Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Gundog Nation #021: J.R. Gray - Champion Coon Dogs, Breeding, Coon Hunting
Step into the fascinating world of champion coon hunting dogs with J.R. Gray, owner of what many consider the most successful stud dog in America today. Gray's Rack Em Willie boasts an unprecedented collection of titles – UKC World Night Hunt Champion, PKC Hunt Champion, AKC Supreme Grand Night Champion – all earned before his fourth birthday when Gray made the strategic decision to retire him for breeding.
Willie has since sired approximately 1,800 puppies, with many becoming champions themselves. Gray shares the unconventional wisdom that's made his program so successful: "Picking a pup is like a lottery ticket," he explains, and when it comes to breeding, "You never know what female is going to throw the best dogs." This refreshing honesty reveals why Gray has thrived while others struggle.
The conversation ventures into the practical aspects of maintaining elite hunting dogs – from nutrition (Gray swears by Purina ProPlan) to combating tick diseases that plague coon dogs. "That's probably 50% of the game now with coon dogs," Gray notes. "Fighting ticks, keeping them right, keeping them healthy." His insights on recognizing subtle health changes before they become serious problems demonstrate the deep connection between handler and dog.
We journey through the competitive circuit where events can pay $10,000 or more to winners, explore the regional strongholds of the sport (Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio), and even follow Gray's adventures bear hunting in West Virginia. Throughout, his passion for working dogs shines through: "I could care less about a coon. I just like watching the dog work."
Whether you're an experienced coon hunter or simply fascinated by the bond between humans and working dogs, this episode offers a rare glimpse into a world where heritage, skill, and passion intersect.
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Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt and I'm coming to you from Texas. I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is more than just a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who want to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we are set out to try to encourage youth, to get encouraged in the sport of gun dogs, whether it's hunting, competition, trials, hunt tests, all the above. This is a community of people that are united to preserve our heritage of gun dog ownership and also to be better gun dog owners. So if you'll stay tuned to all of our episodes, we're going to have people on here to educate you about training, about nutrition, health. Anything can make you a better gun dog owner. It's my pleasure to welcome our listeners and please join our community.
Speaker 1:Purina ProPlan here at Gundog Nation we use Purina ProPlan for our dogs. We actually use the Sport Performance Edition, which is 30% protein and 20% fat, the beef and bison. It contains glucosamine, omega-3s for their joints. It also contains amino acids for muscles and antioxidants. It also has probiotics. It's guaranteed to have live probiotics in each serving. There's no artificial colors or flavors. We see the difference in our dogs. We see the difference in their coat, their performance, their endurance and also in recovery. Be sure to use Purina ProPlan dog food. The reputation speaks for itself. There's a reason that Purina has been around for such a long time. We suggest that you use it and we are so proud to be sponsored by Purina dog food.
Speaker 1:All right, it's Kenneth Witt, back with Gun Dog Nation, real happy to have again another Kentuckian on here. He's from over in Clay County in Manchester, kentucky. I'm from Hyden, kentucky, just the next county over, and of course this young man's now living in London. But this man is no stranger to the coon dog hunters throughout the United States. I think it's safe to say that he owns probably the most winningest stud dog standing in the US at this time. Is that safe to say? Jr?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right?
Speaker 1:Hey, tell these people your full name, where you live, and we'll start talking about you a little bit.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm JR Gray. I'm from London, kentucky.
Speaker 1:And you've got a dog that's very well known in the coon dog circuit. What's that dog's name?
Speaker 2:It's Gray's Rackham Willie.
Speaker 1:All right Now, jr. How many champions? Well, first of all, if you don't mind, give me the titles that your dog has won, that Rackham Willie has won.
Speaker 2:So he's a UKC World Night Hunt champion. He's a Grand Night champion too. He's a PKC hunt champion. He's a grand night champion too. He's a pkc uh gold champion and he also has he's akc uh supreme grand night champion along with akc world uh championship, and he also got second in the chkc um world hunt reserve world champion is that all of them? That's all of them, I think that's.
Speaker 1:That's a man that I don't know that I know any other dog with that kind of titles in any in any of the breeds. Uh, all right, man, that has to be a special dog.
Speaker 2:Tell me how you got your hands on that dog well, my uncle, jason gray, he raised, uh, he raised willie's mother and then, you know, once we got up, we, we, everybody around here was in love with her and uh, we ended up turning her, you know, making her grand night pkc champion. We got her uh. I want to thank top 12 of the pkc world. We only took her uh two years 100 one night on 100 on thursday night, and then the next year we hunter on thursday night and got her in to the top 12 um. But we ended up taking her out to um st louis, missouri, got her bred to reason and that's where willie and his gang come along all right now.
Speaker 1:What's Reason's background?
Speaker 2:Reason is out of a hammer and a guy named CJ Thomas from eastern Tennessee.
Speaker 1:He made that cross and he was the one that raised and trained Reason Now, no coon dog guys know all about your dog. For us, non-coon dog dog folks, tell me what breed your dog is. He's a tree and walker and I'm sure, uh, you'd probably agree that that's. That's the dog, that's the breed in the coon world, or have you had other stuff besides walkers?
Speaker 2:we had a blue tick once when I was younger, um, but we've pretty much only walkers my whole life jr, is it again?
Speaker 1:you know, sometimes you have to correct me if I get get some of this stuff wrong, because you're you're the man that knows more about this than me, but is walkers the primary breed. It's in, it's in the championship line every time yeah, yeah, I mean you'll have.
Speaker 2:You'll have, maybe you know, a couple black tans or an english dog. But you know, if you hunt, if you're hunting, just say, if we're hunting 400 dogs, you'll probably have 325 walkers and then you know the rest of them. You know they'll. They'll break down the breed. You usually have maybe 50 english and then drop down to maybe 20 black tans and you got your curves and plots. But you know, probably, percentage wise, 90 of the time to 95, you're going to see a walker win. But there's also a lot more walkers out because everybody, even people that used to hunt black and tans and english and blue ticks, they're still switching over to walkers, you know what do you think that is?
Speaker 1:you obviously know what the heck you're doing to have dogs like you do. What? Why is that? Why is a walker? What makes it different and stand out?
Speaker 2:well, for one, I feel, like a lot of the breeds, they're so jealous and they get so wound up and wound tight in a certain breed that they won't make out crosses and I just think they get so they're just so jealous they won't, you know, they let their I guess you'd say pride over go with them trying to make an actual champion dog.
Speaker 2:And uh, we're in a Walker breed, you know, sometimes you have to swallow your pride and whatever's clicking, Everybody wants a piece of it. They just they go ahead and get it anyways.
Speaker 1:So, and, and that being said, I know that you stud your dog out quite a bit right yeah, yeah he's.
Speaker 2:He's 10 year old and he's got about, I want to say roughly 1800 and something pups oh, wow, uh, do you?
Speaker 1:is there a selection process that you use to study matter? What? How do you do that? Do they just come to you?
Speaker 2:no, because my biggest thing was and I had a good friend of mine, mike ours. He, you know, he owns a black and tan. He, he owns the number one, the number one stud in the black and tan breed, um, and he's dominated it for the last probably 10 or 15 years. But just like he always said, you know, you never know what jip is going to throw, what jip is going to cross right with your dog, and you never know what's going to throw the the best dogs, um, so I kind of stuck with that. And then every jip that comes here, everybody's like what do you think I'm? Like man, we don't, you know, we really don't know until we make this cross that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:So you don't. So you're. If they come to you and want to breed, you're going to let them breed because I mean you're not being picky and yes, right.
