is
Speaker 1: the best dog I've ever seen in my life. And
Speaker 1: Toby Harroll up there in the best bear hunter at
Speaker 1: that time in Washington State. Was he bought two or
Speaker 1: three of and he said, these are these are better
Speaker 1: than anybody else has he said. I went down to
Speaker 1: I drove the natural. But when we get into the
Speaker 1: breeding article later, I have some more, some deep, deep
Speaker 1: theories about why that they. I mean, if if you
Speaker 1: want to stack a gold you can't go get a
Speaker 1: bunch of red bricks and then paint them gold. You
Speaker 1: have to keep stacking gold to make a gold stack.
Speaker 1: I mean you you, if you ever, if you ever
Speaker 1: lose even one generation of that strain that you're working on,
Speaker 1: then then it's so hard to try to go back
Speaker 1: because you can't find it. We nobody in this day
Speaker 1: and age has the time or the patience or maybe
Speaker 1: the ability to start a brand new breed of dog.
Speaker 1: And so we we're relying clear back on those guys
Speaker 1: from the forties, back in the thirties and the forties,
Speaker 1: that that that lived in those mountains and bread those dogs,
Speaker 1: and they didn't keep cold. They couldn't afford to feed
Speaker 1: it up. They could not afford defeated us. So they
Speaker 1: kept the very best and they bread to the very best,
Speaker 1: and they had to walk over the mountain, they would
Speaker 1: do it. And if those puffs didn't turn out, you
Speaker 1: know what they did, they got rid of See what
Speaker 1: I'm saying so, so by ninety seven they had they
Speaker 1: had they had built twelve dogs. That's what the old
Speaker 1: timers would say that there was about twelve dogs that
Speaker 1: were the epitome of anything that plot had ever been
Speaker 1: or would ever be. Okay, And and certain people caught
Speaker 1: right on Cliburnett kind of started a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Hacks deal caught on every Willams caught on. My dad
Speaker 1: caught on that if you would breed just a very
Speaker 1: tight circle around those very very very best dogs, that
Speaker 1: you could always have that kind of that caliber dog.
Speaker 1: But if you let down your standards and bread to
Speaker 1: something lower, so go ahead. The the the problem is
Speaker 1: is that people you would think, i mean someone that
Speaker 1: knew nothing about big game dogs would just think that, oh,
Speaker 1: you got a bared dog, well, it's gonna produce a
Speaker 1: bared dog. But that's not that true. I mean, even
Speaker 1: inside of good lines of bare dogs, you still have
Speaker 1: a lot of misses. Well, you want as consistency, and
Speaker 1: that's one thing that you guys have that found is
Speaker 1: how to consistently produce dogs. Is that right? Yeah, exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: And And and the funny thing is Dad Dad was
Speaker 1: one of the Dad and Ever were every Williams, where
Speaker 1: two of the people that went and went against the green,
Speaker 1: the big breeders back then. We're trying to tell you
Speaker 1: make sure that you bread unrelated dogs. Well immediately you
Speaker 1: and I I don't know whether it than to mention
Speaker 1: you know, some of the old timers or not, but
Speaker 1: but there were certain people that had as good a
Speaker 1: bloodlines as what Dad had Ever had, or Clamburnett had
Speaker 1: or or or Rags Nichols had, but they immediately would
Speaker 1: breed that line to something that was not related, and
Speaker 1: immediately immediately they lost even inside of breeding it to
Speaker 1: a good dog. That's what you're saying that if the
Speaker 1: dog could walk on water, puppies are still gonna see.
Speaker 1: That's not intuitive, like you wouldn't. So you're saying breaking
Speaker 1: outside of those family lines even in the same Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just can't do it. You're just you're just it
Speaker 1: a man from Sweden that that doesn't really believe in
Speaker 1: the line breeding stuff. You might end up get to
Speaker 1: hear this, jan If you hear this, Um, he didn't
Speaker 1: really believe in the line breeding, but he but they
Speaker 1: said to be to become prepotent, which means that you
Speaker 1: produced way above the normal of the breed. Uh that
Speaker 1: he wants somebody wanted to. Has there ever been a
Speaker 1: prepotent dog that was not tightly bred? And no, there's no.
Speaker 1: It has to be in order to to produce the
Speaker 1: Morgan horse breed JP Morgan. They in order to they
Speaker 1: had this one horse that was perfect. Well, the only
Speaker 1: way that they could reproduce him was to breed him
Speaker 1: to his sister and then breathe that daughter back to
Speaker 1: the stallion. And they intensely bred for a Morgan horse
Speaker 1: from one horse. They just kept rereading right around closer,
Speaker 1: and and that's how they built a Morgan breed. Well,
Speaker 1: the best to the Plothhouns were built built, say bread,
Speaker 1: the same way. And I found out, you know, talking
Speaker 1: to old Plot family friends years and years and years ago.
Speaker 1: The Plot family would bring a brother to a sister
Speaker 1: or a dad to his daughter just immediately, and they
Speaker 1: did it a lot, but they sometimes didn't exactly tell
Speaker 1: it that way, you know what I'm saying. I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes they acted like they didn't They didn't lie, they
Speaker 1: just didn't have the actual names. N you didn't know
Speaker 1: they were brother and sister. So yeah, but well but
Speaker 1: the only way to establish a strain and to hang
Speaker 1: onto a straight right. Now, we you know, we just
Speaker 1: go out there in our yard. We can breed any
Speaker 1: dog in our yard to any dog in our yard,
Speaker 1: and we don't feel one bit ashamed of doing it.
Speaker 1: And you've been doing it for sixty years, and we've
Speaker 1: been doing and it's not and we know what it's producing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I have pictures in here of of
Speaker 1: dog meetings and I brought them along intentionally just because
Speaker 1: so you see something here and and I somebody says,
Speaker 1: what's the best what's the best cross you ever made? Well,
Speaker 1: Bouncer to Donnath do this and that was one of
Speaker 1: my best. And then Bouncer to Sue, and then Candy
Speaker 1: to Brigg and then it just goes on and on
Speaker 1: and on. But once again, it's just the same dogs
Speaker 1: all over doing just just you know, turning just the
Speaker 1: same field. We just keep turning it over, planting a
Speaker 1: new crop. I mean, we want well, hey, before we
Speaker 1: get too far down that pretty let's go back to
Speaker 1: the history of Bluff Creek. And what I'm interested in
Speaker 1: is at what point did did you guys and people
Speaker 1: begin to realize that or what point did Bluff Creek
Speaker 1: begin to have a lot of successful big game and
Speaker 1: lead me into bear Path Gunner. Okay, okay, okay, So gosh,
Speaker 1: I get to think a minute. You can edit some
Speaker 1: of this stuff, right, Okay. So Dad sold Bluff Creek
Speaker 1: Drive to a man in Cherry Belle, Kansas. That man
Speaker 1: sent drive to his uncle. You can't holme in to
Speaker 1: all this because it's been a while, but he sent
Speaker 1: it to his uncle who lived just west of Salem, Illinois,
Speaker 1: where EVERYT Williams lived. EVERT Williams had already bred up
Speaker 1: his strain of dogs for about three generations, and he
Speaker 1: had Williams Blott Susie who was out of Nickel Stormy
Speaker 1: and the Plots Fannie bloodline, the same thing as Trouble was.
Speaker 1: So he had Suddenly he was looking for a male dog,
Speaker 1: and he was as particular as any other human being
Speaker 1: has ever been looking for a certain male dog. Tom
Speaker 1: Telford happened to be over there and saw this dog
Speaker 1: Bluff Creek Drive, okay, and he said, ever, I found
Speaker 1: a dog, so let's go. So they went over and
Speaker 1: looked the dog, and I have a picture of every
Speaker 1: standard front the dough and this was the epitome of
Speaker 1: what a plotoun should looked like. And Edwards saw the pedigree,
Speaker 1: he said, oh my god, this is the perfect dog
Speaker 1: right here. This is exactly what I'm looking for. So
Speaker 1: he took him home with him and bred Susie, and
Speaker 1: it produced a litter of pups that is can still
Speaker 1: considered by most people who already know as the greatest
Speaker 1: litter of plot pups ever born. Okay, and that would
Speaker 1: be a weimsplot John Welliamsplot Chap Iron Mountain, Moon Cascade, Candy,
Speaker 1: four hundred bear Kills uh uh uh, Mr Roks and
Speaker 1: Nancy Female um of Ursus beams Blot, Jody. The entire
Speaker 1: litter became famous just bear dogs, I mean the best
Speaker 1: bear dogs anywhere from from from one cross. And so
Speaker 1: those that letter went out and a lot of other
Speaker 1: strains were developed. The Earth's Strange started with Jody. The
Speaker 1: Weems Strange started with that. Dennis Paul since Iron Mount
Speaker 1: Strange started with that cross. Mr Marks Strange start with
Speaker 1: that cross. And Burton the Burton Boys, Penny Female, their
Speaker 1: whole line started with that with up from that cross.
