To Catch, or Not to
Catch?
The
exact day and month I can’t recall, but
I believe it was around late October or early November. The time of year really wouldn’t make that
much difference as me and my partners will hunt almost anytime, year around, at
the drop of a hat. And, if necessary,
we’ll drop the hat! Bill Huff and
myself had the itch to go huntin’ really bad, but we had a small problem. No catch dog! At least no proven catch dog.
I had lost my cross bred bulldog named Rough, to a careless accident
which left him on a short chain in extreme heat. Rough, a half English Bulldog and half Catahoula, had caught us
many a hog and provided us many a laugh as well, as he was long on
personality. Nobody ever met rough that
wasn’t impressed with his looks, personality, or his ability to catch a hog.
I
have a yard full of American Bulldogs, but haven’t ever used any of them to
hunt with, as they are kind of expensive to use for hog huntin’, besides, Rough
had been our main catch dog for a good while.
Bill and I were going hunting, that wasn’t ever a question. The question was, who was going to do the
catching. Bill had a young American
Bulldog named Hoss that was about nine months old. Bill had been working him on shoats and he was going to be really
good, but I insisted that he let the dog get at least a year old before we put
him into real action. Hoss would love
to have gottin’ the call, but we wanted to let his teeth set good before we
went to catching hogs with him. I know
a lot of you guys are saying right now that you have caught lots of hogs with a
nine month old bulldog, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I have been told by some knowledgeable
bulldog men that their teeth aren’t really set good until they are about 14 to
16 months old.
Our
other option was Ginger, Hoss’s mother, a beautiful brindle and white
registered American Bulldog. The only
problem with Ginger, who at the time was about 3 years old, was that she hadn’t
caught anything since she had her permanent teeth. Now when she was a little pup she had caught a pig in my bay pen
while she still had her puppy teeth, along with her sister and Rough, as they
were all about the same age. Well, time
was a waistin’ and a decision had to be made, so to the woods we went with
Ginger in tow.
On
this particular evening we had four bay dogs on the ground just in case we were
a little weak in the catch department.
Now 3 of the 4 dogs out hunting
could almost qualify as catch dogs themselves; Poco, Jewell, and Ringo! Our fourth dog, Lori, was making a good find
and bay dog but she wasn’t bad about catching at all. Our first obstacle we had to overcome that night was the fact
that Ginger had always been very aggressive toward any female dog on the yard,
and her and Jewel were mortal enemies.
Now at home, Jewell would have run right to Ginger and fought her in a
minute, but in the woods she had a different nemesis that she wanted worse than
Ginger. So, Jewell paid Ginger very
little attention. Ginger however had to
be checked hard every time Jewell came by as she was not at all aware why we
were all out walking through the woods in the middle of the night, and any
opportunity to get at Jewell was fine with her.
It
wasn’t long until we heard the dogs bay up, and they were really
screaming. As Bill and I started walking
to the bay I really expected to hear this pack of dogs catch. I also was really enjoying the fact that
since Ginger didn’t really know what was going on, she wasn’t trying to drag me
to the other dogs. As we got closer,
the excitement was really growing, ‘cause if these dogs hadn’t caught out by
now, we knew we had a really good hog.
We stopped and put the cut vest on Ginger who was still calm as can
be. When we finally got to the dogs,
they were in a horrible patch of green vines.
Bill held Ginger and I fought my way on in to see what we had. When I reached the bay I could see all four
dogs crouched down right in front of a good looking Boar hog in a small opening
located in the middle of these vines.
It was an awesome sight to see as those four dogs were shoulder to
shoulder givin’ that ‘ole boar hog a piece of their mind. Jewell was the second dog from the
right. I will never forget it as she
was standing in a pool of blood. Bill
was right behind me with Ginger and I shouted, “Jewell is cut all to pieces,
LET HER GO!”
The
moment of truth had arrived for Ginger.
Now for hog hunters, this is as good as it gets, and let me tell you,
this was pretty good. Four good dogs, No…, four great dogs backed off by a
real bad boar and two men turning a catch dog loose from no more than ten yards
out. Ginger went right to the dogs at a
slow trot and stepped right in the middle of the four dogs on Jewell’s
immediate left. She took a long look at
Jewell, which really scared me, then she finally saw what we were really
after. She took a little hop right up
on that ‘ole boar’s head, and the fat lady sang. Now that hog put up a good fight, but Ginger wouldn’t let go of
that right ear as the other dogs immediately joined in to help her. Bill legged the hog and I pulled off dogs,
getting Jewell first who was bleeding bad but wasn’t really hurt that bad. One of her cuts was on the side of her head
and it was really putting out a lot of blood as most head or face wounds do. I got Lori off next, then Ginger. Poco and Ringo were so tired that when we
caught the hog and told them to get off, they actually did. Poco went off and laid down about ten feet
away, while Ringo laid down right beside the hog. After we tied the hog up I went and checked out Jewell and saw
that she was okay. Then I went and took
the vest off of Ginger and gave her lots of praise. And yes, we all know the answer to the question.
We
took a couple of pictures and led all of the dogs out and leashed them in the back
of the trailer. We had left one of our
tracking collars in a tree right by the hog so we could find him again. It was a good think we did too, as we barely
found him with the help of the collar and receiver. Getting the four-wheeler in there to the hog was a real trick
also, and the most amazing thing of all was that we ever got out of there. Oh yeah, loading and tying this hog on the
four wheeler was no piece of cake as this was a nice hog and not just a
pig. Well anyhow, Bill knew this piece
of property pretty well and it was no time until we had the hog out and turned
loose in the front of the trailer. In
case you’re wondering, we have a 24’ gooseneck trailer with section dividers in
order for us to put a hog in the front, four-wheeler in the middle, and dogs in
the back with minimal chaos.
Now Ginger caught several good boars one right after the other in the next few weeks. And, though we don’t use her that much now, if we need too, she is always ready to go. Yet, you still wouldn’t want to put her in the dog box with another female, but when we are out hunting, she pays no attention to another gyp. And she now wants to drag you to the bay, but when you turn her loose, she still just trots in kinda’ slow and under control until she gets to the hog. After which, she just pounces on that ear and it’s all over but the cryin’ then brother. We still have this hog and use him every month at our baying. We call him “lop ear”, because his right ear hangs down. I think it might have had something to do with 85 pounds of bulldog hanging on it.