Speaker 2:I mean, well, I mean some of willie's best pups, the most winningest pups. I mean, yeah, their, their mothers would treat coons but they wasn't really that great of competition dogs. But that don't mean they didn't throw the right type, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, uh, now you have Jr, don't you all have a competition of just Willie's offspring?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a, I have a pup on. Every year we we usually hunt 40 to 50 dogs um give out 10,000, you know, for first place, or if they want to split or however they want to do it. But we have pretty good time now, this might be too personal.
Speaker 1:If it is, you tell me. So what do you mind sharing? What's his earnings? Do you have any idea?
Speaker 2:well, really, I'm gonna say, as far as him alone, we probably won 25, 26 000 with him yes but you know that's when I was first getting started and honestly didn't have. You know they was like the first pro hunt. I put him in. They was, I think, four of a split just to pay a 300 entry fee I see.
Speaker 1:So it's changed a lot since he was a young, since he's gotten older, I guess yes, yes, big time, big time now, how old was he when you stopped running him in competition? He's a four-year-old just getting good really, and what made you do that Well?
Speaker 2:if he was going to promote his pups. It's hard for me to promote something if I'm still hunting him and, honestly, everybody done seen what he could win. So I had to switch over to a pup.
Speaker 1:You didn't have nothing else to prove. Haven't proved, did you?
Speaker 2:yeah, once we started winning with them pups, then that's what you know, because a lot of times a dog can win, you know, an unlimited amount, but they made some dogs just don't reproduce. That's just how it is you know, I was just blessed to have one.
Speaker 1:It did you exactly how many kentucky derby winners produce kentucky derby winners? There's very few, right? I get that. No, that's smart and I think about. I guess what's crazy is that dog won all that stuff by the age of four.
Speaker 2:That's crazy yeah, I mean really, really, whenever he started getting good, you know, right there, right before he turned four and right when he turned, know, he turned four in June. We won the UKC World in September. We won the AKC World in October. We turned around and won, or got second, the reserve world champion in March of the CHKC World Hunt and then I just retired him after that.
Speaker 1:When? What age do you think he was starting to peak, or was he peaking then?
Speaker 2:I think he was peaking in, he was, he was getting right. You know, that was the best that he was going to be yeah, he figured it out, didn't he? Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1:That that's when I'd say he was just getting into his prime jr, what would you, what advice do you give to a young man wanting to get started out in a coon dog competition world? You've obviously trained and produced and raised, I'd say, the obviously the best coon dog in our time. What would, what's your advice to somebody? What, what, what would you do to right start, right down from picking a pup to raising it?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, this is how I always go with pups. I try to find one. I like, you know, if I'm looking at them, I'm looking at their build and stuff. But honestly, picking a pup is like a lottery ticket. Some people you know you'll go six or eight weeks, they'll be six or eight weeks old. You'll go in there and they're like, wow, this is the pup you want, this is the pup you want, this is the best pup. It's by itself and all that.
Speaker 2:I just kind of let people talk. I necessarily don't think that that has anything to do with how it's going to be. I just try to pick one that I like, got a pretty good little personality to it, and just hope for it. I've had pretty good luck with the pups. They've been real good to me so far. Every pup I've had off willie, I've got started and they, you know, they've either turned out pretty nice, but usually somebody calls and and they like the pup a lot more than I do yeah, yeah, it's, you're right, though, and it's funny, what you'd like can put no photo down the road may not necessarily well, yeah, absolutely I mean, every, every pup's different and you just get.
Speaker 2:You know, like I said, personally I just try to find one. Okay, I can live with this one's looks and you know, if they got a good personality and got a pretty good turn, then I'll put my time in them how many?
Speaker 1:do you know how many champions he's thrown?
Speaker 2:I don't know how many champions he's thrown. I do know in ukc right now. I just got a book and it shows which this is going to be on percentage for current, so their current reproducer list. They had to be under 12 but it's all based on percentages. So his percentage right now he's sitting at number four. But with 1800, 1,800 pups but you got to think out of 1,800, I'm going to say roughly 700 to 800 is probably we'll say 600 to 700 is under the age of two. So if you took them off his numbers he would be number one.
Speaker 2:But, where he keeps producing so many pups, his pup numbers, it's hard to get that percentage up and that that percentage is only going to keep going up, or should keep going up as he gets older and the pups get older I see, okay, that makes sense now on the historical, he's already jumped up to the top six on historical and that number. You know that's.
Speaker 1:That's another thing that's just going to keep climbing as the pups get more age now has he been, and I don't know how that works, so I might be asking a dumb question, but has he been in the hall of fame yet, or, yes, he got?
Speaker 2:there is a hall of fame and he is in it. So they got the reproduction side of Hall of Fame. But they also have performance side. So he got it with reproduction. But as far as getting into UKC or PKC, I don't think that they can actually get nominated into their Hall of Fame until they pass away if that makes sense. Nominated into their hall of fame until they pass away if that makes sense. But whenever he passes away, whenever he passed away in ukc, he will be performance and also the stud side of it wow, that's something else.
Speaker 1:Uh, do you have any? Now? Obviously you know we all hope that's not the truth, but that's what we call JR. Once in a lifetime, dog right, absolutely yeah. Do you have anything else coming down the pike you feel might be better?
Speaker 2:No, I've probably had some that I thought could possibly have been just as good. But you know, in my mind I've always thought like just say, for example so once I sold or once I laid Willie up, I had a dog named Mac which I turned around and you know he was a nice dog, coontreer. I sold him. Then I started a pup named Connor, which Connor, you know, went on to win the TOC, the $50,000 winner, and I ended up having a guy call me and and buying him and he went on. I'd won roughly 75 000 with him in probably a year less less than a year, because when I sold him he's only two. But when that, when this guy ended up, he hunted him, they sold him he'd won right at 150150,000.
Speaker 1:Gee gosh. I'm in a dog world that my dogs don't do anything but break me up. I need to switch over, but I don't have any skill.
Speaker 2:They cost a lot, that's for sure that's a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, JR, I assume that you hit the hunt test, hunt trial circuit full blast, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we try to. If we got something we can win with. You know I'm not wanting, I'm just gonna go for, you know, kicks and giggles just to see and be like, well, I hope we got a chance. You know, usually if they're, if they're looking pretty good, we'll try to go. You know, every year I enjoy we try to go to the super stakes which is PKC. We go to the PKC world and then we try to hunt, you know maybe a few pro classics and then we hunt out of moats every year which is their, you know, their national hunt, along with the UKC world, and that that's. That's roughly the four to five big hunts that we try to hit a year.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you still do AKC?
Speaker 2:I haven't hunted AKC in probably two or three years. Uh, seems like the weekend they always have. I've got something going on somewhere else, I just haven't been able to make it up there to it again now, uh, when you're training these, educate me a little bit, jr.
Speaker 1:when you, when you're working these pups, you you're trying to train them and bring them up to be at that level, what are you doing? Are you catching? Are you trapping coons, letting them hit live coons in a cage, pulling them up?
Speaker 2:in a pole. Tell me how you do it. If I come up with some live coons, I'll show them. But honestly, like just saying, when they're eight, ten weeks old, every evening, especially, you know, depending on the weather I try to let them out, try to mess with them just a little bit, whether it's 15 minutes or two minutes, especially now. I got a two-year-old little girl and she likes to get out and roughhouse them around a little bit. That's the best thing in the world for a puppy. Yes sir.
Speaker 2:But usually, you know, when they get about six months old I'll start hauling them. Usually, you know, when they get about six months old I'll start hauling them. Or my dad, whenever he comes pick up my girl, he'll throw them in a box, take them to his house, leave them in the box, you know that day, get them out, just kind of get them used to the box where they don't dread it or hate it. Then once we get them out, as far as getting them to the woods, you know I'll take them out. We get these dogs and start recasting.