Speaker 1: So a little bit later it was decided by Dennis
Speaker 1: Paulson and a few people that in order to try
Speaker 1: to reproduce that the quality of that litter, you need
Speaker 1: to take two people, two litters mates from that litter
Speaker 1: and and and have the image like the grandparents or something. Okay.
Speaker 1: So this is when I kind of came in and
Speaker 1: I knew exactly, just like my dad knew what he
Speaker 1: was looking for, I knew exactly what I was looking for.
Speaker 1: I had the weems John dogs. How what's the time
Speaker 1: frame here? How old would you have been? Well, I
Speaker 1: was the last time we talked for years old? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I yah. Once again, I'm just I'm just following because
Speaker 1: I didn't have any input whatsoever. Okay. And then when
Speaker 1: I got out of college, I graduated and called it
Speaker 1: in sixty eight, and then I went I was married
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then by about nineteen seventy I started
Speaker 1: coon hunting and I found I got dogs that were
Speaker 1: just nothing. I mean, there were plots, they were brintle,
Speaker 1: they were brindle dog, and they were they just weren't
Speaker 1: worth not a gallon of dog food. They just weren't.
Speaker 1: So Dad said, Steve, I'm gonna help you out. So
Speaker 1: he called every said, ever, what do you have and
Speaker 1: every so well, I got a pup up here, he's
Speaker 1: out of your dogs on top and your dogs on
Speaker 1: the bottom. Got iron mountain moon on the bottom, coal
Speaker 1: creek bouncer that dad had raised the mom of and
Speaker 1: ween slot John out of Bluff Creek drive on top.
Speaker 1: So I'll send that pup. So he sent that pup
Speaker 1: down to me. And that was the Judd dog that
Speaker 1: i've this kind of famous from ripping the front of the
Speaker 1: the of the of the the doghouse off and dragging
Speaker 1: it to the creek. And I started hunting him, and
Speaker 1: no I didn't I turn him to loos and I
Speaker 1: followed him through the woods and heat. I had treated
Speaker 1: like six coons that fall until I got him. And
Speaker 1: once he broke off the front of the doghouse and
Speaker 1: treat those five cons, then he treated ninety three more
Speaker 1: coons in a like forty five days, he by himself.
Speaker 1: You gotta tell us the story of them ripping the
Speaker 1: dog box. I know exactly. But but but okay, so
Speaker 1: right there, right there, I laying on the floor, I
Speaker 1: had this great big Somebody sent me the big long pedigh.
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford it. Somebody sent me the big long pedigree.
Speaker 1: I think Dennis Balls of this of this cross, and
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, this is the most incredible dog that
Speaker 1: I have ever witnessed in my life. This is what
Speaker 1: the Plot family was breeding for. This is what every
Speaker 1: Plot hoound should be. This this extreme intense dog that
Speaker 1: could be could be treeing on a tree with electric
Speaker 1: fence tied to it, and it would knock him in
Speaker 1: the water five to six times, and he would get
Speaker 1: up and continue tree and it would knock him in
Speaker 1: the water. He was in the water, and and all
Speaker 1: the other dogs were in to pick up because they
Speaker 1: couldn't stand that that kind of pressure. And he would
Speaker 1: not leave that tree. And I thought, somehow, the rest
Speaker 1: of my life I have to dedicate this nineteen seventy one. Somehow,
Speaker 1: the rest of my life I have to dedicate myself
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna keep these dogs to breeding dogs exactly
Speaker 1: like that dog. So he was. And by the way,
Speaker 1: by now my dad is kind of stepped back. He
Speaker 1: has done his job. He bought me that dog. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's my it's my decision to to breed around Judge.
Speaker 1: So Judge Daddy was Weamsplot dog. By ways Plot John,
Speaker 1: his mother was Iron Mountain Cricket by Cold Creek Bouncer
Speaker 1: who was mother was Tracy Cindy Sue, who was litermatee
Speaker 1: to Left Creek Drug. Okay, so I yes, he's certainly
Speaker 1: the story. He's heard these stories so many times. He'll
Speaker 1: get taught pretty soon because we'll have him tell you
Speaker 1: how he picked out his his start up his dogs, Okay,
Speaker 1: and he did really well. Okay, So so I took,
Speaker 1: I took. I had wayams plot John on the bottom.
Speaker 1: So I looked and looked and looked, and I found
Speaker 1: an ugly old dog in West Virginia named being something
Speaker 1: Carpenter's Ben, and I traded a little trading and I
Speaker 1: ended up getting him. And he was ugly little dog,
Speaker 1: but he was bred better than any other dog in
Speaker 1: the world at the time as far as the plodhounds concern.
Speaker 1: And he was at a Grand Night Champion Colt Creek Bouncer,
Speaker 1: Grand Knot Champion, Iron Mountain. Moon Moon's daddy was Bluff
Speaker 1: Creek Drive. Bouncer's mother was Tracy Sidy Sue. That was
Speaker 1: the first cousin to first cousin, you know, cross right there.
Speaker 1: So I took him and bred him to those two two.
Speaker 1: I had to Williams plot John female and immediately, immediately,
Speaker 1: first thing thing I did, I got very path Gunner,
Speaker 1: all heart Millie, all those dogs from that limb, and
Speaker 1: I got I got Bluff Creek. They came out of
Speaker 1: that cross. They come out of that cross. Because that
Speaker 1: and that's all I had to do. All I had
Speaker 1: to do was look at that set of papers. And
Speaker 1: all I had to do was duplicate. If I had
Speaker 1: paper and find me, I'd write for you. All I
Speaker 1: had to do was duplicate judge pedigree by flip flopping
Speaker 1: it and used I used answer and cricket, we're brother
Speaker 1: and sister, okay, And then I put Williams pluck John
Speaker 1: in there. And just like they said to do. So
Speaker 1: that litter is what produced barre path Gunner. That's that's fun.
Speaker 1: And that's my first shot. That was my first attempt.
Speaker 1: What year was one, I think nineteen seventy one. And
Speaker 1: here I am a little otle kid down here in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: young guy, you know, thirty years old or whatever it
Speaker 1: was forty eight plus anyway, and and uh I sent,
Speaker 1: and I sent when I said, okay, Woody, would we
Speaker 1: got a hold of me said, hey, hold on, let
Speaker 1: me stop you right there. We gotta go back. You
Speaker 1: said something that you got to tell, at least the
Speaker 1: short version of the story of this dog ripping off
Speaker 1: the dog box and going and treeing. Okay, Okay. When
Speaker 1: I got Judd, I had three females. When I had
Speaker 1: three females, and they were daughters and granddaughters of some
Speaker 1: extremely highly advertised dogs coon dogs. Okay, but they didn't
Speaker 1: have the Smith deal dogs in it. They didn't have
Speaker 1: all that stuff in there. And the truth is I
Speaker 1: wanted to hunt. I had a seven cell Texan flashlight
Speaker 1: that I carried and twenty two rifle that I carried,
Speaker 1: and I wanted I really wanted a good dog. So
Speaker 1: they bought me this. Think. Well, I get Jud, I
Speaker 1: go to which tall and every every weeam sent him.
Speaker 1: Dad paid for a hundred dollars a hundred fidget doll
Speaker 1: So I got to which to drive up to, which
Speaker 1: to go in the big which to International Airport? And
Speaker 1: there's a dog baying back there. What the hell? What
Speaker 1: the heck? So I go. So I walked back down
Speaker 1: there and there's this brintal dog, just wild eyed and
Speaker 1: kind of I would have to say crazy okay, and
Speaker 1: I said, my name's on the creek Steve heard. I said, like,
Speaker 1: I said, my dog, And I said, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And they said, well, said somebody was shipping out a
Speaker 1: bunch of cats and they were over here in these
Speaker 1: other crates, and said that ever since that dog got here,
Speaker 1: he'd been smelling those cats and he has not shut
Speaker 1: up one time. I thought, well, you think better. I
Speaker 1: think that might be a good deal, and I I did.
Speaker 1: I had a leash with me, and did he mean? He?
Speaker 1: He took off running and janked me down and drugged
Speaker 1: me around looking for those cats. He wanted those cats.
Speaker 1: So I take this puff home. He's nine months old,
Speaker 1: so I take him home, or he might have been
Speaker 1: eight by that. I take him home and I put
Speaker 1: him on this great, big old doghouse. Well, if a
Speaker 1: squirrel goes by, or a cat roes bite, or another
Speaker 1: dog or a bird, you know, oh my gosh, hold on,
Speaker 1: this is my son, Brandon. Brandon, how are you doing doing? Brother?
Speaker 1: Get we're talking about joke. Yeah, have a seat, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: we go there, we go. Okay, So he's too wild,
Speaker 1: I said, Dad's got a hundred and fifty invested, and
Speaker 1: this was pretty good money back then, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't just turn him loose, and you know,
Speaker 1: go go go come up with him. Something's gonna happen
Speaker 1: to So for about two weeks I hunted those females
Speaker 1: and I couldn't. I could treat coon, but I had
Speaker 1: to do with my flashlight to do it. So my wife,
Speaker 1: uh Brandon's mom, hauled me a mile north and I
Speaker 1: took the three females and I'm walking down the creek
Speaker 1: with my seven cell and my flashlight, I mean, and
Speaker 1: my gun and walk a little way, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I hear a dog treat and I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't mean marking, I'm talking tree tree treat. So
Speaker 1: I get I started. I kind of speed things up,
Speaker 1: and pretty soon the females quit walking with me and
Speaker 1: went down there at the tree. And of course they
Speaker 1: didn't say anything when they got there, and so I
Speaker 1: walk in there and holy cow, not only is there
Speaker 1: some coons in the tree, but there's old Judd there
Speaker 1: and Judge still tied to the front of his doghouse.
Speaker 1: He's still tied to great big a frame. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm talking it was two before is in Plywood. In
Speaker 1: it it weighed twenty pounds itself, just that door, and
Speaker 1: he had he'd he went through some barbed wire fences
Speaker 1: and was treated on this on and this is so
Speaker 1: this is the dog nine months and he's never seen
Speaker 1: a he's never he has never seen he has never seen.
Speaker 1: He you think he winded the coons from fairhouse? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. They came down bluff creed. He went on,
Speaker 1: this is not this is in Pratt, Kansas, Okay. So
Speaker 1: I thought, well, what the hell? And so he's drug
Speaker 1: that you went and treated. I just want to clarify
Speaker 1: just he was. He was chained and he went he
Speaker 1: went from here to those trees, which is two hundred
Speaker 1: yards away, and was treated solid. So with the doghouse
Speaker 1: still tied just to the front, he ripped it off.
Speaker 1: He ripped it off. So so I I unsnapped him.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I drugged the deal and you weren't
Speaker 1: hunting this dog, because so we we went to we
Speaker 1: went down on the neighbors and and we treated more
Speaker 1: coons at night, and then from then on, I just
Speaker 1: walked down the road and just turn him loose, and
Speaker 1: which are ways he would win and wherever way he'd
Speaker 1: stick his nose. Just follow him and he never ever ever,
Speaker 1: he'd never quit. He never missed a night of training
Speaker 1: a coon. You could. You could hunt him at noon.
Speaker 1: You can hunt him at two o'clock in afternoon. We
Speaker 1: can hunt him right now. And if he is alive
Speaker 1: and we'll go tree, you could. He could find them,
Speaker 1: just find them. He could win like that. I hate
Speaker 1: to tell this, but I'm going to when when coon
Speaker 1: highest prides were high, price coon hides price as were high,
Speaker 1: and and I didn't have a lot of money, and
Speaker 1: I would take an aluminum ladder and we would go
Speaker 1: up to actually to Bluff Creek and I would throw
Speaker 1: that over my shoulder and follow him and he would
Speaker 1: tree a coon. He never missed. He just never been.
Speaker 1: And if you tried to bobcat tree. That's why you
Speaker 1: bring a ladder. Yeah, absolutely, tree and the dan tree
Speaker 1: during the day while it came to sleep, and you'd
Speaker 1: get up there and get the coon. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to, but but I did. And it's been
Speaker 1: long enough to subset your limitations is run out, so
Speaker 1: so uh, that's that's during the day. I know that
Speaker 1: that's not illegal, is it? But anyway, and then you
Speaker 1: try to bobcat hunting on on mules, on on horses.
Speaker 1: We did, and you know, and he'd pull off and
Speaker 1: go tree a coon and you'd go ahead and do
Speaker 1: your bobcat hunt. Come back four or five hours later,
Speaker 1: there is solid on that tree, all the bark rubbed
Speaker 1: off of it. And then uh, at fifteen months old,
Speaker 1: I was gonna go to plot days to show them
Speaker 1: what a coon dog was. And we were bobcat hunting
Speaker 1: North Protection, Kansas with my dad, and he he located
Speaker 1: a coon. We took him back up, put him on
Speaker 1: the bubcat track. He hit towtry licks and headed that
Speaker 1: way and we heard him get run over by a car,
Speaker 1: hit by sixty three shivy four or night. He about
Speaker 1: think fifteen eighteen months old, probably eighteen months old, okay,
Speaker 1: and so and so they we took him to vetinary
Speaker 1: at which stall, and they said give him thirty days,
Speaker 1: but he's not ever gonna walk again. And so on
Speaker 1: the thirtieth day, he was laying behind my house and Pratt, Kansas,
Speaker 1: and a cat walked by and he got up for
Speaker 1: the first time in thirty days, got up and tried
Speaker 1: to catch that cat. He drug a leg he had lost,
Speaker 1: he lost his bells, were constantly running and everything. But
Speaker 1: we took him to the vetinaryan and they cut one
Speaker 1: leg completely off, so he was three legged. Part of
Speaker 1: his tail was missing. He dripped stuff. And I took
Speaker 1: him to Illinois. I should know, but I did. I
Speaker 1: took him to Illinois and Everard said, well, I want
Speaker 1: to I want to help that dog. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: let's go. So Evert, me and a whole group of
Speaker 1: guys took one of Everitt's dogs and him and we
Speaker 1: walked away from days at Flora and we treat. We
Speaker 1: struck five coons, treat three coons on the outside, and
Speaker 1: uh and Judd got all the strikes, all the trees,
Speaker 1: and we got back in there and we're sitting around.
Speaker 1: We're sitting around the deal and ever we're shaking his
Speaker 1: head and he said, Fellis, I'm gonna tell you something
Speaker 1: right now. That dog, that three legged dog right there,
Speaker 1: that kind of smells. He said, that is a better
Speaker 1: dog than ninety five percent of the people in Illinois
Speaker 1: have ever seen, have ever seen, said you just no one,
Speaker 1: no one has a dog like that. So once again
Speaker 1: he was. He was the dog that I started, That's yeah.
Speaker 1: And see I had other I had and that was
Speaker 1: d Creek jud yesterday and so so, and I knew
Speaker 1: all I had to do was duplicate his pedigree just
Speaker 1: like a stereo, you know, just like I mean, flip
Speaker 1: something over and then just do it. And that's what
Speaker 1: I did. And that's why I got his sister Sue
Speaker 1: from every whams okay, and same bloodline there. And then
Speaker 1: we then I found on it up in Wyoming and
Speaker 1: she had the Sparlan's Jane and Ween fluted on the
Speaker 1: bottom side. And I knew it would work. I just
Speaker 1: knew it would in tuition already. Okay, So I got
Speaker 1: in that in in that produced Bear Path Gunner. So
Speaker 1: tell us about Bear Path Gunner. Okay. I it's hard
Speaker 1: to talk about bear Peth Gunner without well I just
Speaker 1: now told you the story of Judd. Okay, So, so
Speaker 1: bear Peth Gunner in the bear dog world was what
Speaker 1: Judd was in the condog By the way, I've never
Speaker 1: seen a dog as good as Judge in my entire life.
Speaker 1: My Candy female was it was probably as good as
Speaker 1: a female. But I've never seen a male coon dog
Speaker 1: in my life as a good a judge, I never
Speaker 1: expect to ever see one again. Okay, So when I
Speaker 1: hunted with Gunner, I was so flabbergasted. We we had
Speaker 1: some days, we had nine dogs and yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it is a pup. Yeah. Well he was five and
Speaker 1: a half months old, but he was already doing incredible
Speaker 1: stuff at home. I mean, if some guys come up.
Speaker 1: One night we went coon hunt, and I thought he
Speaker 1: was too young to take five months old because I
Speaker 1: had plenty of young dog. And we put the with
Speaker 1: a coon on the ground that was cold, and when
Speaker 1: we sitting here drink coffee for two hours, and when
Speaker 1: we came out, we couldn't find Gunner or the coon.
Speaker 1: And we went clear out to the barn and he
Speaker 1: had drugged that coon too, about two hundred yards and
Speaker 1: was still fighting him and fighting him and fighting him
Speaker 1: and fighting him and you know, trying to get the
Speaker 1: coon to come back to life so I could kick
Speaker 1: his but you know, and he would stay treated on
Speaker 1: a possum for ever, I mean just forever. So I
Speaker 1: read Dad told me. Dad told me that this dog
Speaker 1: was very special. And when he Dad had him, he
Speaker 1: was born at my Dad's place in protection Cancer was
Speaker 1: right where I live now, okay. And then Dad sent
Speaker 1: him down to me about four and a half months old.
Speaker 1: He was already doing incredible stuff. And so anyway we
Speaker 1: sent him to Idaho, him and and a little female
Speaker 1: named Betty. Uh to what he would be in Bovi
Speaker 1: a lot at home, a bear fell out of the
Speaker 1: tree and crushed Betty on her fourth on her fourth one.