Speaker 2:You know, once they get treed, get them off that tree, recut them. We'll just let them pups go in there and just kind of learn their thing. And once we maybe shoot a coon out or two and they take a liking to it, I may lay a few drags. But once they go to, you know I see them looking up and trying to get treed. Then I start trying to drive around for maybe road crossers or maybe try to turn a few cage coons loose on them and basically start hunting them by their self for into the next little bit okay, how many, how many dogs that you, on average, do you have at your training at a time?
Speaker 2:uh, I try to get down to just one okay, that's and that's, that's a job, ain't it?
Speaker 2:just one, I'm telling you yeah, just one, because my problem is if, just say, once I get one up and going, good, I'm watching that Garmin and everybody's like, well, you know we go by how they used to listen to them and by their dogs' barks and I'm listening, but also I'm watching. You know, I'm watching that Garmin. If I see them zigzagging working track, usually by the time I get ready to put them in a hunt, I can just about tell you when they're going to get treed.
Speaker 1:most of the time before they get treed wow just by the patterns or motion how they do wow, I need to come hang out with you one day and learn that, just what you do, that'd be something uh, yeah, I've done it a couple times in a cast.
Speaker 2:I'll be like uh-oh, then they'll just roll up treed yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 1:You know, man, I don't know if you listen to me and casey on there, but you know I don't. I couldn't hunt a few times back home when I was living in leslie county with buddies that had them. I never owned my own dogs and uh, it's, uh, it's, it's one of the dog sports that I I I'm probably the weakest on a hundred beagles a lot run rabbits stuff around a lot over in your country and clay County and um, but me and Brad Stevens used to use rabbit hunt a lot. But but yeah, I, I I've got a lot to learn but I got a lot of buddies. You know, uh, I don't know if you know, uh, we went all through school together, went to uk together mike mager, black and tan guy yeah mike.
Speaker 1:Uh, I know, is he still? Is he still involved? Yeah, still mess with him. Yeah, you know, and I know it's not the preferred coon dog, but I love the look of a black and tan. I think they're good looking oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I said, my buddy micah right there, he's had some, which he's had some. He's had some nice black and tans as well. But yeah, they look, you get the right built one.
Speaker 1:They are pretty but you know now they what is the guy that's got the world champion black and tan or the? Is that the one over in jackson county? Yeah, yeah, that's him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I almost got a pup off of mike mager to come off mike bread to that dog and jack okay, yeah to batman, yeah yeah, yeah, and mike was worked it out.
Speaker 1:I was gonna get a pup and I was gonna bring to the ranch in texas and try to make a blood tracker out of it because I track wounded game and stuff and uh, it just didn't work out. I couldn't get the pup in time and but I was, I was. I was gonna try one out there, not for coon hunting but for which I've got coons on ranch. But think about it and and you're more than welcome to come try it out. But uh, we got rattlesnakes pretty bad too and yeah, I've.
Speaker 2:They ain't very few things I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1:A snake is one of them and I I know you know me and you grew up around rattlesnakes, copperheads. I tell you what west texas the worst place for snakes I've ever seen in my life, and them Diamondbacks are huge.
Speaker 2:I'm hoping East Texas won't be too bad. It ought to be pretty cold next week. Hopefully they'll be in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now I think, when it's warm over, they got them bad too, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I might set a truck on Casey.
Speaker 1:I tell you what I almost year-round wear snake boots, so make sure you have a good pair. Yes, sir, oh my God, if it's cold you've got a problem. I wear snake boots about 10 months out of the year at the ranch.
Speaker 2:Now you got me nervous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just watch you step, you know seriously. So okay, I'm going to get in your business again. So what are you feeding these dogs? How do you keep them in shape?
Speaker 2:Perino Pro Plan. I fed that for probably well, willie's 10 now. I fed it to him ever since he was a two-year-old. We tried everything. I tried Victor, I tried Joey Dogchow, then we had Pride, and they was another bag here that we tried to, but it just seemed like when I went to when I went to hunt him hard, he would just fall, you know, he just couldn't hold weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and uh, there's a guy named ted cook over here in london. You may know him. He used to, uh, he owned cook tire and he used to mess with bird dogs, I mean, and from what I understand he was the, he was at one time he was the man in the bird hunting, you know, and uh, quail and pheasant uh, I believe, jr, that he raised luellen setters.
Speaker 1:That looks like an english setter.
Speaker 2:Look just it's basically an english setter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, real beautiful dog, yeah yeah, yeah um, and my dad worked for him for about 40 years 38 years, I, I believe over at Cook Tire, but he was over in Hazard. He done the off-road mechanic, yeah, and I was over working for Ted and he's like you're going to have to try this dog food and I'm like man, that dog food at that time I think it was like $40 a bag. I'm like you know, I'm over here buying $20 for 50 pounds and this guy's giving $40 for $37. And he gave me two bags of dog food and told me if I liked it I could pay him and if I didn't like it not to worry about it. And I've never fed anything else since.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm glad you said that Just yesterday JR picked up Purina. It's going to sponsor the podcast, okay, and I feed ProPlan and I've tried other stuff too. I did use Victor a long time but I've just found and I've tried other stuff and I'm not knocking other foods. There's a lot of good foods out there, but for my dogs and I've had them on different stuff, but that's what works the best. They look the best they perform.
Speaker 1:You know these retrievers, they're not running the distances probably a coon dog but they're running hard, shorter distances.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, Prina, they paid for me to go out to St Louis to visit to where they make the dog food. They had like four or five veterinarians come in there and explain, you know like conditioning and stuff, what you need to do, what not to do, and they'd never really been around somebody that coon hunts. And I'm like, look, when we're hunting these dogs they're putting 15 or 20 mile a night in and they're like you know, they was kind of like amazed at and I'm like whenever we're getting ready for a hunt, we're hunting every other night and not for an hour or two, we're out there six or eight hours a night yeah, and you know I used to have a gun shop, pawn shop over in lester county and had locoon hunters come in stuff.
Speaker 1:You, these guys run dogs over the game reserve. You know it's straight up and down and hardcore.
Speaker 2:Back over, supposedly, I think, tomorrow night.
Speaker 1:Really. Well, that's what burnt me out on coon hunting. I did two trips in the game reserve and I think I retired as a coon hunter but they like to kill me. But you know those guys would come in the pawn shop back when I had it. But you know those guys are coming to pawn shop back when I had it, not always asking what they fed their dogs and stuff. And I learned all kinds of dog food, nutrition stuff from coon hunters because their dogs are working harder than any dog. I know especially where we're from right In Eastern Kentucky.
Speaker 1:I mean they're running that stuff hardcore, you know, and I saw that's one of those guys got me on feeding my dog. Every so often I give cans of mackerel, jack mackerel, and I learned that off a coon hunting guy you know They'll surprise you and people when they come here to breed dogs.
Speaker 2:I have heard some of the craziest stuff that you've ever heard and I'm thinking that guy may have that guy. He's I kind of like his idea about that. Yeah, and I'll try it and I mean I'm just I always tell everybody, especially with breeding dogs. You know I say this now I've not bred dogs for a long time, but in what time I have I I mean I probably got 50 years experience or maybe more on your average dog breeder. Yeah, and I've only been doing it for six years. But I mean people, certain people, if you'll just listen and not be a know-it-all, almost everybody that comes here will tell you something and you'll be like that just amazes me. You know, like I have never even thought about that or looked at that that way about dogs, and I'm like I won't. I may not take everything they say, but I'll take something and and from then on I've always. You know, I just kind of work it into my routine but you took words out of my mouth, jr.
Speaker 1:Last night I did a podcast with a buddy of mine. I got a duck outfielder up in canada trains retrievers and that's exactly what I said. I said what I love more about doing this podcast and I'm 56 years old, I've been a dog since I could walk and talk is what I've learned from people like you, people I have on this show that teach. I learn something every night that I do this and it's why I love doing it.