Speaker 1: So I sent him up Billy and Barney, and Billy
Speaker 1: turned out to be the world famous all heart Millie,
Speaker 1: who everybody said was ever been as good as as Gunner. Okay,
Speaker 1: So those two dogs are right there. And then I
Speaker 1: have a picture of him here somewhere. There was one
Speaker 1: more male pupp at home and uh Wood. He sent
Speaker 1: me down four dollars, I think, And I went to
Speaker 1: the owner of him and said, what he wants that dog?
Speaker 1: And here's this check. And the guy said, you can
Speaker 1: take him with you, but you gave me the dog.
Speaker 1: I'm giving you back giving you the check so I
Speaker 1: could use it, you know. So so I went up
Speaker 1: and hunting with him, and we treat bear every day.
Speaker 1: He struck. Nobody could outstrike a bear hunter in Idaho. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was, yeah, but and and what he had some
Speaker 1: health problems, and wood he did not he would not
Speaker 1: get off the road, but he was he would. He
Speaker 1: told you where everything was at. I was a young buck,
Speaker 1: I was a rancher. I was in shape. I knew
Speaker 1: how to shoot. And every day I would stay with
Speaker 1: Woody and we would Gunner would strike and we would
Speaker 1: drop him out. And then pretty soon it was just
Speaker 1: a one dog deal. And Gunner I went talk. We
Speaker 1: were hunting with good dogs out of Idaho, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, out of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, everywhere, and but
Speaker 1: it was just always gonna. It was just always Gunner. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what he would say, Okay, gunners around there fighting
Speaker 1: a bear by himself, take this gun, go down there
Speaker 1: and shoot the bear. I get down there. Gunners completely
Speaker 1: by himself, got this bear, bade up my Becky female
Speaker 1: had split off, and treat them, treat the daughter or
Speaker 1: create a puff or a kitten. What did the heck
Speaker 1: you call him a cub? I was, yeah, I couldn't
Speaker 1: think of it any They split and Becky went and
Speaker 1: treat the cub, and and Gunner bade this thing up.
Speaker 1: And then when I got down with my gun. The
Speaker 1: bear took off running, and then a local farmer picked
Speaker 1: Gunner up off the tree. He treat this female. So
Speaker 1: then the next day we treat a red bear way
Speaker 1: off in the mountains, and Gunny what he said, here,
Speaker 1: take the gun, go in there. If the bear slipped
Speaker 1: six inches, shoot the son of a gun. And I
Speaker 1: was in there forty three minutes before another dog showed up.
Speaker 1: And then I was there that much longer before hunter
Speaker 1: searching up he was, he was that much further. He
Speaker 1: was forty minutes, forty minutes faster than everything. And then
Speaker 1: the next day we we did it again. Becky went
Speaker 1: with him on this next one and we treat, and
Speaker 1: little Brandon was with me and lost a shoe on
Speaker 1: the way in there. He can tell me if he
Speaker 1: was here having to tell you this, right, and uh,
Speaker 1: but he we hunted. I'm we hunted. We hunted. Every day.
Speaker 1: We hunted with from eight dogs to forty dogs. And
Speaker 1: one day, every single day in bear country, one dog
Speaker 1: did all the strike and all the leading, all the treeing,
Speaker 1: all the obeying. One dog. And it was Gunner. It
Speaker 1: was him. And these other dogs were good dogs, but
Speaker 1: they thought you had to trail a bear out and
Speaker 1: gutter just cut across the country to the bear and
Speaker 1: no one found it. Yeah, he got to see Brandon,
Speaker 1: my son, Brandon. Uh, Brandon just showed up. He just
Speaker 1: showed up. And he was with us. He was with
Speaker 1: me when we went into Gunners tree Gunner and Becky
Speaker 1: in there when you had to flip little shoes on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm we're trying to hurry and I'm grabbing him
Speaker 1: by the arm. And Brandon, how old were you eight?
Speaker 1: Let him? Let him have your deal for a second. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was a summer. So I got him by the
Speaker 1: hand and we're running through the woods. He had a
Speaker 1: little bit as but back then and pretty see, said dad.
Speaker 1: And I'm dragging him at the mountain, said he said, Dad.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon I stopped. Said what he said, My shoes
Speaker 1: stuck in the water. Back So I run back down
Speaker 1: there and his little sneaker is stuck in the mud
Speaker 1: down there, and there's water running around it but not
Speaker 1: into it. Pulled me straight out of my shoes, and
Speaker 1: so we we stuck it back. I thought I thought
Speaker 1: bear hunting. I didn't know he meant barefoot, you know.
Speaker 1: And so and so we get to the tree and
Speaker 1: and there's two You can't hear anything underneath three because
Speaker 1: two dogs, Gunner and Becky are so loud that the
Speaker 1: tree and together now there's six dogs. Maybe I was
Speaker 1: lacking oxygen. I don't really remember. So anyway, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try to speed this story up a little bit. But anyway,
Speaker 1: a bear hunter from California on a bear hunter a
Speaker 1: lawyer with a seven millimeter magnum and a scope on.
Speaker 1: He wiped all that Mount St. Helen's dust out the
Speaker 1: end of that scope. You can see. He said, oh,
Speaker 1: I can see's black. And I said, what he said,
Speaker 1: just pullet trigger or not woody, But another guy said,
Speaker 1: just pullet trigger. So he pulls the trigger. The bear
Speaker 1: hits the ground, and the bear is on his back
Speaker 1: and he is fighting dogs. And I an old coold
Speaker 1: hunting trick. There's another big old boy there, and I
Speaker 1: grabbed a branch and we stuck it in the bear's mouth,
Speaker 1: just rammed it in, and then we stood on that
Speaker 1: branch so that the bear would, you know. And then
Speaker 1: somebody come up and popped him one more time. So
Speaker 1: we skinned the bear out, and the whoever was guiding
Speaker 1: the hunt of Orally. It couldn't have been some some
Speaker 1: younger guy. It was either orally or or would he
Speaker 1: because we were with what we yeah, we would What
Speaker 1: do you made that? What he made that, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: very went far, very far in there, So so what
Speaker 1: do he said? Okay, everybody carries something, so okay, let okay,
Speaker 1: so everybody, he said, nobody walks out of here bear handed. Okay,
Speaker 1: no pun intendant on that. Nobody walks out of here
Speaker 1: empty handed. And I look around and I see evidently
Speaker 1: a bare pizzol is worth quite a bit, you know,
Speaker 1: for for wealthy people stirring coffees or whatever. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I thought, well, if that's important,
Speaker 1: I might as well carry that. I might know the
Speaker 1: other parts, the two parts that I had some single
Speaker 1: bells coming out. So I look back and I said, ottah,
Speaker 1: mountain oysters. He said what he said, everybody had to
Speaker 1: carry something, so he So that's been That's been my
Speaker 1: claim to fame, is that I can walk out of
Speaker 1: the mountains on my first bear hunt, got the bear by.
Speaker 1: I'd say that it was pretty pretty uh insightful, but
Speaker 1: that that being my first hunt, I that was probably
Speaker 1: if I hunted twenty more times, that would probably be
Speaker 1: the most memorable one. What we were talking about was
Speaker 1: just how legendary bear path Gunner became. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: and so it's pretty cool that you I meant a
Speaker 1: little boy that it was neat and I, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time I was I was an only child
Speaker 1: at that age, and I had the dogs were kind
Speaker 1: of my siblings. So we spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: out playing in the yard and I'd go run from him,
Speaker 1: and you know, they they'd track me down and I'd
Speaker 1: tell Dad, well, this one's got you know, this one's
Speaker 1: the fastest, this one when I'm hidden. And yeah. When
Speaker 1: when when Eugene Walker ordered a puppy out of Gunner
Speaker 1: and Becky and he told me that he wanted he said,
Speaker 1: all I care is I want the fastest puppy in
Speaker 1: the entire one bunch, because of here in West Virginia,
Speaker 1: we kind of like fast dog. So Brandon went out
Speaker 1: with his bicycle and we had a dead rabbit. We
Speaker 1: shot a rabbit and we tied it on the back
Speaker 1: there and I would open the cage and all the
Speaker 1: maybe eight pup snidler anyway, So anyway. He so he
Speaker 1: would and he would go a quarter of a mile
Speaker 1: with that bicycle and and the hank pup Pocahona sank
Speaker 1: always always lit everything else, all the way up, all
Speaker 1: the way back, and so he got even. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you'll see him in the pedigrees. You still do a
Speaker 1: lot of lots and lots of pedigrees. Yeah, But but
Speaker 1: that was him. Yeah. And Gunner was so personable. I
Speaker 1: remember staying at Woolly's house up there and I you know,
Speaker 1: lay down on the floor and Gunner just coming was
Speaker 1: like a house dog, wouldn't he. Yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: was never remember never. I think if you had told
Speaker 1: him he was a dog, e't upset him because he
Speaker 1: I think you really just thought he was a short
Speaker 1: human short. Yeah, And like hanging out with the very
Speaker 1: first night. What he said, Okay, now, I said, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna sleep. He so, well, he's there's a great
Speaker 1: big desk in there, and he's supposed to sleep underneath
Speaker 1: that desk. But he's I've got a bed for him there.
Speaker 1: But he said, listen to this. He said he had
Speaker 1: wood floors. He said, come here, listen, listen to this story. Kids,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna close this door and listen what happened. So
Speaker 1: we close the door, and all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: could hear it click, and you could hear the Gunner.
Speaker 1: He jumped up on the bed and he was he
Speaker 1: was in there, you know, sleeping on the bed. And
Speaker 1: then wood he would gore and rattle the door hendl
Speaker 1: and you heard Gunna jump off and go back. He
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to be in Okay. And some people, some people,
Speaker 1: you know, bear hunters, believed that all these little cute
Speaker 1: stories about Gunner and the fact that he would listen
Speaker 1: to humans and that he wasn't even broke to Alicia
Speaker 1: as far as we know that that would made himn
Speaker 1: less of a bear dog. But you know what, the
Speaker 1: more intelligence you can have a bear dog life far
Speaker 1: the better. So yeah, well so so would he ended
Speaker 1: up selling Bear Path Gunner to a guy in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And that's a guy, yeah, Mike, because still around Okay.
Speaker 1: See I when it when Becky, when we were I
Speaker 1: don't know what all you can put in here, and
Speaker 1: you can always cut stuff out. When we were up
Speaker 1: there and and and Gunner saw Becky, he just perked
Speaker 1: up and went from flying over to her and then
Speaker 1: jumped up on her and and what He said, She's
Speaker 1: coming in heat and I said, no, no, no, she
Speaker 1: shouldn't be in heat for like six more months. He said, well,
Speaker 1: what's the deal, And I said, he smells a kinship
Speaker 1: or something. I really don't know. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I said, we love at first sight. But well it
Speaker 1: was and and the truth is, when he wasn't hunting
Speaker 1: and she would just stand around, he was over there
Speaker 1: with her almost all the time. So I read, uh,
Speaker 1: I read the most famous third red breeder in the world.
Speaker 1: Believed that a lot of times natural selection was important. Okay, no,
Speaker 1: this is kind of been the breeding deal again. So
Speaker 1: if he would lead a mayor through a bunch of
Speaker 1: stallions and the one that she chose, that's how he
Speaker 1: would breathe. And he raised more steakes winners per hundred
Speaker 1: than any other human as they were done. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: when it came time to read Becky, Becky was a
Speaker 1: super super dog, okay, just all the way around. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a male that I thought was good
Speaker 1: enough for her in the Central Parl, United States. And
Speaker 1: I didn't have one myself because at that time I
Speaker 1: was afraid to bread, you know, brothers, sister. So so
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I'm gonna bread the Gunner. Well,
Speaker 1: by then he'd been sold to Mike Rick Luck. So
Speaker 1: I got a hold of Mike and I said, Mike,
Speaker 1: I want to read my Becky female. You know, I
Speaker 1: gave all the I thought he would just say, sure,
Speaker 1: bring her up. You know, he said three ter fitty dollars.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm sold that dog to Woody for like
Speaker 1: a hundred seventy five. He said, well, it's three hundred fits. Daughters,
Speaker 1: you can read or not to, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and the truths. By then so many people wanting to
Speaker 1: read to the dog that that kind of had to
Speaker 1: living him somehow. So I borrowed the money I think
Speaker 1: for my dad, put her into crate, shipped her up there,
Speaker 1: brought her home, and she had you know that fantastic
Speaker 1: litter of you know, of dogs. I mean Pocahona's Hankin
Speaker 1: and Mike Candy and and Gunner I mean, well Gunner two,
Speaker 1: which is red and and just super super super dogs,
Speaker 1: I mean, just real things. So the next time she
Speaker 1: came in here, about a year later, I got ahold
Speaker 1: of Mike he said, I want too meal pups. That's
Speaker 1: what I want this time. So I said, yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I think I sound sold him like thunder and lightning
Speaker 1: or something. So so that and that's, you know, that's
Speaker 1: kind of how And then and then so I had
Speaker 1: already I had taken I had taken a you know,
Speaker 1: two half brother, half brother, half sister, actually three quarter brother,
Speaker 1: three quarter sister, and bred him together. And once again,
Speaker 1: some even ever said he thought that I was going
Speaker 1: to get you know, short little dogs, because I was
Speaker 1: doubled up on bouncer and I didn't. I got world
Speaker 1: world beaters, you know. So what I was doing, what
Speaker 1: we were doing, was just keep we were We kept
Speaker 1: adding all those genetics that those ones I showed you
Speaker 1: how to go, you know, all that North Carolina tong
Speaker 1: all that Nickels store me, all that stuff. Over and over.
Speaker 1: We just kept adding it right back into the things.
Speaker 1: And it can't escape. It's just there. You know. If
Speaker 1: you put them with put that dog with a good hunter,
Speaker 1: it's gonna make it. So Yeah, and some people don't
Speaker 1: believe in hund percent litters and gush. If I have
Speaker 1: something that's not it, it just upsets the heck out
Speaker 1: of me if I haven't. Yeah, So from so from there,
Speaker 1: which would have been bear Path Gunner lived to be
Speaker 1: like nine years old and died in two if I
Speaker 1: remember something like that, two Yeah, I think. I think
Speaker 1: he lived to be ten. But I okay, he may live.
Speaker 1: I'm going off, but he but that dog kind of
Speaker 1: he became a nationally known dog at that time. What
Speaker 1: shocked me, what shot me when I went to my
Speaker 1: first American Plot Association days, was those old timers come
Speaker 1: up to me, and I'm talking about people way older
Speaker 1: than me, okay, and I guess they let him Old
Speaker 1: the Wrist home. I don't know, but but they came
Speaker 1: to me and said, I said, I heard that you
Speaker 1: was the one that raised bear Paths good and I said, yes, Sam.
Speaker 1: They said, my God, said all of us people down here,
Speaker 1: so we all have Gunner in our dogs. And those
Speaker 1: people from North Carolina and they had all those good
Speaker 1: dogs down there, but they were hauling wherever they had to,
Speaker 1: even from West Gunner and breeding to bear Paths Gunner.
Speaker 1: You know why because he was the best thing around
Speaker 1: and a lot of times, like Cascade, Big Timber was
Speaker 1: a wonderful dog. I hud it with him. I loved him, okay,
Speaker 1: but he didn't reproduce at his level. Well, Gunner reproduced
Speaker 1: at an extremely highly level, high level, and that's why
Speaker 1: people use him. And it's hard to find a pedigree
Speaker 1: in bear world more that doesn't have bear paths Gunner
Speaker 1: in there. And sometimes maybe ten times, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean eight or ten times. Yeah, so especially in these
Speaker 1: in these lines like ferns. I think, and we went
Speaker 1: through all this years ago as I was learning this
Speaker 1: stuff from you. But you know, my my pup and
Speaker 1: her seven generation pedigree, I think she has a bear
Speaker 1: path a lot, yeah, a lot. Yeah, he's a way back.
Speaker 1: It's just well, let's get to a more broader picture now.
Speaker 1: So we've established kind of your family history and and
Speaker 1: and bear path Gunner and Judd and all these dogs,
Speaker 1: and then from you've pretty much had well, you've been
Speaker 1: sending dogs for bear and mountain lion hunting took professional
Speaker 1: a lot for a while. I mean, these are big
Speaker 1: game dogs. You're not really giving them the coon hunters
Speaker 1: that much anymore. I'm kind of an exception and that
Speaker 1: we can't run big game in Arkansas, and I needed,
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, and The truth is, I the
Speaker 1: bear hunters. Really you can take a blue tick and
Speaker 1: good tree a coon, and I'm not condemning them, because
Speaker 1: the truth is, it's harder to breed for an extremely
Speaker 1: good coon dog than it is to be to breed
Speaker 1: for a real good bear dog. Okay, but there's people
Speaker 1: out there. These are irving of an exceptional bear dog,
Speaker 1: an exceptional lion dog, an exceptional bobcat dog, an exceptional
Speaker 1: hog dog, and we're producing him and we like to
Speaker 1: kind of get him in the good hands. I I
Speaker 1: do a lot of choosing about where my dogs go.
Speaker 1: So I took the little Creek female, went all the
Speaker 1: way down to where at Kweat, Oklahoma, where Brandon lives,
Speaker 1: and handed it to Alvin Gregg. And uh, she was
Speaker 1: such a well she literally no, no, she was a
Speaker 1: little bit older. But but what an exceptional hog dog.