Speaker 1:I'm not a know-it-all. I've been to dog training schools. I've read more dog training books than most seminars you name it but I learned something every time I talk to guys like you and you know and there's no substitute really, jr, from people that run dogs as much as you or these guys that are hunting guys and running dogs maybe for four or five months straight, seven days a week. You, those guys, are there with their dogs. They know what works, what doesn't. You know training-wise or nutrition-wise, just like you. You've learned, I'm sure, more than most just by all that experience that you're doing every day yeah, I got tickled.
Speaker 2:Uh, I was asking them vets out there we was talking and uh, I was asking them about thyroid issues and you know just different little things, and they're like what do you mean? I'm like, well, you know, when a dog's thyroid sometimes when they get low they won't get treed, and they're like, well, thyroid shouldn't ever really. And they're like, and then they kind of got interested. They're like, well, how do you know? I'm like, because I've seen it through several dogs and just like you know, you know the biggest, the big deal now and it was probably a big deal back in the day but people didn't really understand it um, you know is we had to fight with the ticks. That's like the worst thing for a coon hunter and now it's getting to be any dog. But you know, back I'm gonna say 10 or 12 year ago, uh, just say I had a dog. That's when I first started learning about it.
Speaker 2:I had a dog. He was a nice dog, treat a lot of coons and always hunting good by himself and everything. Well, I'd go to get him out of the box. He's fine at the house. I'd go to get him out of the dog box. My son, he wouldn't go. And you go and you know most people back in the day they'd just be like, well, this dog's quit, put him up, send him somewhere else, sell him. Somebody would lay him up, get him back out. You know, after he kind of got rested but realistically what it was was he had a tick disease. I treated him for it. He cured it and went right back to being the same dog and I was telling them vets, they're like well, how do you know that they've got a Lyme's flyer up?
Speaker 2:It's kind of like being around your kid. You know how your kid's going to act most of the time. Now, sometimes they act up and do crazy stuff. But you know, if I come home every evening and my little girl's running around and she's having a big time, like she always is, and then I come home tomorrow and she just kind of wants to lay around on the couch and and she'll still move around, but I can tell there's something wrong. You know, I know she don't feel good. Well, it's just like those coon dogs you know, like maybe with a beagle you wouldn't really know, because a beagle's out there running tracks so sometimes they can be a little bit on the lazy side or something and your average person wouldn't notice it. But a co coon dog you go from treeing three or four coons a night with a dog in 90 minutes to it won't make a tree. You know, you're kind of like, hey, three or four nights of being consistent and not making trees, you're like I need to get this dog checked out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're exactly right. It's funny, people don't understand the genius of hillbilly vets, buddy. But when you work with that stuff every day, you're right. You know, uh, and, and you know like I don't measure my dog's food, but I do use the same size cup it's a barbecue restaurant cup. I got a place, you know place, come on, you don't have me, I said, but I know I can look at my dog and I can tell you how much I need to add or take away from his food by his waistline. And I, you know, and if I want to add three or four pounds on my dog, I know just how to do it, just from feeding that many dogs daily. You know just like you, but I liked it. That's well put. I'm glad you said that you probably educated those vets at Purina, but you know they need to know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they might've thought I was crazy for a minute, but the more I got talking to them they just kind of like, yeah, you've got pretty good points there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and you know like, uh, you know like him, old guys coming in a store over, unless they can tell me about feeding macro and sardines. Well, you come to think of it, everybody's trying to give their dogs now jugs of fish oil and and, uh, and you know, and omega-3s and all that stuff. All that stuff's in those sardines and it's in the mackerel, yeah, and it's natural. It's not processed. You just open the can, give it to them and there you go and, and you know, a can of mackerel, I believe. Last label I checked about 78 grams of protein.
Speaker 1:So really yeah, I could tell you what, especially like on my dobermans man. They're slick and shiny and I add, I give them a lot of just sardines and fish and not you know, every now and then I throw in how often do you add that?
Speaker 1:I think once a week is plenty, and then every couple weeks I'll throw, I'll get. I'll go store get some organ meat. You know, chicken livers hearts about once a month, that's a lot, a lot of iron, and I'll feed you they say they say chicken livers, gizzards and stuff like you were talking about there, you know.
Speaker 2:Uh, they say as far as like helping just a natural, helping a dog boost his uh sperm count, that that's good to give them that didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Well, you taught me something. I'll tell you something else. A guy taught me. When my dogs have, you know, you and I both. I know it sounds bad, but we notice our dogs stool right when they use the bathroom. We pay close attention to that. If my dogs are having a loose stool, or in other words runs, I'll go get some plain probiotic yogurt or that kefir milk. It's probiotic milk, that's not sweet. I'll give my dogs that, usually two days. I'll just give them a bowl of it. They'll drink it and usually in a couple days their stomach's right back to normal. It puts them enzymes back in their stomachs when they got diarrhea. They get rid of all that the good bacteria I'll give them at the uh.
Speaker 2:perina makes a thing called and I'm probably not gonna say it's right for the flora okay, yes, yes, tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Somebody else mentioned it on here to me so like, uh, when we travel now which dave mcveigh is the one got me, got me doing this? When we travel, you know, sometimes dolls won't really eat good and they get upset stomach. They're, you know, they're away from home and stuff and he's like just put that on your food every time you travel. I'm not saying you have to do it at the house, maybe once a week or something, but when you travel, when, while you're traveling, give them this or here and it will help their stomach.
Speaker 1:And it is 100 helped out I'll try out and it's made by purina. Yeah, I'll look that up.
Speaker 2:You're the second person that's mentioned that, but I still hadn't I got so big, they come in little, they come in little packets, and I mean pretty much you can just tear it open, pour it on their food, just sprinkle it on their food okay, do you notice it working?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely they don't get like. You know I had to like connor. Connor didn't really eat well when he was away and when I started putting that on his feed, I mean he would tear the bowl up just like I was putting gravy or something on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and he'd always, when we get to them hunts like you said, there, he would have real runny, like you could just tell he was nervous or something maybe, and his stomach was upset and, and that, sure enough, cured it and you know like I can tell, like I've got that ranch so I've got a lot of hunting animals on my place.
Speaker 1:We know there's droppings of deer and everything else and you know how I've seen sure you've seen dogs, some dogs. I go straight and try to eat that, yeah, and when they eat it they'll get parasites and there they go. We got the runs again. So I'm I'm always fighting that, you know. Uh, when I let them look, I try to watch them, not just turn completely loose out there, because that's the first and not all dogs do it, but some dogs will, and as soon as they do it, you'll see it in the stool.
Speaker 1:Yep, but we always give hers.
Speaker 2:We give hers, I give mine some Perica Trio, you know, once a month, okay, and then we give them a shot of Ivanmac once a month.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep, I do that too. That's my worm medicine.
Speaker 2:Now we're sober. Now we put Seresto collars on them. Then every time we go hunting, we got a spray there. I'll have to look and see what it says. We bought off Amazon, but the spray is the best thing that we've found. That actually is almost a guaranteed. You know, it's going to maybe not 100%, but it's probably 95 percent that it's gonna work, because for that simperica trio to work, like it's supposed to kill a tick, once a tick bites a dog, it's supposed to kill a tick in like, say, seven minutes. Well, if that tick can last a little bit longer, then it may still infect that dog, which give it, you know, a certain type of disease. So we was like you know, why are we still getting having dogs? It gets early, akin limes, and that was why you know just some they had. There's so many ticks out there and one. It just takes one tick and and it will, truly it will mess them up you know, I didn't realize how bad y'all had to fight that.
Speaker 1:Casey talked about that. On here a little bit about the tick problem, you know.
Speaker 2:I know you've hunted this yes. That's about the worst. I mean that's probably 50% of the game now with coon dogs.
Speaker 1:Fighting ticks.
Speaker 2:Keeping them right and keeping them healthy.
Speaker 1:Hello, this is Kenneth Witt, and Gun Dog Nation is proud to have one of their sponsors as Retriever Training Supply. Based in Alabama, retriever Training Supply offers fast shipping on quality gear. Your dog will love it. Visit RetrieverTrainingSupplycom to purchase gear to help you train your retriever. Listen, they have some of the best leashes I've ever found. It's stuff that's made in America. Their leashes are and they source them locally. They have anything you want fast, friendly service, fast shipping, just good people. Retriever training supply you know they are. I had a farm up in uh on the henry franklin county line for so for a few years and that's the most tick infested country I've ever seen in my life. Uh, in may, may and June. I don't know if you've ever hunted in that area but, son, I mean it was bad.
Speaker 2:You cut out on me just a second right then yeah, I think it might've been her.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I was telling you I had a place up in uh on I had a big farm in Henry Franklin County line and that was the most tick infested place I ever saw. Have you ever?
Speaker 2:hunted up in there. Oh my gosh ticks. Yeah, we hunt up there Usually, usually probably twice a week. You know Frankfort, Shelby County, Chantiana, Falmouth, we hunt all over Anywhere, usually about north of 64.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, in May, up there, you can walk 10 feet and have 100 ticks on your pants. It's something else.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you they're unreal. I mean, even like two weeks ago we was up there hunting. I want to think it was in Frankfurt. Me and thing was in frankfurt uh, me and casey was and we picked six or seven ticks off us and we just we've had snow on the ground for a month it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've. Well, we'd shoot deer up there and it'd be cold, you know, cold as ice and be ticks running on them. You know, and I've seen guys down here try different stuff, uh for ticks, like they'll put garlic in their deer feed and they think that the animals eat that garlic in where they're feeding it. That garlic would keep the ticks off a deer. I've heard all kinds of wives you know of tricks and stuff. I don't know how good they work, but I know a guy that does it at a big ranch here in Texas and then, you know, they say if you keep guineas.
Speaker 2:Well guineas and chickens, yeah, yeah yeah how about really fat teaks?
Speaker 1:yeah, I know there's a daggone, noisy lord of mercy. Uh, man, there would stand it. But uh so, uh, who taught you? Who got, got you into coon hunting your dad?
Speaker 2:My dad, my uncle and both my papas coon hunted.
Speaker 1:Oh man, you got it bad, You're full stock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, purebred. We've hunted foxes. We've rabbit hunted. When I was little, growing up, we had a it was a 17-acre coon pen which had foxes in it, and then we also had a five-acre rabbit pen and with about a 40-run kennel. You know we was always moving dogs, messing with dogs.
Speaker 2:I couldn't tell you how many people I've talked to about people starting coon pens and they're like I'm like I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but you know you have to roll that fence over on you know top and like I took a dog and dropped it off to a guy and pulled up and I said you keep coons in here. I seen his fence. He said man, I can't keep him in here. I said you're going to roll that fence at the top, put about three strands of bob water and them coons can't climb out if you roll that fence at the top. He looked at me like I was crazy and I showed him. Well, I went back over the next month there to pick my pup up. He had a fence right over the top and he was keeping a few coons in it.
Speaker 1:Then that's a good trick. I have to remember that in case anybody asked me that question. Yeah, so yeah, what was it? I got a buddy over in Clay County it's about my age, used to work at Clay Building Supplies Big rabbit hunter Beagles oh shoot, it'll hit me here in a minute.
Speaker 2:I know, you know him I don't think it's probably Terry Gray, wouldn't it have been?
Speaker 1:No, no, I know who that is too. Oh, doug, it'll hit me here. I think his first name is doug. Oh, why can't I think of his last name?
Speaker 2:that's where I stay gone, so much you know. Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 1:Uh, rabbit hunter, no, maybe doug jarvis doug jarvis yeah me, and I've known him a long, long time. He's still got beagles, don't he?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, got some good ones too.
Speaker 1:Now let me ask you this do you see the popularity of coon hunting growing? Is it getting a bit, does it? Or are we just knowing more about it now, or is it actually just getting bigger?
Speaker 2:I feel like, overall it's it's getting bigger. You know, um, as far as people can and I mean there's, and some of the best styles in the countries right here at the house, I mean you go to, you go to a pro classic and there'll be five or six gold champions, two or three platinums, and now you got to. You know Casey's got a world champion title. You just don't really know what you're going to draw here close. But I mean you know we have a lot of those pro classics and to me they're the best thing going right now because it'll be like a 16-dog. You know the hunt format 16 dogs, maybe a 300 to $1,000 entry, and then just one night you can win $7,000 or $10,000 off of a $300 entry.
Speaker 1:Not bad. What do you think's making it more popular? Is it the money? What's getting?
Speaker 2:people into it. I want to say you can get a lot of return, like I mean, as far as like on my side of it I train dogs and people is paying a ridiculous amount. You know people looks at me all the time like they'll be like tell them what you sold a coon dog for, and I'm like you know, and it blows their mind, it absolutely. I mean they're like y'all can make a living at this.
Speaker 1:Well, I almost was going to ask you and I know, but is that your full-time thing?
Speaker 2:No, I run a which I own a hunting supply store which is Primetime Hunting Supply. I started it about two years ago. Where's?
Speaker 1:it at?
Speaker 2:It's right here at the house. Where's it at? It's right here at the house. I built a big garage and put like a 30 by 16 Side shop on it.
Speaker 1:Where are you at in London? I mean, I know London well.
Speaker 2:I live down east 80. I'm about I'm 6 mile out of London and probably 12 mile out of Manchester.
Speaker 1:How far are you from the Mennonites? Produce place there and furniture place.
Speaker 2:Two miles Okay.
Speaker 1:Maybe I go up there.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I'm right on past it. Do you know where Courtney's grocery is?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I live basically just about across the road.
Speaker 1:Okay yeah, when I'm home I run up there to the Mennonites store their first store on the bypass and then I go on down to the furniture store. I'll usually grab some stuff from there.
Speaker 2:I got you Okay, but no, I've come to. We do a lot of hunting. We do a lot of hunting on the Mennonites. Do they own a lot of land? No, If I come outside and change my clothes I'd look like the ringleader. They own everything out here on 80 about it. But they're super nice people and they keep everything clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean you don't pull up to their place and it's looking rough.
Speaker 1:You know the house that I put on that farm in Frankfurt, the group right there in London, you know, right there, by you, they drove up every day and built my house and they'd quit every day at three o'clock and drive back to London.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're good. I mean right here, pretty much like right across the road from me, I got a sheep farmer. I mean right here, pretty much like right across the road from me, I got a sheep farmer, the farm behind me, which is like they're all kin some way, yeah, whether they're married in kin or something you know. So the guy in front of me is a sheep farmer. The guy behind me raises cattle. His brother owns the farm directly across from him which is they're building like a 200-foot by probably 200-foot barn whatever you want to call it to raise chickens.
Speaker 2:His cousin down the road does welding. You know a fab shop and then you go a mile the other direction. You know they raise you know corn, potatoes, green beans, everything. And then you got the builders down there that builds the pole barns. They raise corn, potatoes, green beans, everything. And then you got the builders down there that builds the pole barns. That's probably the ones you was talking about building. You go down the road just a little bit further and they build the furniture. Or, if you come back toward London, you go out there and they got a big flower shop and then they got an actual place that you can go in and eat food and everything else.
Speaker 1:I go there and get a sandwich every time I'm in town, and the furniture shop out there Show Water is his last name. He built me a walnut desk. It's beautiful, and I mean a real good deal. He's built me a bunch of furniture. Most of my furniture is from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then too I forgot they got the place out there. Deal he's built me a bunch of furniture most of my furniture is from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you can't do I?
Speaker 2:forgot, they got, uh, they got the place out there. Now I think it's called sunny time. They built, uh, my little girl her swing set. Oh, I didn't know they do that, man.
Speaker 1:They have grown, ain't they? Since I've moved away.
Speaker 2:They, they, there's, they're everywhere around here about it which is a good thing. I'm not definitely not saying it's bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, you could have worse neighbors, couldn't you? Absolutely. But no man, I didn't realize they'd grown into all that kind of business, but they're solid people. I'm sure I've done a lot of business with them. So now do you keep all your dogs there where you live?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'll keep the one that I'm running. And then, you know, I got willie in the garage and house um, and then my dad, my dad, he'll keep, he'll keep my pups, like my younger dogs, and stuff you know he keeps okay.
Speaker 1:Do you have a? Do you have a training ground that you go train at another place?
Speaker 2:no, we're just wherever we're going, hunting at night okay.
Speaker 1:So you just okay. So that's actually better, because you know how it is. You train a dog in the same place over and over then you, oh yeah yeah, yeah so that's no wonder your dogs are doing good
Speaker 2:we never. Usually how we do it is like say, for example, tomorrow night you know we're gonna, we're gonna go over and let's look at the game reserve off of our buggies. And you know we got them cbs with that new, the new garmin xl and it's kind of just fun just to run around and hunt off of. Plus, you know you can get back in there. In places they in a house within seem like 10 miles and there's nothing but just roads and and you know you can drive a lot uh back in there on a buggy. But uh, you know usually we'll go, we'll go up the road we probably put in.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to say in three years I put over 150 000 miles on my truck just just driving up you know frankfurt, shelby county, but say we'll go up there and hunt this guy's farm tonight. Usually I won't. I always text them before I go. So usually I'll go back for probably three, three weeks to a month and hunt the same farm twice. We usually got enough land that we can. We can move around up there that's all right.
Speaker 1:What that game reserve? It's nice there, man.
Speaker 2:That's some steep country in it oh yeah, well, we'll have a guy named ellis.
Speaker 1:He'll drive around on top, drop me and casey off, then we'll walk down and just keep kind of walking downhill till he can get somewhere close to pick us up hey I don't blame you, buddy, that when I was in there I was a long, long time ago in the late 80s and, uh, my best friend growing up, mark baker, over in lex county, had a walker and we went in there and first thing it did was run a deer. We walked for about four hours that's before GPS, that's before cell phones and I thought, yeah, boys, this ain't for me. I was killed.
Speaker 2:Yeah no, we deer hunted over a lot this past year and so we took a little Garmin over and got all the kind of the roads that we know about where it's at and kind of had it mapped out. So now when we go back over I just pull my Garmin out and look and be like, hey, we can drive right here, I know we can go on past it and this is closer than where we're at, so we're just going to drive over here and go in.
Speaker 1:That's a good thing. You know they've had logging in there. Good thing you know they've had logging in there. So there's logging roads you can use there. Might be covered up with leaves but you're right, there's, there's ways to get around in there if you can find them yep, I ain't gonna say they can't get in a point of rock and hard place over, but it.
Speaker 2:I mean for the most part, everywhere that we deer hunted, there was a trail on top of the hill that you could drive down. Now you may have to walk a half a mile to a mile. Once you get to the bottom of that, holler yeah instead of you don't want to walk back up the hill, but for the most part there's. There's trails all over it I loved in there.
Speaker 1:I spent a lot of time. We ride horses and all that stuff in there. It's a pretty place. Uh, now, how many for the 2025? What's your hunt schedule look like? How many? Competition not hunt schedule. What's your hunt schedule look like? Not hunt schedule. What's your competition schedule look like this year?
Speaker 2:Well, what I got marked on my calendar is we're going Casey got into the Joey Super Hunt which is next week in Texas, so we're going to head out there. We'll come home for a couple weeks and then we're going to go to the PKC World I think it's the third week of March and then the following weekend we're going to leave and go to it's in LaGrange, indiana, this is, to the TOC Regionals, and then, if we get lucky and do any good there, two weeks later the TOC Fin finals will be in green castle, indiana, and then I think there's a week, there's a week off. Then that following week could be the spring super stakes that we'll go to. That. It'll be back in salem, illinois, and then I'll try to go to. I'll try to go to walker days, which will be like maybe a week or so after that, and then which may, me and my wife we're getting ready to have another little girl.
Speaker 2:She's due June 4th but she'll probably, you know, more likely she'll probably come a little early, so we figure about mid-May. So I probably won't hunt much. You know, as far as competitions for May and June, and then probably toward the end of August, we got autumn oaks. That's probably my favorite hunt. And then you got the UKC world final or the world hunt, and then also the fall super states in September, as well, where will the UKC world hunt be?
Speaker 2:I want to think this year it's going to be. I want to say I know it's in Indiana, but I'm not sure I can't remember exactly where it's at. I want to think it might be Portland, portland, indiana, I believe. Okay.
Speaker 1:I really want to go to that. It's hard for me to do everything, but I'd love to go there Now.
Speaker 2:they'll have a zone out there in Texas around the second weekend of September.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:They usually have a zone out there in Texas and then they'll have a zone in Oklahoma. They're usually not really that big, they won't have that many dogs, but they'll probably hunt 50 or 60 dogs maybe, but you may go to that zone in Indiana and they'll hunt. They'll probably hunt 50 or $60 maybe, but like you may go to that zone in Indiana and they'll hunt 150. That's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:What, what, what do you think? I know me and you might be biased, but what state do you feel like has the largest number of coon hunters and competitors?
Speaker 2:I'm going to say I don't really know I. It's hard to say I mean you know indiana I don't know there's.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of competition in kentucky, I mean as far as as handlers and stuff. I mean you got there's, there's, there's a lot. I mean, if I go to start naming a bunch of them, you know, and try to compare it that way, uh, but kentucky's got a pretty good, pretty good competition. Really. Some of, I guess some of that I would consider top two, you know, top top of the list, you know you got. You got casey there, uh, casey mager. Then also you got the burdens out there. They're probably them would probably be the most well known. You got john Strickland here in Kentucky. He travels the circuit a lot and that's not counting how many people that I know that hunts and I mean competition, hunts and does really well, but that's just a few. I know right off the top of my head that I would say is consistent winners.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, it's good you know. Hey, I'm just glad that's what this podcast is about, jr. We're trying to keep it alive, right? We won't. We won't keep gun dogs, whether it's coon hunting, rabbit hunting, bird hunting, duck hunting, whatever that might be hunting with dogs we want to keep. My goal is to keep the sport alive, pass it on to our young people, and that's that's why I have people like you on to educate everybody else about it. Educate me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to say your three biggest states, I feel like for competition. Well, I'm going to say let's go with five. I'm going to say Kentucky, indiana, ohio, and then I'm going to say South Carolina has probably got a lot of competition hunters. And then you're probably looking at maybe Missouri and Alabama. Wow, that's probably where the majority of them is at.
Speaker 1:Okay, tennessee.
Speaker 2:Tennessee's got quite a few, but not compared, you know, overall. I mean I'm going to say as far as, like just saying, let's go off the UKC World Zones last year, you know there's so many in Indiana and Ohio and so many Kentucky people that drives up there to go to the zones. I mean they'll have a zone that's three hours apart up there and they'll have close to 200 dogs at each zone, compared to texas. Texas might have 40 to 50.
Speaker 2:Wow, I mean the year, the year I won the toc. They was right at a thousand dogs that was signed up to hunt and they got them. Thousand dogs scattered throughout five zones, but I would say three of the zones. One of them was in Kentucky that year, one of them was in Indiana, one of them was in Ohio and that was your three biggest zones.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know that makes sense too, because I travel around a lot. I'm out all over the place, different states, and I don't really see in Texas I don't see a coon hunters at least well, west Texas especially I'm in texas I don't see a coon hunters at least well, west texas especially. I'm sure east texas is a lot different, but at least west texas coon hunting's not even a sport really. I mean, it's just a terrain. Right, it's not that people don't like to hunt there, but uh, that makes sense. I can see. I'd say you're pretty daggone, you would know more than anybody, but that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot of hunters around here. I mean, like I said right here, even right here, local, at London, you know, somerset, springfield, anywhere within an hour of me, I mean there's a lot of competition hunters and a lot of coon hunters.
Speaker 1:I'm just glad to see it, I'm glad to see people doing it and out and, uh, you know, using dogs. I mean that's to me there's nothing better than watching a dog do what it's bred for. You know it's uh, I, I and yeah, and it's crazy, I know it's. It's odd, not everybody's, like it's been. I like any hunting dog, I like I wouldn't care to watch a springer Spaniel or a Walker or a Black and Tan Blue Tick Beagle. I mean I love to watch dogs work. It fascinates me. And man, some of them they just lock on it, naturally, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are so smart.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But one thing I also learned is every one of them. You may train this one this way and have success with this one, but, like on the Coon side of it, they're every one different. Yeah, I mean I and that was my problem.
Speaker 2:Starting out, I probably messed a few of them up or set them back because I took off and trained every one of them, like how I trained willie, and I just went the case no, you know I get to being hard on a dog, and then I'd realize, hey, this ain't working, and what worked for this pup didn't work for this one, even though they're out of Willie, you know, they're all different in their own little way.
Speaker 1:You know, probably the most important thing I've learned, training myself is a lot of time when a dog ain't doing what you want it to do in you want, it doesn't know what you're asking of it and I always put that as my fault. So I try to think of a better way to show it what I want it to do. So that's something I've learned over the years and you take him.
Speaker 2:You take him pups and stuff and you get them going in the right direction. Yeah, um, to me there that's what I, I guess I love more. Anything everybody's like what do you get out of them coons? I'm like I could care less about a coon, that's right. I just like watching the dog work and taking a little puppy I didn't know anything, raising it up, training it, taking it out and actually winning some hunts with it with it. And then people notice they're like, hey, you know, we like this dog that's. You know that to me that's more rewarding than any hunt that I can win same here and I've just now started getting into hunt tests and stuff.
Speaker 1:I never really did that and I just do that to help my training, give my dog something doing off season. But uh, there ain't nothing. I'm like you, I just want to watch that dog work. I'm getting to the point and I never thought I'd say this I don't even care when I go bird hunting anymore If I shoot and just or just sit there and work my dogs and let everybody else shoot. You know.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, people's, people's asking me all the time. They're like, uh, you know, as far as me, honestly now I, I can't say that if something happened to competition, coon hunting, that I mean, I like the competition and I've got to where that's, that's kind of what I love. You know, I, yeah, I can't say that I would enjoy coon hunting as much if I didn't have that goal to work for, you know yeah, no, I get it, I can see that and that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And you know, yeah, no, I get it, I can see that, and that makes sense. And you know it's a brotherhood too, right? I mean, you're meeting buddies, you're meeting people from other states that you'd never meet any otherwise, and making friends, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean my wife gets tickled. I mean it seems like we can go anywhere on vacation and then I'll run into somebody or they'll see something like hey, we've heard of this dog or we, we, we know Jr, or you know, it just blows your mind, we'll be on a cruise, going in and be like, hey, I tell you this guy, he won the TOC or he won a world hunter. You know just, it just. And then I met some of my best friends. You know you go through high school and get out and you think, well, you know, these are, these are your buddies, and that's it. But I couldn't tell you how many friends you know.
Speaker 2:I I go to a different state and stay a weekend and and we'll coon hunt. I I went to west virginia here back, uh, in december and we actually went over and went and bear hunted. And I mean you know people, people, I guess, like to me, some people has to pay, like they'll have to pay and go with this guy to run a bear. I mean we got over there. I think we treated 11 bears and they killed three. And I mean just being able to go with different people and go, do certain types of hunts and meet people, and that's probably another thing that I love.
Speaker 1:I guess more about competition hunting is the people that you meet and, like you said, the brothers that you make yeah, uh, what kind of dogs do they run on the barren west virginia?
Speaker 2:well, we had a little bit of everything. We had plots, walkers, english blue ticks. I mean we probably had 20 dogs at one tree, you know, because we'd put a couple out and let them re-eager, or we'd turn a couple loose and they was just like coonhounds. They'd go out there and strike them bears up and that boy he'd be watching the Garmin. He'd be like, all right, he's at her one, let's cut them loose. And they wouldn't even be barking. But he knew on that Garmin what the way that dog was acting. It was after a bear and they'd had the races on.
Speaker 1:You know you got to listen, jr. I've got a guy probably on here the next two or three weeks. I've already did the podcast. It just has been edited and stuff. But he's in New Mexico and that's what he does for a living is mountain lions and bears with his own dogs. And you know what's odd, a lot of them guys I talk to use different breeds, they'll cross plots and everything World Walkers. But this guy uses Blue Ticks and he does it for a living and you have to listen to the podcast because he talks about where he got his dogs and stuff and pretty neat. But them guys, they cover some great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you this quick story about them too. So I had a guy and I don't know why, but I started having these people with these big game mountain lions, bears and stuff like that. They're all calling, wanting to be like, hey, we'd like to get a frozen breeding or see if we can't breed. And I'm like, okay, well, where are you at? Well, we're in Montana. I'm like, yeah, what are you going to do with it out there? Well, we won't run big game with them.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I had a guy ask me. He said, you know, are they quiet on the ground? Do they open up? And I'm like, well, you know, depending got a good mixture of dogs as far as opening up, but I would say most of them, you know more than not, it's going to open up on tracks. And I had a guy tell me he was going on. See, I'm trying to think how he actually come about it, but he was going on. He was like yeah, he said I need something that's colder nosed, because Willie was kind kind of more hot nose, ambush style. But he, I guess what I would say his best feature was if coons wasn't moving.
Speaker 2:He could go through her and winter him now, when he was a one and two year old, we missed a lot of coons, but that we'd always see coons sitting up close, but the older he got, that's whenever he actually got good at it. Um, but they, they was asking me and they're like now, what do you think about cold tracks? I'm like, buddy, I don't have no idea. I didn't let him. You know, if he got the mess around too long, I'd put him out of there. On him, this guy. He said I like turn my dogs loose on like a six or eight, you know our six or eight uh hour cold track. And I'm like, how in the world do you know what's that cold? He said, well, we don't run unless the snow's on the ground. And when it's the snows are flying, I get out and drive and I see it. You know, I'll see where they want to run across the road and I'll, by judging that track, I'll be like, okay, this is fresh because the snow's flying, it's still here, and then he'll sit there.
Speaker 2:He said I sat there a little bit and, depending on how quick that snow fills up, I'll be like, okay, it went by an hour ago okay, and then I'll go home set for six or seven hours and then I'll go out and turn loose, because if you get after them super hot, I guess you know if you try to get on them pretty quick, uh, I guess they'll just run forever the way you know, the way he caught, but a colder track they'll get in there and they'll just run forever the way he caught, but a colder track.
Speaker 2:They'll get in there and they'll get climb up or denned up or whatever, and then that's the best way. He said that's why they like to wait around.
Speaker 1:You know it makes sense. I know he told me that not hunting them without snow was hardcore. You could run dogs, but if it snowed, he said, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he told me he got to talk to me. I talked to him for probably an hour or two. You know it's crazy. You don't even know this guy and we start out for a few minutes. It's kind of awkward. And the next thing you know he's listen. Whenever the snow hits the ground, you come out here. He said I'm like, well, how do we know how to plant this? Don't come till it snows on the ground. Yep, and I'm like, well, all right, that'll work.
Speaker 1:Some of them guys, they treat them cats and I've seen some my buddy killed. It was a monster man, a big animal. I've actually had them come across my ranch and had a guy that was out there predator hunting and filmed it on a thermal video to go across my ranch and they don't stay. They they kind of nomadic, you know. They they move from place to place. But uh, my neighbor had a trophy white tail deer. You know we're all high fence and, buddy, I had a big addicts missing, which is a large antelope family. They're huge and ain't nothing could kill it. A fox or coyote could have never done that. Yeah, I couldn't figure out what was going on and my neighbor found his buck. There's probably I don't know, 200 class white-tailed deer up in a tree. That cat, that mountain lion, pulled that deer up in a tree and eat it.
Speaker 2:That's wild, ain they quite a bit of mountain lions around there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I I never see one, but they're here in west texas for sure. I'm sure they're probably everywhere, but they're definitely here, I think, at east texas where we're going.
Speaker 2:Uh, they say the hogs are real bad yeah, yeah, they're worse than over well Midland.
Speaker 1:They got to have a lot of water. So that's why I'm not a Texas expert. I've been here 13 years. But East Texas, I think, is a lot worse. Now we have them down around the ranch, you know, and stuff yeah, but if there's water there's hogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's some intense hunting, if you ever do one with dogs.
Speaker 2:I think we're going to get to go. I don't know how you know how it's going to work out, but I think we're going to go next week.
Speaker 1:Well, I can tell you this it's an adrenaline rush First time I went to. We took off, we rode around all night and they got on one. It's in corn and uh, I jumped.
Speaker 1:He's gonna let me kill the first ones, because I've never done it before. I jumped out, I pulled out my 40 caliber glock. Things like what are you doing? What are you doing? I said. You said I was gonna kill. He said no, no, no, don't you dare shoot that gun. He said you'll kill my dogs.
Speaker 1:I said well, how am I supposed to kill it? He jerked out a knife. I said, son, are you serious? And they's in that corn. You know what corn's getting them dogs, them dogs barking and them that hog squealing them. They had it on each ear and he said that he sent that pit bull in there, a catch dog. The other dogs are baying it. You know, son, that beat. I was in there and it was like I don't even know how to explain it it's like being inside of a tornado and all that noise, them dogs, that pig hogs squalling and that corn moving and shaking. And I started stabbing it under its armpit. You know, and that's where he showed me Buddy, all I can say is that's an intense adrenaline rush right there.
Speaker 2:That was the way the bear hunting was. You know, I thought you know they. Uh, I thought you know they'd go out there and they'd climb them trees. That was it. Yeah, oh, there's. There's so much to it and, uh, I got tickled at the first, the first set of bears we treat. There's two at one tree. I'm like I'll just throw one out. They're like oh no, you can't do that. What do you mean? Well, in west you can't kill. You know they got to be over a certain weight, but you can't kill a mama and a cub up the same tree.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, didn't know that either. Yeah, you can't kill them up the same tree, so but see, I've hunted bear and canned over bait with a bow, but I've never hunted with dogs. I've never been in the state. No, you can't New Mexico, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you I I've opened it up in kentucky like that. Yeah, yeah, you can, you can run. Uh, it's like a couple weeks out of the year but yeah, them guys I went with. I don't know nothing about bear hunting, I just know my two days worth that I was with them and I and I enjoyed it a lot. Um, but now them guys and like season opens up up from like December the 11th or something like that to the end of the month, and then they got like maybe another running period, season or something. Them guys hunt every day. And I want to think they said, and like we was over there the weekend before Christmas, so from December 11th to the weekend for christmas they had already treed like 30 something bears, jeez, and I mean the biggest one we killed was probably 370 pound yeah
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean he was massive, but now they act like you know, they get a lot bigger than that. But they told us if we want to kill one of the big, I guess the, the king kong and the bears, that we need to be over that first weekend because then the, the big, the big cub you know, the big bears, uh, the boars, they want, they want dan up pretty quick and he said that's why we treat a lot of, we treat a lot of sows and uh, and the cubs you know, I'd like to try it that way.
Speaker 1:I when I the only one I've ever killed with a bow, but honestly it wasn't, it was pretty easy. I mean that you're well, it's a thick and candid. You put tree stand real close because you can't see. It's real thick, you can't see 10 yards, so yeah, I was right over top it.
Speaker 2:That bear is another thing. I I wouldn't give you a quarter if you said, hey, come over here, you sit a bear, walk out, you can shoot it. I didn't even care about killing one over there, everybody else that was with us there was like 11 of us that went over there and then they had, I don't want to think Friday we probably had 15 people roughly out there, but I'm going to say Saturday morning we had the kids. They was, they was a good 25 of us out there running around, but it, it, it was like complete families. You know, they, they, they go out and these little kids from five year old and up running through the hills with us, hey, they. I'm telling you that was probably one of my favorite trips I've been on that would be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've never done anything like that, but see, that's another good way to get kids involved in doing that. Well, JR, I guess I'm going to look you up Now. I've got your number and stuff and I'll get to come home and it sounds like I think I know about exactly where you live now and I go over through there. Anyway, Mom's in London and my kids are in Leslie County, so I'm always back and forth between London and Hyden. Hey, I'm going to try to get one of these competitions. I might holler at you and let you keep me informed of the UKC one. I might try to get up there and see that, Okay, yeah, that sounds good man.
Speaker 2:We might try to get up there and see that. Okay, yeah, that sounds good man, we'd love to have you. And there's a few people that goes around does the podcast. Uh, like they'll actually have a few handlers, get down and set and they'll do the podcast right there at the hunt.
Speaker 1:See, I'd like to do that. I've got it.
Speaker 2:I can set up, where I can go mobile. You know, yeah, honestly, if you just want to do something like that, I think, uh, I think autumn oaks would be a would be a big time for you. You know there's there's thousands of people at that one. That's probably one of the biggest hunts that you go to you know what?
Speaker 1:casey talked about that a little bit, so maybe that's what I should do. Uh, if you get, if you think of it, yeah, I'll holler at you when we get off this, but anyway, listen. So, jr, if anybody wants to get up to you and get bred to winning his coon dog on US soil standing at this time, how do they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:The best way is to call or text me at 606-599-3472,. At 606-599-3472, or I'm easily found on Facebook or Instagram. I'm trying to put me a few TikTok videos on there, but I still ain't got the video gig figured out yet. But usually call or text is the best way.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, well, we'll do that. We may even fix that. The guys, when they fix this, edit this podcast, may put your number in there on the link where you can see it, so he can call you.
Speaker 1:I'll try to remember to do that. But hey, man, it's sure good to talk to somebody from back home Makes me homesick. I've been out here a pretty good while in Texas, but I'm still a hardcore Leslie County and always will be. You know, uh, you can't take a boy out. You can take a boy out of Leslie County, but you can't take Leslie County out of me. You know, um, but yeah, so we uh I've really enjoyed it, man, it's uh, it's nice. I don't. I can honestly say, uh, I appreciate your humbleness, but you truly are a legend in the coon dog world and and are definitely well-known. I hear your name mentioned every time I talk coon dog, so it's it's a privilege to have you on here. I appreciate you taking the time and uh be looking forward to meeting you in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, man, that sounds good, I appreciate. Appreciate you All right.
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