Speaker 1: I mean I got to hunt with her one time,
Speaker 1: and and Alvin turned to me, come back, said, now,
Speaker 1: I know you don't like the way the fact that
Speaker 1: she just kind of hunting here close, But she said
Speaker 1: the moment that she comes by any hogs mill, she'll
Speaker 1: be gone. And he turned turns around, said herd came here,
Speaker 1: look at this, and she was eight hundred yards. Await
Speaker 1: he just walked back there. She was an eight hundred yards.
Speaker 1: He's the next time you see her, she'll have a
Speaker 1: hog got Hammon. Travis took off running and they that
Speaker 1: there's a video of it. Gets kind of intense. And
Speaker 1: tell me about that dog rigging, rigging a hog on
Speaker 1: the highway. Or they were going seventy miles an hour
Speaker 1: and it closed dog box in the winter. All kinds
Speaker 1: of stories. But so you're these dogs have there in
Speaker 1: the hands of people all over the world, well and
Speaker 1: not all. I have never sent one overseas, and one
Speaker 1: I think went over there. They hunted a really weird
Speaker 1: style over there. They only some places you're only led
Speaker 1: one dog or two dogs, and I think that you're
Speaker 1: it's a terrible disadvantage to a dog to to be
Speaker 1: put in a situation where you're asking them to fail. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: well but but but I've never said it. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a dog to California. Okay, I've never said, yeah,
Speaker 1: won to Turkey. Yeah not not Japan. I had to,
Speaker 1: I had, I almost had. In fact, the bull pup
Speaker 1: was just getting ready to be shipped over there and
Speaker 1: then they called it kind of you know, we're not sure.
Speaker 1: My partner wants to know this and this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and I said, and I just waited about two days.
Speaker 1: And then he got back home. He said, Georgian and
Speaker 1: and and uh he said, I think we want that dog.
Speaker 1: And I said, uh, that dog left out of here
Speaker 1: two days ago. He's an Oklahoma and they absolutely love him.
Speaker 1: And he's he's for real, he's litter mate and for real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm bear hunted him up there. We're gonna take hi
Speaker 1: up again, hopefully, but no, he's for real. He's absolutely
Speaker 1: for real. So well, describe to me, and this is
Speaker 1: kind of going backwards a little bit. That described to
Speaker 1: me the characteristics that you're breeding for. Steve. Okay, when
Speaker 1: people hunt, people didn't think they needed nose. We had
Speaker 1: to have it because we hunted an Oklahoma Panhandle and
Speaker 1: then still down there, we expect a dog. I would
Speaker 1: be embarrassed if I hunted with some off color dogs
Speaker 1: and they struck in front of me. Okay, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit of pride to maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit of a false wode. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: but I don't want that Okay. Then they have to
Speaker 1: have speed, because once again, you don't want somebody to
Speaker 1: outrun your dogs. Okay, so my dogs have to have speed.
Speaker 1: They have to be intelligent, and if they're if they're dumb,
Speaker 1: they just don't live long enough to ever get hunted. Okay,
Speaker 1: because I can't stand a dumb dog. I just can't
Speaker 1: say it. Okay. They have to be a certain size,
Speaker 1: and I'm extreme to pick a particular arong size because overweight,
Speaker 1: blubberry looking male dog or female dog one just can't move. Okay,
Speaker 1: they just simply can't move. They they have to be.
Speaker 1: They have to locate, and so many bear hunters don't
Speaker 1: think that this is true. But they have to locate
Speaker 1: a squirrel in the top of a tree in a blizzard,
Speaker 1: and I have videos to prove that that's what they
Speaker 1: do about four months old. Okay, they have to be long,
Speaker 1: stayput tree dogs. I want my dogs to be. I
Speaker 1: want them to bay a bear or a hog almost
Speaker 1: all day long, but I don't really want them to
Speaker 1: ever actually make contact. It's okay if they do, but
Speaker 1: I don't want my dogs killed. I don't over their shutters.
Speaker 1: Their hunters and some some people listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: tomorrow whenever it is, Will say, yeah, he know he
Speaker 1: wants his dogs to turn. No, I want my dogs
Speaker 1: to live through the day, and I really don't care
Speaker 1: what happens. I want him to live. A dead dog
Speaker 1: never cyrus babies, and a dead dog never treats you
Speaker 1: one more piece of game. So there's people that get
Speaker 1: so are so proud about their dogs being so gritty
Speaker 1: but kind of productive. It's it's kind of productive, just
Speaker 1: you know, you know you you say, my dog can
Speaker 1: jump higher off a cliff, and any dog you've ever seen,
Speaker 1: well that dog only did it once. Colton, what is uh?
Speaker 1: So you've been around these dogs? Now you've got you've
Speaker 1: got some of your own dogs. Yes, I have one
Speaker 1: dog right now named Butch. But is he the is
Speaker 1: he the the Semen dogs? He came from the original Butch. Okay,
Speaker 1: so back in the nineties, Butch was around. When was
Speaker 1: Butch around? He's been dead ten years, he's been dead twelve.
Speaker 1: Here we go again. So y'all okay, So, so the
Speaker 1: pup you've got, now, what do y'all call him? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: he was he's a couple of years old now, and yes,
Speaker 1: and then but he came from backup. Colton originally liked
Speaker 1: the great, big, big houndy dogs. Okay, you know, he
Speaker 1: bally and okay, and I said, Colton, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: work for you. He said, well, Dad, how do you
Speaker 1: pick out a dog? And I said, you just look
Speaker 1: at him and look at him, and pretty soon you
Speaker 1: see something. You say, Okay, this is my dog. So
Speaker 1: he comes to the house. Nellie had nine puppies and uh,
Speaker 1: and out of Reno and and so he comes to
Speaker 1: the house one day. You get to the rest of story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he came in the house one day, and uh, I
Speaker 1: think we were kind of getting shorter on dogs. We
Speaker 1: had a few, you know, we we always we always
Speaker 1: had a good a few good dogs around and we
Speaker 1: had a real promising letter. I think there is nine nine, yeah,
Speaker 1: nine or ten. I think there there had only been
Speaker 1: one puff. I think they had died at a young age.
Speaker 1: And he, uh said it's time to pick your dog.
Speaker 1: And I had. I claimed Reno. Reno has been why
Speaker 1: he was my first real dog. We know I'm talking
Speaker 1: at Buster. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I had I'm
Speaker 1: back up, Okay, tell stories from you, okay, sure, And
Speaker 1: oh Man and h we uh so I started at
Speaker 1: a young age. But the dog that I really grew
Speaker 1: up knowing was Reno. Reno. You know, I remember Reno.
Speaker 1: He's probably one of the main stud dogs you've used
Speaker 1: for the last Yeah he's still lost, he's still alive,
Speaker 1: and he's in New Mexico weeks and Steve just pulled
Speaker 1: back Colton's shirt and you got a tattoo Reno. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he uh he was his letter. I remember growing up.
Speaker 1: There was a Reno's litter was it was a super litter.
Speaker 1: You here Dad talking a lot about the dog named Scar.
Speaker 1: Scar was a dog that was a bit when she
Speaker 1: was a little baby by a brown brown spider and
Speaker 1: had a really bad on her hip. And she'll a
Speaker 1: lot of people that hunt with us to this day
Speaker 1: will tell you that she's actually she's the best coon
Speaker 1: dog that you were around. She was extremely good dog.
Speaker 1: And Mark Martin de French brand, Yeah. And then my
Speaker 1: Ruger dog that got killed by the bear, and Joe
Speaker 1: Hudson's Calie female and Crook who I got back and
Speaker 1: sent out to the Mexico, And and there was another
Speaker 1: dog named Hound. Every single dog in the littera. Joe
Speaker 1: Hudson called me the day and said he thinks this
Speaker 1: might be one of the greatest litters ever made. So
Speaker 1: Mark DeFraine, who's a very repidable veteran bear hunter, and
Speaker 1: he says he'll go to his grave saying that brand
Speaker 1: is the best. And she still loves Brenn is still alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so and now tell me you picked out Reno. No, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't pick out Reno. So, you know, Dad was
Speaker 1: talking about one of the old litters that was a
Speaker 1: super litter. That was the first super litter that I've
Speaker 1: got to experience growing up. Yeah, got it. We always
Speaker 1: had a you know, Dad had a couple of dogs
Speaker 1: named Sugar and uh what was the other one? Start.
Speaker 1: They were kind of the first female to remember. But
Speaker 1: Reno was really the first you know, big, you know dog,
Speaker 1: that dog that Dad decided to keep. He wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't really kind of what he was looking for at
Speaker 1: the time. You know. He Reno was a little bit
Speaker 1: heavy caliber, more of a heavy caliber dog. Um. But
Speaker 1: he came out one day and said, He's like, there's
Speaker 1: some gorgeous pups out there in the trailer. He's like,
Speaker 1: why don't you go pick you a pup. He's like,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. He wasn't originally we weren't originally gonna get
Speaker 1: a male dog. Dad prefers the female. So we were
Speaker 1: looking through there. He's like, I I have I think
Speaker 1: I have me a female picked out. And he's like,
Speaker 1: there's one pup that I see something I want to
Speaker 1: see if I want to see if you see the
Speaker 1: pup that I see. So he went out there with
Speaker 1: me and we I got gott in the horse trailer
Speaker 1: and kind of got down there looking at some puffs
Speaker 1: and I was I was, you know, going through and
Speaker 1: there was like a test. They were just less than
Speaker 1: two weeks old. Yeah, they were a little bit. This
Speaker 1: is like I think they had just barely. Okay, So
Speaker 1: he says, son, see if you see what I said?
Speaker 1: And I wanted to know you have to be able
Speaker 1: to yeah, you know, he he doesn't want me going
Speaker 1: out there and picking know the light brintle and the
Speaker 1: heaviest mail out the river. River Nukele was listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast River you gotta pick up on some of
Speaker 1: this because and and but okay, now what he's saying
Speaker 1: though real quick, he's saying that he got to watch
Speaker 1: Reno grow up and he remembers what Reno did it
Speaker 1: about it, and you nemember how Reno looked. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so there was just me and me and dad. We
Speaker 1: kind of we kind of know how to how to
Speaker 1: pick around the same you know, when it goes to bulls,
Speaker 1: you know, we we can kind of pick the similar
Speaker 1: bulls and the horses. And uh, So I went out
Speaker 1: there and I picked up a couple of pups. There
Speaker 1: was you know, there was two light brintle males in
Speaker 1: that and so I kind of looked at them. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's not really what I think he's looking at.
Speaker 1: So I kind of shoved them to the side and
Speaker 1: went through the females and stuff. Uh. There was another
Speaker 1: dog that ended up going to Travis Taves. His name
Speaker 1: was Rage. He looked a lot like my buster pup,
Speaker 1: and I picked him up. I really liked him. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I was like na uh. And then the last it
Speaker 1: was the last one I picked up, and he was
Speaker 1: just a gorgeous pup. I mean he had the right
Speaker 1: amount of black and the amount of you know this
Speaker 1: and that. And I picked him up and there was
Speaker 1: just a look about him, just almost a confidence look.
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was crazy. And I picked
Speaker 1: it up and I said, I'm not sure what you're thinking, dad,
Speaker 1: but I'm thinking this puff right here is gonna be
Speaker 1: special and dads like that. And it was. And it
Speaker 1: was a buster he and Buster was one of the
Speaker 1: best barrier buggers I've hunted for a long long time.
Speaker 1: It's just he got killed by Hall and Buster is
Speaker 1: Ferns Daddy. I know that. I know that. And by
Speaker 1: the way, he should have started a lot more pup.
Speaker 1: He died early. Heed. Hey, when I was out in uh,
Speaker 1: when I was in Idaho, I won't say any names here,
Speaker 1: but when I was in Okdaho Mountain lion hunting with
Speaker 1: the plot man that doesn't necessarily have any of the
Speaker 1: Bluff Creek strain, he told me that he was very
Speaker 1: impressed with Buster because I you know, and I probably
Speaker 1: brought it up. Yeah, yeah, and uh, but he he said,
Speaker 1: I was impressed with that dog. And for somebody that
Speaker 1: doesn't have any connections to breathe it to a line
Speaker 1: of hounds to say something really good. But if if
Speaker 1: you if you had a bunch of dogs run into
Speaker 1: those woods heavily wooded across where we're sitting here, and
Speaker 1: and they suddenly shut up and they can't a bear
Speaker 1: Sometimes a bear just disappears, and a cat will disappear
Speaker 1: in a combl disappear. Well, then somebody yells, bring Buster.
Speaker 1: So you get Buster out of pick up, you drop
Speaker 1: him in there. Give him ten seconds, Just give him
Speaker 1: ten seconds, and all of a sudden he's opening and
Speaker 1: moving any moving, And I'm not I'm not talking about trade,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about screaming. And it happened so often.
Speaker 1: What Buster would have been born, like in two thousand
Speaker 1: ten or something, I mean it was I would have
Speaker 1: said maybe probably later than that. Well he died when
Speaker 1: he's five years old, and because he was alive, he
Speaker 1: died like the first year that I had ferns. Ferns
Speaker 1: four years old anyway. Yeah, but so you picked out
Speaker 1: this peple. Yeah yeah, And I wasn't I wasn't really
Speaker 1: into I was always into hunting, and I was always
Speaker 1: in the dogs. But Buster was the one that kind
Speaker 1: of that really made me excited, you know, going to
Speaker 1: going to Wisconsin. In fact, he was my actual first
Speaker 1: my first dog I actually got to hunt with of
Speaker 1: our own. You know, we always had our own. That's
Speaker 1: my puffle. Let's see what he Let's see what what
Speaker 1: he can do. So we when you hauled, when you
Speaker 1: took Buster with you, you could you could go hunting
Speaker 1: any state in the United States. And and when you
Speaker 1: dropped out with anybody anywhere, you knew that you had
Speaker 1: as good a dog as goes, it was gonna be
Speaker 1: turned loose that day. Okay. And now like the jackpot
Speaker 1: dug up there right now, you when when you you
Speaker 1: can hauld him anywhere and turn him loose with anybody,
Speaker 1: and you know what, you're not ever going to be
Speaker 1: just not gonna be embarrassed because he's just that good.
Speaker 1: He just and and you know sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: keep sharpen your pencil. Wel We've got the old pencil
Speaker 1: pretty sharp right now, because that's that's what that's what
Speaker 1: that's what we're trying to do, okay. And and once again,
Speaker 1: all we're doing is trying to just duplicate what those
Speaker 1: portal hunters, you know, them starving old houndsman did back
Speaker 1: in the mountains when they were trying to catch a
Speaker 1: game with their home, with their whether it was hogs
Speaker 1: or bearer where I didn't realize how much bearer they
Speaker 1: ate back there, but they ate a lot of bearer
Speaker 1: met Yeah, they do. Hey, we're gonna we're gonna do
Speaker 1: another podcast. I'm not sure how it's gonna work out here.
Speaker 1: But so in not necessarily inclosing, but sort of inclosing.
Speaker 1: If we're so, we've established, you know, the Bluff Creek
Speaker 1: line and plots and your history. Are there any iconic
Speaker 1: stories that or or just what what would you say?
Speaker 1: You you know all that you've said, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of just turning this all over to you if you
Speaker 1: were gonna give some closing remarks about just your history
Speaker 1: with the Bluff Creek dogs, your dad, the hunting that
Speaker 1: you guys have done, um or or even just what
Speaker 1: these dogs mean. Do you Steve the main here? The
Speaker 1: one here's just again, any any hunter and and really
Speaker 1: in any profession, Uh, you should be thrilled to death
Speaker 1: that you're getting work with Withoutdoor Life, I mean you
Speaker 1: of your magazine, I mean both you guys are you know,
Speaker 1: you're kind of competitors, but you're actually both on the
Speaker 1: same side. So when your houndsmen are very prideful people
Speaker 1: and that the plot people were very prideful people, and
Speaker 1: Isaiah kid was a private person, and Golda Ferguson wasn't
Speaker 1: all those people in Everet Williams was extremely private. Well,
Speaker 1: when you go to the woods, you don't want to
Speaker 1: have to make up a thousand excuses about why your
Speaker 1: dog didn't do what they were supposed to do. You
Speaker 1: want to simply sit there and have people patch you
Speaker 1: on back. Say, my god, I have never seen anything
Speaker 1: like that. Okay. Something my dad was always worried about
Speaker 1: was that younger generations would not be able to enjoy
Speaker 1: the same caliber dogs that he started with. Okay, and
Speaker 1: then I I took over in seventy one, and I
Speaker 1: was afraid that people would not. Also, younger people, you know,
Speaker 1: some in this room right here, including sitting across the
Speaker 1: table from me. I was afraid that they wouldn't that
Speaker 1: they would hear the plot hound was either growley or
Speaker 1: slow or big or dumb or silent mouth or whatever.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to hang on. I wanted, if if
Speaker 1: nothing else, produced one more letter to let people know
Speaker 1: that they're still out there, and and if you do,
Speaker 1: if you do your homework and do things right, that
Speaker 1: there there will be for several more generations. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that's that's my legacy is I want to be able
Speaker 1: to pass on to younger, younger generations. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know it might be on the way right now.
Speaker 1: I want I want a lot of people to get
Speaker 1: to enjoy that. I mean, do you know how long
Speaker 1: you might have looked had you gotta not gout fern?
Speaker 1: I mean think about I mean, how many miles would
Speaker 1: you have driven? Dad did it for a purpose to
Speaker 1: produce the dogs, but also to make sure that they
Speaker 1: were still out there, Okay, because you know, because because
Speaker 1: once okay, had ever Wheams not have made that cross
Speaker 1: of drive to Susy, we wouldn't be sitting here at
Speaker 1: this table right now. Okay. Had Dad not made his
Speaker 1: cross of our chief to trouble, we wouldn't be sitting
Speaker 1: here at this table. And I actually believe that the plothound.
Speaker 1: I actually believe that the plothound would not have still
Speaker 1: existed in the forum we know it had it not
Speaker 1: been for a few special people and a few special,
Speaker 1: very special dogs. Okay, And I mean, nobody wants to
Speaker 1: promote just more dogs. You know, you don't you don't
Speaker 1: want that you want some really elite dogs. And like
Speaker 1: Joe Hudson says, if you ain't seen it, you ain't
Speaker 1: gonna believe it, Okay, I mean you just if if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, then you're not gonna believe it,
Speaker 1: that that a puppy could start that young. You know,
Speaker 1: at the ban Joe dog was a freak of nature.
Speaker 1: He started so young, and and he made even my dogs,
Speaker 1: he made my dogs look bad. He was he just
Speaker 1: did things. I don't remember whether we ever even tied
Speaker 1: him up once again. He just voiced demands. And and
Speaker 1: he's one who got killed by a bobcat at fourteen
Speaker 1: months old. But by then I'd already bred him to
Speaker 1: Cindy because I got medicine people. And he produced Reno
Speaker 1: and Bran and see what I'm saying, one cross, one
Speaker 1: cross only and that, and he had a hundred percent
Speaker 1: outstanding pups out of one litter. But he was he
Speaker 1: was a freaking nature and he was exactly what I
Speaker 1: was looking for. So every time, and by the way,
Speaker 1: Buster looked exactly camp. They were dark brand Banjo Banjo.
Speaker 1: When he was a little pup, I had a road runner,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the road runner birds he'd come
Speaker 1: up to the house and you know, beg for stuff,
Speaker 1: dog food and stuff, and Banjoe hated him, so he
Speaker 1: would It became a game, so he would chase he
Speaker 1: would chase that road runner. Well, as time progressed, Banjoe
Speaker 1: got a little faster and that bird got a little slower.
Speaker 1: And this went on for ninety days, okay, and the
Speaker 1: ninetieth day, probably about the nineties day could have been
Speaker 1: a hundred and five. All of a sudden, here comes
Speaker 1: Banjo and he walks up there and he lays that
Speaker 1: road runner in front of me, and he had killed
Speaker 1: And you know what, I swear, I swear he was sad.
Speaker 1: I mean, the game is over. But he he the
Speaker 1: road runner would get to the tree and then and
Speaker 1: then look over his shoulder before he jumped. Well, he
Speaker 1: shouldn't have looked over his shoulder. You know. That's how
Speaker 1: Babo and lost the Olympics that year. Okay, are we
Speaker 1: done there? Gotta I gotta tell you the story later
Speaker 1: about one of our pubs for a different one. Culton
Speaker 1: closing closing thoughts on, um, how old are you called?
Speaker 1: I'm so you've been around these dogs your whole life
Speaker 1: and you've you've hunted. Obviously, you live in you live
Speaker 1: in Kansas, so they're not running big game in Kansas,
Speaker 1: but you travel up to Wisconsin and Michigan and Uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: what what do these dogs mean to you? I mean,
Speaker 1: what's it like having a family such a rich family
Speaker 1: history with It's awesome. Uh, It's it's kind of cool
Speaker 1: having you know, in our family, having that claim to fame,
Speaker 1: you know, with my brother and my dad and you
Speaker 1: know in our in our grandfather, having that in our family.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. Yeah, it's definitely been fun. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't have video games and stuff as
Speaker 1: a kid. I mean, that's what you grew up doing.
Speaker 1: You grew up going outside and playing with the dogs
Speaker 1: and run and running, running alongside the creek and you know,
Speaker 1: going coon hunting and falling off logs and into the
Speaker 1: creek and you're Brandon, hold are you okay? So that
Speaker 1: many years apart and still both of them are doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. He hunted with Gunnered, Colton hunter with Buster,
Speaker 1: and you know what I mean, it's it's been it's
Speaker 1: been an awesome Okay. So we're across the creek. We've
Speaker 1: got Banjo, uh Tater and and Ruston and me, and
Speaker 1: we're across the creek and for some reason, you decided
Speaker 1: you needed to bring a twenty two magnum rifle out
Speaker 1: of my pickup over to the creek. And you decided
Speaker 1: you'd walk across that log and it's winter, it is
Speaker 1: cold dead. Did we thought twice about it? And so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden we hear this flash and I
Speaker 1: didn't what it was. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this kid climbs up out of the creek and he's
Speaker 1: got that twenty two magnum and he's got water above
Speaker 1: his waist and it is it's it's fifteen degrees. It's
Speaker 1: just he said, I thought you said you needed this
Speaker 1: this rifle. I said, no, I didn't say that. So
Speaker 1: I just brought it in here just in case. And
Speaker 1: so we get over to the pickup at we shoot
Speaker 1: to go now with my pistol. And we got over
Speaker 1: to the pickup and he said, I think I got
Speaker 1: water my boots. And we took his boots off and
Speaker 1: there was more than a court and a half of
Speaker 1: water in each boot, each one of his boots, and
Speaker 1: he just wanted all the way. Yeah, if it had
Speaker 1: been slashing, it probably frozen. Needless to say, I don't
Speaker 1: have very good balance. So but it's it's, it's, it's
Speaker 1: it's introduced just to a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: people and even brands back in Brandon's day. It took
Speaker 1: us to a lot of miles, to a lot of
Speaker 1: places we would never been, you know, And we're we're
Speaker 1: going to Bearcampa in Michigan this year and we you know,
Speaker 1: we're planning on having some fun up there, and co
Speaker 1: butcher Dog is up there. We might have old Reno
Speaker 1: back with us by then, and uh, and you know,
Speaker 1: take him along because the truth is he uh, he
Speaker 1: still sneaks away from a lot of good, fast dogs.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying, well, in closing, I'll say that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't probably never, because I didn't intentionally get back into hounds.
Speaker 1: It was kind of by accident. I always say that
Speaker 1: to people because I didn't expect to get And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that Ferns the best coon dog and the
Speaker 1: plant I'm not for me for me, she was for
Speaker 1: me and my family. She was I mean, and uh
Speaker 1: and she she still is. And but it just it
Speaker 1: was just so fun to hunt weather and tree game
Speaker 1: and see the things that she did and uh and
Speaker 1: uh it really changed the trajectory. And now I've got
Speaker 1: I got another pup from a dog from you, Jed,
Speaker 1: who's uh who's a character and a half, super smart
Speaker 1: and Jed and first the scar of the female that
Speaker 1: he was talking about earlier. But here's here's the I
Speaker 1: guess the conclusion, talking about how it has has brought
Speaker 1: you in to so many different people in relationships and stuff.
Speaker 1: We have taken more on this podcast. We talked, uh
Speaker 1: Steve a lot about you know, the trajectory of hunting
Speaker 1: and recruiting new hunters and different things. Of all the
Speaker 1: big game hunting that I've done, I have taken exponentially
Speaker 1: more new hunters out coon hunting than anything else. I
Speaker 1: bet we've taken I mean we we've been we've been
Speaker 1: talking about this. I don't know how many River did
Speaker 1: you just punch him? River River nucom and her friends.
Speaker 1: Uh River just punched her little brother. Uh we Uh,
Speaker 1: I bet we've taken a hundred people. But see never
Speaker 1: but that's that's what it's all about. That see that,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not all it's not all about killing
Speaker 1: game guys, it's it's about it's about but when you
Speaker 1: have a when you have a good dog, it's fun
Speaker 1: to take. But once again, she's not getting embarrassed. You
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying. I mean, most of the times
Speaker 1: she doesn't. And so that's what it's all about. You.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be embarrassed. So you you breed, and
Speaker 1: and and as you're making your your calling decisions and
Speaker 1: you're in your picking stuff, you say, Okay, which one
Speaker 1: of these dogs is definitely best? Because I don't want
Speaker 1: to be embarrassed, you know. And when I when I
Speaker 1: get so I can't do it, I will, I will
Speaker 1: shut down immediately, you know, I'll call him, but he say, okay, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm done, and I'm gonna turn it over to somebody else.
Speaker 1: And Colton wants to take over. You can and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know go from there. So well, hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: thanks for meeting me over here. Guys up Steve Brandon,
Speaker 1: It really my pleasure to get to talk with you. Guys.
Speaker 1: We could talk for hours. I know this guy right here,
Speaker 1: we can talk for hours. And uh, and we'll do
Speaker 1: this again sometime when we're together. Um, we will. We
Speaker 1: are going to have. Uh we're gonna release another podcast,
Speaker 1: hopefully about breeding, which we're gonna anyway that won't make
Speaker 1: sense in the timing of this, but hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: meeting with me and Uh, as we always say on
Speaker 1: this podcast when we closed, Steve, keep the wild places
Speaker 1: wild because that's where the bears live. Yeah. Okay, I
Speaker 1: like that. I'd like to do very good, so very good.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys,