Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Trevor Wade - Inside UKC's Lucrative Coonhound Circuit
#42 Have you ever wondered why some dog sports offer substantial cash prizes while others only provide ribbons and titles? In this fascinating conversation with Trevor Wade, Coonhound Program Manager at United Kennel Club (UKC), we uncover the remarkable economics of coonhound competitions that have created a thriving circuit where handlers compete for serious money.
Trevor pulls back the curtain on UKC's Tournament of Champions, which offers a jaw-dropping $250,000 purse with $50,000 going to the winner. Unlike many dog sports that rely heavily on corporate sponsorship, this system is primarily funded through clever structuring of entry fees and a $5 per-dog contribution at local events. The brilliance lies in how they've created a qualification system requiring dogs to win five local competitions before advancing to championships, simultaneously supporting grassroots clubs while building excitement for major events.
We also explore the mechanics of coonhound trials, where dogs compete in "casts" of four, earning points for both striking trails and treeing raccoons. Trevor explains the scoring system, the strategies handlers employ, and how competitions unfold from local events to prestigious championships like Autumn Oaks and the World Championship. His insights into the community aspects—from youth programs that are successfully attracting young women into the sport to the geographic concentration primarily in the Eastern and Midwestern United States—paint a complete picture of this unique sporting tradition.
Whether you're involved in retrievers, pointing dogs, or any other canine sporting discipline, there are valuable lessons to be learned from how the coonhound world has created financially rewarding competitions that honor tradition while adapting to contemporary needs. Join us for an eye-opening discussion that might just change how you think about competitive dog sports!
Gundog Nation is Proudly Sponsored by Waterstone Labradors.
Gundog Nation is Proudly Sponsored by:
I'm Kenneth Witt and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. Gun Dog Nation is much more than a podcast. It's a movement to build a community of people around the world that like to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we want to get our youth involved into the sport of gundogs, whether it be hunting, sport or competition. We want to build a community of people united to preserve our gundog heritage and be better gundog owners. Tune in into each weekly episode and learn about training, dog health, wellness and nutrition. We will also offer tips for hunting with dogs and for competition, hunt tests, field trials and other dog sports that involve gun dogs. Please go to our website gundognationcom and subscribe to our email list. We will keep you up form weekly with podcasts that are coming out. We also will be providing newsletters with training tips and health tips for your dog. You can also go to Patreoncom forward, slash GunDogNation and become a member. There's different levels of membership on there. Just go check that out.
Speaker 1:Also, we'd like to thank Sean Brock for providing the music for this show. The introduction and the outro is Sean Brock. He played everything on there except the banjo by Scott Vestal and the dobro by Jerry Douglas. Sean is a neighbor of mine from over in Harlan, kentucky. I'm just crossing the mountain in Hyden Kentucky and he's a super talented guy. But most of all, I want you guys to check out the Creakers. They are also from Hyden Kentucky and this is an up-and-coming bluegrass and country band and these guys are hot. They're all over TikTok and YouTube. You will hear these guys because in a year or so they will be on the radio. They are very talented. Their videos are going viral on the net. These boys are family. Two of the lead singers one grew up with my daughters and the other one is my cousin's son, so he's family. But check them out. Check out the Creakers Also.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, if you want to buy a hat, koozie t-shirt or even gundog supplies, go to shop gundognationcom and you can purchase any of those items. Thank you so much for listening. It's a privilege to have people that want to put up with me talking about dogs all the time. I actually enjoy what I do and I'm so glad to have this opportunity and thank you. Hello, welcome back to gundog nation. This is kenneth whitt. I'm coming to you today from the ranch at fort McAvitt, texas, and I have a very, very special guest on. I may be more excited about this than about anybody, and that says a lot. I've got a guy who's probably not too far from the neck of the woods as me and yeah, no, I'm not a hardcore coon hunter. I'm wearing this hat just to show Trevor that I have one. I actually own a nightlight, actually own a couple. But anyway, we'll get that stupid thing off and we put this back on. All right, let's get started. Trevor, you're more well-known in the dog world than me, but go ahead, still Introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Talk about tell where you're from what you do and then we'll get going. Yeah well, my name is trevor wade. I'm the coonhound program manager at united kennel club from southeast tennessee, a little town called athens, down just between knoxville and chattanooga right on i-75, and actually me and my family at the time, 2019 we decided to take the plunge and accept this job position with the United Kennel Club and made the move up to Michigan, and we haven't looked back since, going on, going on six years now, so so you, how do you like the move?
Speaker 1:was that a big culture shock for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's way different. You know, going from my town in in tennessee to to kalamazoo, michigan, it was a lot, a lot busier, more hustle and bustle. Obviously the the climate change that presented itself just east of lake michigan, there, with the lake effect, snow and and the cold, and, and now I've actually I'm married to a wisconsin woman. She was, uh, she was raised mostly in tennessee, but born in wisconsin. This is where all her family was. She spent a lot of summers up here, and so we've made the move now that we have two daughters and I'm on the road, you know, quite a few weekends throughout the year over here, closer to her family, and it's even colder here. Maybe we don't get quite as much snow, but it was. This past winter was a rough one for this Tennessee boy. I'm still not acclimated to all this.
Speaker 1:Now, how did you all meet?
Speaker 2:So there's this factory here pretty close to where we live now in Wisconsin called Wapaka and they opened up a branch in southeast Tennessee and her dad was part of the maintenance team that moved down maintenance supervisor that helped open that branch down in southeast Tennessee so moved the whole family down there and just we went to the same high school and all that good stuff. So I knew her for a while down there.
Speaker 1:Trevor, I think we talked about this once, but you're pretty close to Watts Bar.
Speaker 2:That's right. Where I was raised, we could be to watts bar in 20 minutes, so spent many, uh many a summer day out there fishing and tubing and swimming and about anything you can do out there. Even hunted on there a few times out of a boat man, it's nice, you know, trevor, not been there forever.
Speaker 1:I grew up uh, not up the road from you just in southeast Kentucky and my best friend growing up, mark Baker, uh, we, we were best friends from from childhood to to now and but they had a. They first started camping there and fishing. Then they bought a place but we would go fish off that dam and catch bluegills biggest things I'd ever seen in my life and up in our area down in Florida that's kind of normal. But man, what's some fishing?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's a lot of good fishing around there and yeah, it's, uh, it's a great place, a great. It's a great lake to get out with the family and enjoy fishing and all the recreation that comes with it trevor.
Speaker 1:What got you into hunting with dogs? What was your first hunting dog?
Speaker 2:well, starting out, we my dad hunted coon hunted back in back before my time. He used to coon hunt as a youngster with his uncle and his all of his family that coon hunted as well and by the time we came around you know, everything else takes precedent sometimes he took a step back so we didn't have any dogs then. But uh was always so fascinated with the pictures and the stories he would tell of hunts. He's been to and and go into different places and they ran plot hounds. All his whole family ran plot hounds. So I remember seeing plot hounds ever since I was a kid, uh, just about everywhere we were.
Speaker 2:And, uh, you know, we started out with beagles. We had a couple rabbit dogs early on, maybe when I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old, and that was just easier than for us to go to a patch you know a patch and let the, the beagles run the rabbits around us and all that good stuff. And we always coo hunted a little bit with different people in the area at our, some of our family's land out there and things like that. And then once I got to a place where I could actually have a dog, we did get a dog. Started out we actually had an older English hound. That was a pretty good coon dog who could treat coons consistently. And then I got my first pup, which was a plot hound from Bill Hicks. It would be my dad's well, my mamaw's first cousin and people will be familiar with the Hicks line of plot hounds there in Southeast Tennessee. They've done really well on both the coon and big game circuits around. That was my first coon hound pup and I've had one ever since. It's just something.
Speaker 2:I just needed the room and the opportunity to do it.
Speaker 1:I'm familiar, I'm actually familiar with the Bill Hicks name and the line of plot hounds. I've never owned a plot hound. I've been around them hog hunting here in Texas and, you know, in Kentucky, even though that's still my home state. But unless it's changed in the last year, you can't use dogs. But you see them, the plots, in New Mexico, a lot for mountain lion and bear tracking up here too. But man, they're a gritty dog, ain't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're tough, they're gritty, they're resilient and man. They've excelled in big game hunting, whether it be hog or cat or bear, especially in the eastern United States, and things like that. It's a breed that's withstood the test of time.
Speaker 1:Trevor, I heard you kept me a little bit because you know I'm familiar with lots of breeds. But what makes the plot, what makes them stand out? I know that they're. What is different about them? The only thing I know is they're gritty. I know they're gamey, gritty dogs, but what else Are they intelligent? What's some of your favorite traits that you see in plots?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've not been in the plot game for a long time but I am pretty familiar with their origin story.
Speaker 2:Most of our recognized breeds of coonhounds can actually be derived from the same set of old foxhounds that were bred, you know, and breed more for the color whether it be the English or the tree and walk or the blue ticks and came from that same sort of line.
Speaker 2:The plots are kind of a original breed in the sense that they came over, you know, on a ship from Johanna's plot and whatever you know. I know people have had bigger deep dives into the actual origin of how they made it to the United States, have had bigger deep dives into the actual origin of how they made it to the United States. But they came over pretty much as plots and they've tried to keep that, those strains, as pure as possible and that makes them a little bit different than some of the other lines of coonhound breeds that there are but man plots there. You know, when I look at them most of them have a smaller headset than the other breeds of coonhounds, maybe a little bit shorter earset and those sort of things. By looks and their temperament Some of them can be kind of one-man dogs and more personal Personal in my experience, you know. But I know different lines probably have different personalities and traits and things. But that might be a little general overview of the playa.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense, though. So what country did they come from?
Speaker 2:I want to say Germany's origin Johannes Plot. I don't have any notes on anything, but I want to think that he came over early settlers and man guys like Bob Plot who come from that. He's from over in North Carolina and he's written a bunch of good books about origin stories and growing up within the plot family and he has a wealth of knowledge on the history of the plot hound. It would be a great resource for anybody who's looking to really deep dive into that breed.
Speaker 1:I'd love to do that. You know my experience and I'm much older than you are and I've dabbled with lots of protection dog breeds. I've dabbled with lots of protection dog breeds. It seems to me that a lot of German dogs, or German descent dogs, are gritty, multipurpose. You think these Drothars and all those dogs, the Jagdterrier, I mean those things, they'll do anything. Of course they're crazy, but they have drive. But it's just something about german bred dogs are just gritty, tough animals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, you kind of see that, uh, you kind of see that uh coming from a lot of those strains that you talked about. There it's common.
Speaker 1:Well, trevor, uh, it's neat you have a little bit of background, like I do. Beagles is my thing too, but I was just wondering how Well did you once you got you know? You've told me how you got into dogs and stuff. You've obviously been heavy in competition to be in this job, I would think Correct. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation.
Speaker 1:Many people quickly become frustrated and confused when training a retriever. Cornerstone gundog academy's online courses eliminate all the guesswork by giving you a proven training system that will help you train a dog that anyone will be proud to have in their blind. Learn where to start, what to do next and what to do when problems arise. Visit cornerstone gundog academycom to learn how you can train your retriever. I have used this method myself. I have been through it a couple times with different dogs. I refer back to it lots of times when I'm trying to get dogs freshened back up for hunt test season. I highly recommend them.
Speaker 1:I have actually been a subscribed member of Cornerstone Gundog Academy since 2016, and I would suggest anyone use it. I highly recommend it. They have an app that you can get to on your phone. You can do it from your phone, your laptop. You can't get any more convenient than that. I've used it. It's proven and tried and I know literally hundreds of people that have done the same thing that I've talked to. Visit cornerstonegundogacademycom and learn how to train your own retriever.
Speaker 2:Visit cornerstonegundogacademycom and learn how to train your own retriever. Yeah, you know it didn't take very long when I first got into it that I became fascinated by the competition aspect of it and luckily for me and a lot of people who would have been a generation before me didn't have this ability. But uh, with youtube and things like that, there was already a little bit of that kind of stuff already online where I could go and see people filming their hunts and different things and and I remember ordering some uh dvds from people who would take uh hunts with different hounds and they got me so fascinated in that side of it. And southeast tennessee is one of our our major hubs now now speaking, where there's a lot of coonhound clubs. There's a lot of coon hunters in that area and, man, there was a lot of good clubs for me to go and I took my time.
Speaker 2:You know you see a lot of people who would make the mistake of jumping in headfirst and they go in with these notions that these competition hunts are cutthroat, dog-eat-dog and everybody's out to screw you over. And you know, going to a few of them at first and being more of a spectator than anything can help you out. Go out there, just walk along with the cast, and that's what I did, and early on more so, probably just being more gun-shy than anything, and I just happened into doing it that way and now that's how I would tell everybody to do it. But you get out there, you get to see it in action. You get to. It's easy to read a rule book and read it, but when you see the application of rules put in place, that's whenever you can really learn things and things start to make sense for you.
Speaker 2:And that's what I did and eventually really got heavy into the hunts and was never a great handler. Honestly, it didn't win a bunch of big hunts. We had a couple of dogs who did pretty good, but more so than anything, just loved putting on events. I think that's what kind of drove me to be where I am today is I enjoy putting on a good hunt, working with the people around me. Good hunt, uh, working with the people around me, and uh, yeah, that's I guess that's to have a job like mine. You have to enjoy being able to sit on the sidelines and put on a hunt, because there's not much time for a competition hunt anymore well, trevor, kind of teach me a little bit here.
Speaker 1:What? What does it take? You know I've, I'm a handler in hunt tests. I've never done field trials in the retriever world. What, what trait? I assume it's somewhat similar. But what makes a good handler in the coon dog world in the competition?
Speaker 2:what. So the as far as what would make somebody successful is, if you ask any handlers, the two things you got to know is to be the ability to know your dog and the ability to know the rules. So you want to be, you want to be able to have the drive to be out there and lay out all night when you know you have work responsibilities and family responsibilities and and other tasks to do. It takes a lot of drive and motivation to stay out there and you think this time of year, I remember, you come home from work and you sit down on the air conditioner. It's really hard to get up and get out in the heat again and go track through the woods all night. But that drive uh, the competitive nature you know a lot of it comes with anything. I think it drives a lot of people. They they're so used to competing, maybe in sports or different things in high school and stuff, and then you get to, you get old and you get out of out of school.
Speaker 2:There's, this is a way to compete and still drive, strive towards something like that, and then I just think confidence uh being a some, some handlers are lucky and they're able to hear a dog one.
Speaker 2:You know a cast of four dogs. They can hear the dogs bark one time and all night. They know exactly which dogs are which and that's some of the most skilled handlers out there. That's a really a really strong trait that sometimes I struggle with differentiate some of the dogs but some of the best handlerslers out there. That's a really strong trait that sometimes I struggle with differentiate some of the dogs. But some of the best handlers in the world can do that easy and just being able to apply all those things and coming in one package are probably your top echelon of handlers. And then there's probably a lower level that can do about half of those things and as you go down, less and less. But the ones who put in the most wood time woods time are the ones that'll be the most successful, as is the case in pretty much any any competitive uh dog field there is.
Speaker 1:I would say well, I'm definitely want to, to attend one of your trials. You know, I I feel horrible. I've never gotten to, but you know there's only there's only so many hours a day. I train my own dogs and and I compete a little bit and I hunt a lot. So, trevor, I talked to you, I kind of gave you a warning in advance a few weeks ago about what I wanted to talk about and I wanted to make sure it was okay with you because it's not a touchy subject. I don't think at all, but really I think there's lots of people out there that want to learn. And so here's a question, and we'll probably talk about this a while.
Speaker 1:I obviously have close friends at Coon Hunt that you know from Hyden, kentucky and Manchester and London, kentucky, and I got other friends grew up around, a bunch of hardcore Coon Hunting friends from my hometown, and as we, of course, we all talk and share stories. I've had them on the podcast and when I start learning about your all's competitions and what we get for winning and what you guys get for winning, I'm like hold it, what are we doing wrong? So, anyway, my question is this Trevor, what do you all do or explain to me how the coon hunting field trial system is so lucrative. You guys actually make cash prizes, maybe prizes that are non-cash. That's still worthy prizes and I'm not knocking it. I love it. I'm glad you all can do that. But we don't do that over here in the retriever world and tell us how you do it. Give us a lesson.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think the precedent was set a long time before I ever came around. You look back at some of the old pictures from the 70s and 80s from people winning autumn oaks, which is essentially UKC's national championship, or the world championship which started in the late eight or late seventies, and some of the pictures of the trophies and their dog boxes and their lights and man, the people that have been within this coonhound industry for years have been beating the bushes on different vendors and and getting a lot of great sponsorships, and it speaks to a lot of all those vendors are still around today. You know we have bright eyes, lights on board with us who sponsor a lot of our events and they've been sponsoring United Cone Club. If you go back through the books, it's been forever. We came to the point now, I think, and I think competition drives us more than anything. Ukc has a lot of competitors when it comes to the coonhound events and most of them are monetary based awards. Uh, they, they kind of start got started off by coon hunters who weren't interested in prizes and were more interested in monetary awards.
Speaker 2:And you know, as we've come into the new century, ukc's had to kind of adopt to that you either change with the times or you get left behind, and we've done some different things. We we've uh, we definitely have some, some money hunts that are that are driven by just large entry fees. Honestly, you know there's we have ukc pro slams, we have some today that that opened up for our automobiles coming up in a couple weeks and they're they're 16 dog hunts, so we know exactly how many dogs are going to be in it, how many cats we're going to have. And the one on wednesday night so it's a warm-up type deal is a $500 entry and the one on Thursday night is a $1,000 entry and the winners of those first place on Wednesday will get a $3,000 payout, first place on Thursday will get a $7,500 payout and then second through fourth also gets some money back too. But then we also have some different things, like our world championship has a $25,000 payout. That kind of comes from throughout the year. We have what we call regional qualifying events and we have like 175 of them throughout the year and you have to go and get a cast win with your dog at one of the hunts. Or if you're interested in bench showing, you can get a category win and any money from there, we take a percentage of it to put towards the payout and the prizes at the world championship finals.
Speaker 2:And then just actually since I came on board, it was kind of a uh, it was kind of being talked about my some of my first conversations with alan gingrich, who is the director of our hunting ops program, who used to be the coonhound program manager here and it's still super knowledgeable.
Speaker 2:I'd say he's one of the best in the country at putting on any kind of dog event. You know we're talking about coonhounds and beagles and kerfice and and everything else that he dabbles in. Um, and and one of our first events we went to we're sitting at dinner and he tells me about this this round table discussion he had with some coon hunters at our winter classic event where they were kind of figuring out how to keep the local club levels alive. And you know, obviously there's a lot of things to contend with now. The sporting events are year-round and you know racetrack and hunting and fishing and there's a lot of things to draw you away and the local club level is probably seeing the biggest brunt of that is that people would rather save their time and do something with a family and travel to a larger event than just go support their local club and things like that.
Speaker 1:So what we did in discussions.
Speaker 2:Following that initial discussion, we chipped away and chipped away at this and then by autumn most of 2019, which would have been my first autumn most coming on board we actually were able to drop the concept for what we call the UKC Tournament of Champions, and at this one we were able. So we had to raise our license fee or, sorry, our recording fees at the local level a little bit, which it could hurt you a little bit, but, man, we've seen a drastic increase at participation at the local level because what it does is a dog has to accrue five cast wins in a calendar year to qualify for the next year's tournament champion. So that means that you have to go out and support your local club level. Most people aren't going to go win five casts and five tries. Most of the time it's going to take you at least seven, eight, nine tries, depending on your caliber of dog, maybe more than that. And the more you do that, the more entries are at the club level.
Speaker 2:And now they're paying a $5 per dog fee at their entries towards this final purse, and the first year it was a $200,000 total purse. After the first two years we had to up it, and how it is now. It's a $250,000 total purse, with $100,000 of that being paid to the final four. First place is a $50,000 cash prize. Second place gets $30,000. Third place gets $20,000. And then fourth place gets $10,000.
Speaker 1:Wow. So is it strictly from entry fees and the way you're managing the entry fees, or are there sponsor sources that contribute to the purse? Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation and I've got to tell you guys about something that I've gotten hooked on lately. It's Fauxlicious. These are gourmet instant faux and ramen bowls that actually taste like the real deal. When I'm out in the field all day and the last thing I want is to settle for bland camp food, fauxlicious is what I go to. It's authentic, the flavor, it's real ingredients, it's ready in just minutes. It's perfect for hunters, fishermen or anyone on the go. And you can get them over 1,900 Walmarts nationwide, your local HEB here in Texas, or you can just go online at Foliciouscom. Trust me, once you try it, you'll keep a few stocked in in your bag, in your pack pack or for your next adventure.
Speaker 1:I just want to say this I'm going to add this to this commercial because I know the owners of this company. They've hunted on my ranch the joseph uh, he and I actually met in colorado on a hunting trip. Uh, that was a real adventure. They are true hunters. They've hunted at the ranch, you know, and I've hunted with them, and anna is just amazing. She is the one that came up with this idea. They were both on Shark Tank. They are amazing people. So I love seeing people like this have a business. And I just had to say that, in addition to the commercial, because I really believe in the product and I believe in the people that made the product. Be sure and go to Foliciouscom or go to Walmart or HEB and try their product. I promise you you will like it.
Speaker 2:So this one here is completely consumer driven.
Speaker 2:It's all of those payouts come from that per dog fee and the entry fees that come with it that's able to get all the money for us to pay for our officials to do the events and and to get a really nice venue.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of times coonhound events are at a fairgrounds, which was some super nice fairgrounds out there in different places, but you have to have room to spread out for dog shows and for people to camp and vendors to be set up and for the tournament champions. We wanted to have a little bit of a different feel. So after our initial region, which everybody can enter, so we have 800 dogs entered in seven different regions across the country and we take the top 96 from those and get them down to our finals so we know exactly how many dogs are going to be there. There's no bench show. We do have a complimentary dinner on Thursday night night, but you just have to have enough room for that. And now we're able to get some really nice places to where people can come to and, uh, like a log cabin type feel, a ranch style feel, where man, it just feels prestigious and it feels different than what most of the coon hunters are used to, and I think that's gone a long way for us.
Speaker 1:So how many and I'm sure you probably know this, probably well as anybody, but how many dogs do you think over the year in the coonhound world enter events? Do you all have that number?
Speaker 2:I don't have the number of dogs that are original dogs that are entered into the event available to me right now. That's probably something I'd have to get a programmer to run for me. I can say that we had upwards of 1,500 dogs that qualified for the Tournament of Champions last year by achieving five cast wins. So you have to think that's probably a drop in a bucket compared to the number of dogs that just competed in maybe one event or tried to make a run at it and just didn't have any luck, or maybe something happened with their dog and it switched hands or this, that and the other. So that's a pretty good. I mean, that's a good starting point for us, but I don't have the good final tally for you.
Speaker 1:Now, when you all host a world championship, how many entries are there at that?
Speaker 2:So, like I said, we start off at the regional qualifying event level and that's because, at our finals.
Speaker 2:We want it to be a manageable number because we want everybody to be able to hunt, close, make sure they've got quality guides and judges on those casts. We've found that around 100 dogs, so 25 casts, casts, 25 to 27 casts is a pretty reasonable number. So we kind of start that off at the regional qualifying level where we have like 175 of these qualifying events and it's in those you're getting close to 3,000. You know, unique entries of dogs trying or vying for that world championship title.
Speaker 2:Uh, you have to win your cast with a, with a, with a positive score when you're done, just meaning that you had did more good stuff than you did bad stuff at the end of that hunt and at that point you're advanced to what we call our zones and it's similar to the regions I was talking about where we have this year we have eight different zone locations and they're kind of strategically over the country. We have one in Paris, texas, so pretty close to your country down there, and we got up in Missouri. And we have one in Ohio and we have one in South Carolina and just kind of strategically where everybody has a pretty decent drive there. So you're going to have for the world championship. You're probably down to about 700 at the zone level and then we get down to 108 dogs that come to the finals.
Speaker 1:I'm going to make a note because there's a couple questions I want to ask you and still stay on this subject, and I know this is a little bit outside your division or you're part of the UKC, but you know I didn't realize. I was talking to a pro trainer today here in Texas, justin Drake, very good trainer, very nice guy, and he was just kind of making me aware that the UKC doesn't have a field trial for Labrador, for retrievers. You know you have the HRC, then I know you all sanctioned the SRS, but there's no field trial in the UKC like there is in the AKC and like there is for other breeds in the UKC. Do you think that might change or something that y'all have considered looking at? I know you're not in the retriever world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly, I don't have a good question for you. My buddy, dominic Moyo, would probably be the one to talk to about that. I do know that HRC and UKC have had a great partnership and they've been affiliated with UKC for many, many years and maybe it's a not-stepping-on-the-toes type deal or what have you, but they have a couple affiliations, I think, with, uh, both retrieving and upland type deals for, and I'm not sure if we would ever consider, you know, administering our own events or not, but that's uh, that's an interesting question uh, yeah, that's just I know and I honestly I didn't pay any attention.
Speaker 1:I mean I know, uh, I follow the grand, the hrc, I compete in the hrc and and I compete in the akc too, but I just never really thought about that. What I know again, this is a little bit out, it's an overall UKC question. What I know, we have retriever things. I know you have a coonhound one. What all breeds competitions do you cover for gun dogs in ukc? So in our hunting? Ops program at total yes, sir, yes yes yeah, okay so I asked that poorly no, hey, you're fine, you're fine.
Speaker 2:So we have our coonhound program, uh, we have, uh, beagle events. So obviously rabbit hunting curve fast, which would be our squirrel hound events, and then the HRC, all of the retrieving stuff. So you know all the breeds that are wrapped up into that and there's multiple different affiliations there. I don't know them all offhand there, but there's quite a few options for folks there. Obviously acquired American field man that must have been 2021 or 2022. It's been a while now.
Speaker 2:So, with the more pointing type stuff that they do with that kind of stuff, and that was a big acquisition that I know our hunting op team members that were more familiar with the pointing side of things were super excited with Todd Kellum, our vice president now, was over the moon with that acquisition. And then there's the Shed Dog, which is, I think, the final hunting ops type deal and that's the kind that was kind of new. When I first came on board and I remember talking to Todd, he took me to lunch on my first day and kind of showed me around Michigan and he talked about this Shed Dog program that he was super, super proud of and it's really caught on. They keep seeing their numbers kind of grow and it's kind of a thing where there's basically any or not basically any breed that's accepted that UKZ can compete in these, you know, as long as they have the ability to track and scent and retrieve.
Speaker 2:You know the sheds that are out there and it's kind of interesting to see their different blend of breeds that are in there. And it's kind of interesting to see there are different blend of breeds that are in there. You know, I just have my in my program. I just have to oversee eight. And you talk about poor Dominic. He's got to know all kinds of breeds that I don't have to worry about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be. You know, I talked with a Ray void at Purina and he was uh, he's over all their retrievers, then all the Spiels and even, like the sheepdog, working dogs and he has to go to all that stuff. I don't know how you do it, I can't imagine. Yeah Well, that's interesting. I didn't realize. I guess I didn't know. You all had a beagle division, squirrel dog division, kind of stuff. Are those also pretty lucrative for lack of better words, events that are monetary awards, I guess.
Speaker 2:So the Curr-Fi stuff. They haven't gotten to that level yet. They have the ability to put on the same similar Pro Slams. I'm talking about where they could put on a limited entry, high entry fee, high payout type of event, but I don't think they have very many of them.
Speaker 2:For the beagle events now in the hunting beagle format there's a couple different formats. There's the little pack type format where you kind of draw them out in a high fence and the handlers aren't. It doesn't even matter if the dog has a handler. The judges are riding along beside the dogs and are kind of picking based on how the dogs are hunting. The hunting beagle format is almost the coonown event for beagles. You're casting the dogs free range into the wild, Handlers are having to strike their dogs and they're having to stay in front of the dogs and call lines as they come across.
Speaker 2:That would be like calling their dogs treed and they accrue points throughout. So the handler comes into into account there and in that program they've done pretty well. They've had several of the post-slam events, but they also have, uh, something similar to the tournament champions that they call the clash of champions, with a little bit smaller payout. Obviously there's a smaller pool, there's less hunters and less events. Uh, to pull money from that way? But they do do have a Clash of Champions and the overall winner in that gets $10,000. And I think it's a total $25,000 purse for that event as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, now are you seeing? You know you're a younger guy, much younger than me, and you know people like my generation we talk about. You know, keeping the sport alive right, encourage people to come in. Do you feel like that? The coon dog sport is growing.
Speaker 2:I think if you look through entry numbers throughout the history of United Kooning Club, I think we probably have hit our peak as far as the number of entries a while back. Obviously, in the hide hunt days, that hurts Koon hunting more than anything, I think, is that hides are basically worthless. Now. Hides are basically worthless, so we lost a big pool of our hunters whenever they didn't have a reason to get out and hunt anymore. They couldn't gain, you know, monetarily from that. But I think now you know we've kind of flattened out as far as our competition hunters and there's just so many options for them. Like I talked about, we have all of our UKC events and it's every weekend. You can be somewhere every weekend. Now you add in some of the other registries that are putting on Coonhound events as well, and I know the hunters are stretched thin, but hey, I think it's staying steady. I'm seeing a lot of new faces at places I go. I just as we're sitting here recording this.
Speaker 2:This past weekend I was in Milton, indiana, at our 2025 UKC Youth National Championship and we had 100 different kids there over the weekend that were either hunting or showing a dog, and that's always fun. There was a lot of new faces for me and one of the coolest things that I thought that me and Alan actually did a podcast earlier today where we recapped the event a little bit is that half of the kids that enter that event were young ladies. And you know, you think about coon hunting and you think that's kind of a male-driven predominant sport, but we're seeing more and more young ladies and that's just going to help us the more people we can get out there and get familiar with our sports and our lifestyles. And in the field man, it's super, super encouraging. And you see their dads and their grandpas and their families and, heck, a lot of them were wearing their casks, they were toting in the scorecard and, boy, you would have thought they won a world hunt, as big as their smiles were. That one's always after a pretty draining summer going around to all the events that I went to this spring and summer. You kind of get worn down and you're tired and then you go to an event like that and it kind of makes you remember why exactly you're doing that to keep this lifestyle alive.
Speaker 2:And you won't find a better group of kids, kids who are involved in outdoor stuff like this, whether they're hunting or fishing or whatever they're doing, always seem to be the most respectful kids, super attentive. When I'm up there doing my spiel, you know I don't love public speaking. If people are over talking in the corner, that just makes it that much worse. But all these kids I'm looking out there, they're making eye contact with me, they're not trying to talk and they're super respectful and didn't have an issue all weekend on any of the casts and that just is super, super encouraging for the sport and I challenged them all. Is super, super encouraging for the sport and I challenged them all. If you're hunting, make sure you take your friend hunting and keep pushing it on along. We've got to get more kids into it.
Speaker 2:We've got to get less video games and more woods time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Trevor. How many young people were in the world champion?
Speaker 2:So in our youth national championship we had around 50 kids hunt each night and then we had over 52 in our bench show championship. We had around 50 kids hunt each night and then we had over 52 in our bench show, which is just unique kids. They can only show one dog, uh. So you know we're talking about 150 entries over the weekend. Essentially, uh, some of those kids are the same. We have about 100 100 unique kids there and uh, from all over the country, 16 different states represented nice.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, just like you said, hopefully they can get their friends. I love what you told them. That was great advice to tell them to get their friends to go with them. And you know, the other good thing is when these kids post all this stuff on social media, hopefully it grows and other kids want to get excited about it. And, like you said, it's just. I've got four kids and luckily I've been very blessed that they all turned out to work and get educations and stuff. But there's so many distractions a kid can walk down the wrong path and thank God we've got stuff like this to keep them focused on something positive.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. There's so many bad things you can be doing worse than being out. Whether you're coon hunting or deer hunting or rabbit hunting or hunting birds or ducks, or whatever you're doing, man, that's a lot better than some of the alternatives out there.
Speaker 1:Purina ProPlan. Here at Gun Dog 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. You know, I guess when I had you know, it's either JR Gray or Casey Maggar on the show, or both of them. I guess I didn't realize that there are so many. There's some other competition organizations. It's kind of just. I guess they evolved just for competition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know some of our competitive registries, like Professional Chemical man they've been around for a long time now there's a newer one probably called a pro sport that are basically, you know they probably started out just, you know, based on just putting on events and and you, you registering your dogs, essentially just to do that, you know, and the registration might be a little secondary but you know that some of them you know pkc in particular they've had some staying power. So, uh, those, those guys are probably more familiar with those organs. You know, I used to hunt in some of them back in the day but it's been a, it's been a while now. But I know casey and jr probably being more familiar and hey, talk about two good guys. I was gonna say there's. You don't hear very many, very many bad thing about those two guys, so they're a good representation, representation of the coonhound folks, for sure they're great guys.
Speaker 1:I might have said something you, my, my youngest son's girlfriend's casey's first cousin, uh, and then her brother, her little brother's, the one that won the youth is, you know, kevin gay's son is, uh, you know, won the youth world right yeah, that's right yeah, yeah so, and I'm going to get them on there, but you his little son, hunter, I think, is his name- Okay.
Speaker 1:Kevin's son, but he plays sports. He's a really good athlete and Kevin was a real good athlete and so every time I try to get them on the show man, they're just so busy, but I'm wanting to get them on before school starts. Then I know it's going to be crazy, but I think he's a player. So I'm sure right now is, you know, they're practicing and stuff, but it's so neat to see, you know, kids like that get involved. I, I love that and it's so neat that my little hometown's got such a big representation in the ukc coonhound world, you know. Uh, so one of the things I'm going to change gears on next trevor, you know, educate. Let's educate the listeners who have never, either never attended a coonhound trial maybe wanting to get into it, you know or just people that just like to work dogs and compete. Tell us, start us and take us from start to finish how a trial works. What does it entail? Just walk us through a field trial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in a licensed UKC Nihon event, essentially you're going to take your pool of dogs and you're going to separate them into typically four dog casts. Sometimes, depending on the numbers, you can have a three dog cast.
Speaker 1:And Trevor. Just for explanation purposes, a cast is just a group, right? Just a group of dogs, exactly, and it's usually four.
Speaker 2:Exactly, four is the four is the max and that's the typical number. It could be some three dog casts and and what you do with those casts is obviously you can't all hunt off of fairgrounds or something like that. Each cast will be assigned a guide and that guide will be responsible for taking you to their hunting spots that they've. You know whether they're hunting some private ground somewhere, they may have an in at one of the public lands around or something like that. Take you there to hunt. Uh, the duration of your cast you know we have casts range it from 60 minutes to 120 minutes.
Speaker 2:Get out there and you cut all the dogs loose together and the first thing you worry about striking a track. That's the the first thing that uh cooners are worried about. They want to hear a dog that can find a track quickly and vocalize it and let their owner know that they're on the right track. And as that happens, the handlers have to be listening for their dog. And when they hear that dog and my dog's name's Hank, so for reference, if I'm out there and I hear him open up telling me that he's found a track there, I'll call him Hank Strug and then, depending on what I strike in for.
Speaker 2:So there's four different positions in a four dog cast. The first person to call their dog Strug will get 100 points. Second will get 75. Third will get 50. And fourth will get 25.
Speaker 2:The next thing you'll have to worry about is ending the track, so at a tree, typically I guess there could be some holes or brush piles or different places of refuge for coons to get into, but typically your dog's going to end up on a tree and they're going to again vocalize that by letting you know with a big low cake, couple balls and then switching over into a quick, fast bark and chop mouth is what we call them when they're chopping at the tree to let you know that the track's finished. And again I have to vocalize that to the judge in the castle to know hey, hank's tree over here. And depending on what I tree in for is the amount of points I get for that, and it ranges, so tree is worth a little bit more than strike. So the first tree is 125, and then it goes down to 75, 50, and 25 for second through fourth.
Speaker 1:And then at that time, that's like the second and third, fourth they'll get to the tree. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Yep, and then those points are just pending. You'll find out whether you get some. We call them plus points if you get there and you have a lot of time of eight minutes to shine the tree with your lights and we use thermal imaging binoculars now to try to find heat and we have squalors to try to get them to look at you and we have different ways to try to find these raccoons in the trees, especially this time of year when there's so much foliage on the trees still and still full of life out there. But if you find a coon you get to plus your striking tree points. So you're in the plus column.
Speaker 2:If you go in there and maybe say it's a cutoff, half snag, and it goes nowhere and you can see the whole tree and you know for sure there's no raccoon in that tree, your points will be minused. Say we get in there and it's a big old white oak tree with limbs going everywhere and it's 200 feet tall and you can't even reach the top of it with your light and you're not having much luck finding the coon because they can get tucked in different crannies and you know forks and here or there. But you also know, hey, there could most definitely be a coon here, and we just cannot shine this tree thoroughly enough to know. Then it's what we call circle points, and you don't get plus or minus there. They would just be points that you would use in a tiebreaker circumstance at that point.
Speaker 1:Okay, I guess it's when you can't prove the coon's not the tree, but you can't prove it's in the tree.
Speaker 2:Exactly. There's a good chance it could be there. But say, depending on how much the trees are bunched together or the undergrowth there are sometimes years that are, and definitely a lot of areas in the country that are super, super thick and it's hard to get a light up in a tree. The thermal imaging binoculars help on a hot summer night Sometimes there's so much heat it's hard to distinguish this from that and obviously a squalor helps if you use a good, a good low red light and and try to get it to where they'll look at you. But uh hey, sometimes they can be there and you don't even know it let me ask you.
Speaker 1:So when the dog strikes a trail and you call the strike hey, hank, struck, struck, who verifies that, or how is it verified, hey?
Speaker 2:that's. That's one of the tough things to do, especially for a, you know, for a judge who hasn't heard the dogs. And oftentimes at a lot of our hunts we have hunting judges, so that means I could be judging and handling my dog at the same time, and the first drop is always tough. You're trying to distinguish which dogs are which.
Speaker 2:Now, as the night progresses, you hear dogs bark more, and oftentimes coonhounds. You know, you think about dogs and they're such pack animals, but coonhounds have gotten to the point to where they're such, they're so independent that a lot of times you're going in different directions. We're having what we call split trees, to where maybe my dog trees on this fence row and yours is tree 200 yards to the left in the patch of woods, and then the other dogs over here. So that kind of takes the guesswork out of it a little bit. Uh, but sometimes on that first drop, especially when you're going for some of those high strike points and you're trying to differentiate dogs, uh, there can be a little bit of that's my dog or that's that's my dog type deal, in which case it kind of comes down to, uh, to cast votes or being able to disprove, and once you figure out what the dogs, what the dogs actually sound like are there points for a faster strike, like if you're on the trail real quick?
Speaker 2:yeah, so the first one to get opened up and for the handler, clarum struck gets that 100 strikes and then it progressively goes down in 25 point intervals and, like I said, it's it's easy to get on the paper but there's a lot of things a dog can do to get you off the paper as well.
Speaker 2:So before they even tree, if a dog were to you know, strike a track and end up coming back to you say they hit a hot wire fence, you may not even know it and they come back to you. Or heck, maybe they just overheat and decide to come back to you and kind of lay down on you for the night. Those are ways to lose points. If you strike your dog and it ends up getting somewhere to where it doesn't bark for six minutes, that would be a reason to minus your dog. Or if a dog goes into another dog's tree but you don't declare the dog treed because the times are off and there's a lot of different variations for the rules and you can get down in the weeds before. But those points are precious and there's a lot of ways to lose them, both on the dog side and the handler side, if you're not careful.
Speaker 1:And you just got one judge with a cast, that's right.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes when we get to our world finals or tournament champions finals or automotive finals, we will try to take out finals, or tournament champions finals or automobiles finals. We will try to take out two or three judges. That way, if our dog, if all the dogs are getting split up, you're not having to go to your tree by yourself. You'll have somebody to go with you. Uh, just in case the dog were to be quiet or hush on you or maybe end up leaving a tree after you declare your dog tree, maybe it thinks better of maybe this coon didn't end up here, Maybe it just tapped this tree and kept on going and you've already declared a tree and it leaves or something, and then you'll have a judge there to both give you some minus points and then also get you back to the head judge and the rest of the cast.
Speaker 1:So is that a handler mistake If I call my dog treed? But he was just on that tree and you were going to know because it, the coon, jumped to another tree or something hey, could, could be, both could be.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, if a dog settles in good and is really tree chopping and it leaves, I couldn't blame any handler for that. That's a, that's a dog mistake. If, uh, if a guy's a little bit amped up and you see it a lot, especially if you're in the, the final cast of a world championship you've been trying to win for 30 years and and uh, old blue gives a low cape bark in there and it sounds so good. You got to put him on the paper. And then he decides maybe I'm not ready to settle in just yet, and then you just have to grit your teeth and take what you got coming. So it can be.
Speaker 2:It can be either a dog or a handler mistake, depending on the situation a little bit.
Speaker 1:So I guess as a handler you want to make sure your dog's set in and he's on that tree and he's dug in.
Speaker 2:Especially with our independent dogs today. Like I said, there's times where the dogs will be bunched up together on a tree where you might want to be a little bit quicker on when you tree the dogs, but whenever they're so spread out, really take your time. The clock plays a big factor into it and at the level we're talking about, where the Casey Maggards are in there and that sort of thing, they're going to know when to treat their dog and when to maybe play a little bit of defense.
Speaker 1:I see that's interesting. So there's a lot of tactics to that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. There's a lot to go into it and I'm I'm not the one to know all the all the tricks of the trades or any of that stuff, but I've definitely seen some, some great handler, some great handler work and people holding off and I'm thinking I wonder why he's not hand or not treating that dog or, uh you know, wonder why he's cutting his dog loose here and things like that. And there's a lot of thought that goes into it and, like I said, knowing your dog and what it's going to do goes a long way.
Speaker 1:Now are you allowed to shoot the coon out?
Speaker 2:So all of our events are non-kill events, so we don't harvest any of the coons. Matter of fact, we don't even allow people to carry the guns with them. Kind of take that part out of it.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you then, just as a trainer how do you reward your dog? Is that a problem?
Speaker 2:So every dog's different and you know this. Dogs go on different things. Some dogs I know guys who have had dogs who have to have a lot of coons in preparation to a hunt and I've even heard some of them say that in between, like if if we're hunting two rounds tonight, in between the rounds they'll try to sneak off and and go to a place where they can hunt and try to try to harvest a coon to them. I've never had one so much like that. I would harvest, especially in southeast Tennessee.
Speaker 2:You know the coon population down there is not what we would see up here in Michigan or Wisconsin, where they're everywhere around these ag fields and things. But down there, man, I was super selective when I was first starting a dog I would maybe harvest a few more coons and then, once I got to a certain point, here or there, most of the time those dogs are so driven to tree coons and the reward you can give them a good pat on the head and honestly they don't even care if you're there or not. Their reward, I think, is just finding those trees and doing it. It's so ingrained in them to tree and they're so game crazy and focused that it just drives them, and they don't even need much of a reward once they get to the point to where they can do it consistently.
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'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, that's something you know. It's funny.
Speaker 1:You said I was working when I quit practicing law. I became a land man. I was working. I had an office actually in Oak Ridge, tennessee there. So anyway, I went up to Pennsylvania to start working with Shell Oil and I'll never forget I was driving out in the field, I was going out leasing right away and I was looking on the side of the road and shoot man. I thought it was a bear cub. I thought, man, it's a bear cub over here it was a coon and I would have swore, I'd have bet my truck that it was a bear cub. You know, that thing was huge. I've never seen coons so big and I don't know if it's just the area of Pennsylvania, I was in. If that thing was real old or if that's just the average.
Speaker 2:But they oh, not even close. There are some absolute monsters, especially when you get in, when they put the heavy fur on in January, December, January my goodness, some of those things are big.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got desert coons out here on my ranch. All they've got to get in is these live oak trees which ain't real big and mesquite, but they're not big. Even a full-grown coon out here, I don't know what. I guess 15 pounds would be big, you know but I got back home.
Speaker 2:In tennessee we call them hill, hill running or mountain coons and they a soaking wet, maybe 10 pounds yeah, yeah, yeah, they just I guess it's so.
Speaker 1:I don't know, maybe it's just the hot weather, and of course it's hot here too today, but I've got plenty of them. Kevin Gay talked about coming out here and hunting coons on my ranch. I said, man, you're welcome to it. I said, bring your snake boots. Oh yeah, because we've got rattlesnakes everywhere, which I know. They're in eastern Kentucky and east Tennessee too. But man, kentucky and East Tennessee too, but man, that seems like they're worse out here. I've lived in both places. When you go to, when you set up an event and I know that's part of your job you know you're over these events and I know it keeps you on road, because every time I talk to you you're at some kind of event. But, trevor, what do you look for acreage wise? Do you have a minimum acreage that you need to host an event like that, especially like the World Championship?
Speaker 2:Not really. You know, we do want to have some good parking there, so that's important. But most of the fairgrounds that we typically they're at fairgrounds which have good parking and some shaded areas for a person to tie out a dog, because that's important, those are two super important things. You want to have a building that's big enough for us to set up our uh, you know we're going to have a dinner on thursday night to seat 250 people or so. Uh, we want to be able to put on 150 dog show on on saturday for the world championship and those sort of thing, and typically a good fairgrounds will have have those sort of things and uh, more prevalent. Now we gotta it seems like now the the big thing we've got to have is Wi-Fi, because we're doing these live shows for our world championship and tournament champions, where we're doing these kind of live play-by-plays and interviewing winners as they come back to the set.
Speaker 1:That's hard.
Speaker 2:You know, Wi-Fi is a precious thing these days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you about that out here at the ranch. I finally had to get. I get starling because I've tried to do some podcasts and I've lost some good. I've actually lost two good ones because of that. But um, so sometimes you know, I assume when you're running you know several casts you have to go to a different property, maybe, and run a cast and come back, or how many times? How many casts do you run in a competition? Is there just one? Do you run five? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's just take our world championship, for example. There's 108 dogs that go to the world championship and we start on Thursday night and that's just round one. So we'll draw out 27 for dog cast and they're going to go out for a two-hour hunt. We have all our guides lined up, the host club that we, you know, we pay to put on the event. We'll have their 27 guides lined up and they'll go out, you know, anywhere from 10 minutes down the road to sometimes they have to go an hour away, you know, and the name of the game is we want them to be in big, safe hunting areas and to be able to score on some coon. That's the two things that we need, and if they have to drive an hour to do that, most coon hunters will say, hey, I'd rather be safe and be in coons than for you to try to fit us in somewhere we don't need to do so. By the end of that night we got 27 cast winners right. So we move on to friday and for that we're down to 27.
Speaker 2:We're actually going to go to three dog casts now and this is kind of special for our world championship. We've done that to kind of change it up a little bit. We're going to have nine, three dog casts early in a two-hour cast. Send them out now. We only have nine casts so we can keep them a little bit closer, get them back a little bit earlier, and then we're going to. We have nine cast winners from those nine cast and they're gonna go out in three, three dog casts in the late round and a lot of times when those cats come in, the sun's peeking up over the treetops. I've been there many, uh many a morning as those cats come in and luckily, uh, my team lets me sleep in so I don't have to be there at the crack of dawn for the bench show. But uh, then then by Saturday night we're down to the final three and we got ourselves a world championship final cast. So 108 dogs. We'll have four rounds of hunting over three nights.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, that's interesting. So yeah, I wonder how that works. So it's kind of like a series just like other trials and tests of other breeds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have two different kinds. So that would be what we call our elimination format and you kind of keep putting them down and putting them down. So actually, as we're talking here, we're one month away from Autumn Oaks, which is our oldest you know prestigious event that it's. It was first. Autumn Oaks was back in 1960. So it's been around for a very long time.
Speaker 2:We're making plans for it and the amount of dogs we get there, you know we get seven, eight hundred dogs over the weekend, which is a bunch of casts and and what we would do there is we go by high score. So I know it's not the best you know determining thing to figure out who had the best dog that week. And I know you could go to a place that flat out has a ton of coons and you might have a guy withdraw or you might have a guy get scratched because he accumulated too many minus points or different circumstances and my dog may be clicking, but I have four dogs with me and we're not able to move on as fast as this and that. And you know we're not able to move on as fast as this and that. But first off, you can't put.
Speaker 2:It would take a long time to eliminate it down from six, you know, from six, seven hundred down to one overall winner in a weekend, and I think that would almost. You know we have the varying styles. So if you prefer the elimination format, type of events, you can go to those. You can go to those. If you want to go to Autumn Oaks, where it's a family style event, where you have the, you know you have 30 vendors set up selling goodies and there's food vendors and ice creams and you got the big shows and you got the big hunts and the big event feel. And hey, if you get lucky, your dog may score enough points to get awarded in one of the categories you know.
Speaker 1:Now, when is Autumn Oaks exactly?
Speaker 2:Labor Day weekend. It's been on Labor Day weekend ever since its inception, so it's actually a. It's a month from now, right, so it's it's the end of August trickling into. So we'll get down there on Tuesday, august 26th, and we'll be pulling out Sunday, august 31st after we get done awarding our Night at Home winners from the weekend.
Speaker 1:So I've heard that talked about so many times, trevor, but where is that located? The Autumn Oaks.
Speaker 2:It is in Richmond, indiana. It's kind of right near the Indiana-Ohio border. It's been there since the early 90s. Now it moved around a little bit back in its heyday but since I think 91 or 92, it's been in Richmond, indiana, and it's kind of made a home there at the Wayne County Fairgrounds and, man, the clubs around there are so good. You 192. It's been in Richmond, indiana. It's kind of made a home there at the Wayne County Fairgrounds, man, the clubs around there are so good.
Speaker 2:We have some satellite clubs. Obviously, when you talk about it, especially on Friday night, that's our big night. You've got 550 dogs hunting on that night. We have to rely on some satellite clubs. So we may have to send you to a satellite club an hour away and you may have to go from there or some things. But that's uh, that that is. They call it the granddaddy of them all and the event where history is made. There's a bunch of taglines for it that came way before I ever came on board. It has a such a historical meaning for folks and uh, it's, uh, it's one, hey, that's one. If you hit me up, if you want, if you want to come by there, if you, if you could only attend one in the year, that would be the one to come to if you want to come by there. If you could only attend one in the year, that would be the one to come to if you want to see a bunch of people, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about that. Actually, in case you'd mention it to me, I'm going up to Montana to hunt and I'm trying to figure out if I could swing it and come around somehow. I'm going to look at that on a map because I'd really like to come. So let me ask you this so the Autumn? This? So the autumn oaks, that's not the ukc annual world champ, is it?
Speaker 2:that's it? That's a different award. Yeah, so at the at our autumn oaks, we actually give out our national, our national titles. So those are prefix titles that would go into dogs. So if you were to win the overall hunt or the overall show at autumn oaks, you'd be, you'd be given a national grand night champion or national grand show champion titles okay, andrew, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Okay interesting. Um, when you're doing these hunts anywhere, whether it's a national hunt like autumn oaks or just a local hunts do you release coons or are they strictly wild?
Speaker 2:they. You know, I I won't say because we don't have much say in it, we we have host clubs that put it on and people guide themselves. So I won't say that there's not some guys who, who definitely are. There's definitely guys out there trying to bolster their chances of putting up a big score at autumn oaks. So whether they're going in town and and, uh, trapping coons out of some some lady's garden or whatever and taking them out to their hunting spots and and dropping them off, I would say that happens a lot. Heck, I've done that plenty of times without getting ready for a hunt, but that we don't, we, don't uh take care of any of that or do that for them?
Speaker 2:Heck, there's so much, there's so many especially if you go north of Richmond. There's such a coon population around there. It's one of the best hubs for coon hunting in the country, right there in northeastern Indiana and western Ohio. It's such a great place for a coon hunt and game is plentiful. But I would say if you could try to add a couple of coons to your woods, you wouldn't mind to if you had a chance to the week before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, heck, yeah, yeah, yeah, heck, yeah. I mean you got, and you know, to me it's, it's just like I like said I don't train coon dogs, but any dog that's. That's hunting, something it built, it keeps that drive up, you know when they can find stuff. Well, that's interesting. Um, so I guess, in a nutshell, the reason that they're for these monetary purses is just is strictly just entry fees, right, I mean, if you want to win more, you gotta, you gotta cough up some more on the entry fee, because our retrie just entry fees, right, I mean, if you want to win more, you've got to cough up some more on the entry fee, because our retriever entry fee is for a hunt test, like $100. Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, for the most part and it comes with numbers you know, when we're talking about the tournament champions and that's such a great model is that the entry fees there for you know, at the local club level could be anywhere from 15 to 25 bucks and then if you end up wanting to hunt in the tournament champions regions, it's $150 entry fees.
Speaker 2:So you have an opportunity to try to get a $50,000 purse off of $150 entry fee, because the work's already been done throughout the year. So it's still paid for by hunters the years. So it's still paid for by hunters. Uh, you know, we've had some. We have some good uh, we have some good relationships and some partners and sponsors uh, who definitely help give us the flexibility to do different things and and I think probably help uh, upper management say yes to some of the ideas that uh, we probably come to them with, like whenever we told them we wanted to give away 250 000 at a coon, it helps a little bit when, when you have that to fall back on, when you don't know if it's going to be able to sustain itself or pay for itself, so you all can seek or use outside sources.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can. It's a little bit tougher for us because we're a for-profit organization and I've kind of been learning about that a little bit, because you get a lot of obviously, if down the road the local club wants to put on an event and man, they can get all these donations for prizes and stuff. But the clubs are all non-profit, they have these non-profit IDs and anything that somebody donates can be tax write-offs and we're a for-profit organization. So a lot of that could tie our hands on some things.
Speaker 1:But there's still some folks out there willing to to help us out. Obviously a lot of times nice, okay. Um well, it seems to be a close, even though there's a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Seems to be a pretty close, tight-knit community, right yeah, and we, we tend to all get along for the most part. We may squabble over which breed of dog is the best or which area of the country produces the best hunters, or this and that and the other, but at the end of the day, you know you, you see it a lot, uh, if a family has a tragedy happen. You know a lot of fundraisers and memorial. You know hunts to to raise money for family members and and things like that and that's, uh, man, it's such a great thing and honestly, that's where I got my roots at when we were we were pretty young back in Tennessee and we used to put on a.
Speaker 2:We put on a series of events where we raised money for the American cancer society called the track down cancer event, and man, I made so many lifelong friendships and relationships and some of my favorite things about putting on those hunts were when people would see the event ads and, hey, they would just call to tell me about their experiences with their family battling cancer. And these are all coon hunters and it shines up. You know, doing things like that and the things you do for each other, they shine a positive light on our lifestyle and our communities and hopefully that helps us sustain a little bit longer and keeps, keeps the sport around yeah, you know, I belong to one.
Speaker 1:I belong to a couple retriever clubs and one of them, the alamo retriever club, they have a we do a veterans fish. Uh, we take veteran out, veterans out to a pond cook for them, fish disabled veterans, most of them in wheelchairs and stuff you know, and they do that club I'm proud to be a member of. They do a lot of things. It's not I can't take credit. They were doing that before I got there. You know, I just I'm just a member, but it's real neat that we can do stuff like that.
Speaker 1:One of the other things I was going to ask you you alluded to it earlier you know about, you know the, the coon dog competitions in the in the retriever world. What I've seen in hunt, just in the hunt test world, like I said, not field trials, but everyone is so nice and so helpful, even the greenhorns. I mean I was when I started hunt testing. I was I'd never done that before, didn't know what I was doing, but there's so many people there that's helpful and you know it just makes you feel welcome and it's a great atmosphere, it's a great community. Do you see that same kind of community in the coon dog competitions.
Speaker 1:When you're getting ready to go on your next hunting trip, make sure you pack the most efficient and reliable ammunition on the market. Migra Ammunition brings you the most diverse loads on the market. Migra's patented stacked load technology is the epitome of efficiency Two shot sizes stacked together to create the most diverse and efficient line of shot shells in the industry. It doesn't matter what flyway, what state or what the weather. The standard remains the same At Migra reliable loads that perform in any condition every single time. We're proud to have Migra Ammunition as a sponsor for Gun Dog Nation have Migra Ammunition as a sponsor for Gun Dog Nation.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. You see a lot of people taking youngsters or first timers under their wing and helping them. You see a lot of people giving them a good dog. I think a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You lose a lot of people when they get discouraged because they can't get a good dog and how hard it is to train a good dog and if somebody can get you into a good dog and a good dog can teach a young person quicker than anything.
Speaker 2:But that's a. That's a different uh topic, I suppose. But yeah, man, there's a, there's a lot of good avenues and there's a lot of good mentors and I think the mentorship in any kind of outdoor stuff is so strong compared to some other stuff that seems almost too competitive or you almost want to keep it all for yourself or things like that. I don't think the hunting, especially the dog hunting community, doesn't seem to be that way in my experience. And and there's always folks willing to help out and and, like I said, when you go to some of these youth events out there and you see how many people are there willing to to volunteer their time and sacrifice days off, work and pay for gas and food and lodging and all that stuff just to be there and help out and that sort of stuff, it tells you a lot about the community you're dealing with.
Speaker 1:Trevor, do you have any exciting new developments, anything happening in the coon dog world, the UKC coon dog division, that you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I'm not sure if we have anything that a groundbreaking that's coming out right now. Uh, I'm trying to think, uh offhand, if we have anything exciting and new. Most of our stuff that we've, that we've got going on right now, has been around at least for a year or two, um, but we're we're all the time trying to to talk to the hunters. Obviously they're the ones out there in the field and taking their ideas and stuff into consideration and I think, our coonhound program is doing really well and we're excited for this fall.
Speaker 2:We have autumn most coming up a month from now. A couple weeks after that we'll be getting ready for our world championships. So it's gung-ho, it's full road ahead and man'm ready for to crown a couple of new national champions and world champions this fall. Uh, so that's pretty much a priority for me. Well, after after we get through that, we we may try to go to the drawing board and see what else we have we can come up with.
Speaker 1:But well, you all do one thing and I want to. I want to give you, you know, uh, compliments for the fact that you have a youth world champion. I think is amazing. I hope you know, I don't know, I don't see that I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen in the retriever world and maybe it's something that could be adopted, but you're not going to, you're not going to attract youth if you don't have a competition form or ways to attract them, and I love that you guys do that. I think that's one of the greatest things the UKC Coon Dog Division does, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, the coon hunters across the board we put in any registry or just even without registries. They put a lot of emphasis on the youth of this sport because we know that's where our future is and whether it be the Youth National Championship that just passed a couple weeks ago, or whether we're talking about, you know, the 200 plus youth only events that we have throughout the year, we we try to focus it and and we, you know, even if any, any club, any coonhound you know, ukc licensed coonhound club out there can have a youth event through the year and it's free of charge, we don't, we don't charge any recording or license fees and, man, I encourage them all to do so I've said it many times on our UKC Hunting Ops podcast to get out there and have those events and get the kids involved and all that sort of thing. And we have to, we have to.
Speaker 1:That's right, I love it. So, trevor, what would you tell a young person, or any person, maybe an older person, that's never gotten into the coon dog competition world and is thinking about it? What's the best advice you would give a person?
Speaker 2:Hey, it's a blast. It can be super tough getting into it and I can say that from experience. After the first good English dog I had, I lost it. We're too young and I got into the whole puppy deal. And then if you don't have the right things in place to train dogs, it can be frustrating. And you can, especially in the times of social media where you're looking at your year-old dog and man, you're not treeing coons and you get on Facebook and some guy's treeing a pile of coons here and there and it can be super discouraging. But stick with it and find yourself mentors and friends to go and be with. And that's whether you're older or young man. There's, there's hunters everywhere. If you're having trouble finding somebody, hey, get in touch with me at ukc and I know people all over you know all over the eastern part of the united states that that coon hunt, that I could probably get you in contact with and if I can't, then I know somebody who who's a little bit closer that can and you know, stick with it.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people start out with young dogs. Where I've said it before and I'll say it again If you can get yourself a good, seasoned dog that maybe somebody just isn't hunting as much right now. Get it. That dog will teach you more than you teach it. I promise You'll learn how to coon hunt, how to expect different things, and then just get immersed with it. It's a super fun sport. It's fun to be out there by yourself, but if you can make some friends with it and go hunting with other people, it makes it just that much funner. It's fun to compete with the dogs. Get out to some of the major events, meet some different people, whether it be an event like autumn oaks or winter classic, where all the breeds are there, or maybe, hey, maybe you realize hey I kind of like these blue tick hounds.
Speaker 2:Or you just decide to go to blue tick days in may and meet a bunch of people just like you who just love blue tick hounds and, hey, you'll make some lifelong friends that you know some of my best friend raccoon hunters that I grew up hunting with and I've made a lot more friends since taking on this job and just salt of the earth type people as I found, you know, same with you, ken, as a lot of people who who just enjoy being around dogs are the kind of people that I tend to to get along with and uh and enjoy talking to you said something that I really agree with too, trevor's is if you're green and you can get a started dog, if you can afford to do that, it does teach you a lot.
Speaker 1:I've done that before and when I've got. When I got started beagles and rabbit hunting I didn't know how to train a rabbit dog. I started with a started dog and it trained me and then I knew how to train my pups uh, later on. But I I agree with that 100. You said something too that made me want to ask a question and I'll stop here in a minute. So you you know if anybody wanted to get with you, contact you and find out you know where they could connect with another coon hunter to maybe train them. You mentioned the east. Do you have any coon hunting events or is coon hunting prevalent at all in the west, out west, northwest, or is it strictly I know you and I are from the same area Is it strictly a midwest, southeast kind of sport?
Speaker 2:I had to cover my bases there because if you're in Utah and looking for a dog, I might not be able to help you. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I would say the biggest part, I would say 99% of our coon hunters are from about the line, from like West Texas going up through Oklahoma, andoma and nebraska and kansas, and then we have a few in the dakotas. We have a couple clubs in the dakotas. You get west of there, it's pretty thin. We may have a club or two in montana. We have a club in new mexico, but they typically don't have events. I'm trying to remember when the last time I saw them have an event was they. They may have some field trial or water race events which are just separate than the hunts, where it's just kind of like a, a simulated hunt just to get your dog out to, to practice some different things, uh. But besides that man, there's just not, uh, not many clubs out that way and and I don't know if there's a big group of coon hunters out there, but I don't I don't talk to a lot of them if there are for sure you know, I think that's right.
Speaker 1:You know, I live in west texas. I meet part-time in midland and part-time here in ranches, which is not so much pure west texas, but you don't see a coon hound or a coon dog box in a truck anywhere in this area and I just. But now my, some of my friends from East Texas say it's a lot different there. So yeah, well, hey, before I go, I'm going to swap my hats again before we get off here.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:It'll be funny, I guess. But yeah, yeah, man, I'm going to come out and coon hunt with you guys. I've got to go to a competition. I've coon hunted some, like I told you, but you know, man, I like to sleep. So I went coon hunting a few times with my buddies back in Leslie County and I was like man, I'm killed. How do you do this? I got to work, you know, but they're tough. And another thing that burned me out Trevor is hunting in eastern Kentucky, straight up and straight down. You're either going up a mountain or down a mountain, or you're going up in a holler or coming out of a holler. And I was like you know, I need to hunt in the flatlands, you know, maybe Indiana, west Kentucky or something, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Especially now.
Speaker 2:If you can make it to Autumn Oaks one year or then we also have an event similar to Autumn Oaks in February Winter Classic and Batesville, mississippi. So that's a that's a little bit closer to you. That is similar. I can. I can hook you up with a guy that was in good flat hunting. I can't promise the dogs will stay close by, but at least you won't have to climb those Easter Kentucky Hills.
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, it was rough and you know I'll. I'll tell this. I've heard, probably told this story once on here, but the first time I went coon hunting, my best friend in high school the one that had the place in Watts Bar had a Walker coonhound, beautiful dog. I love that dog, I love dogs. So I just wanted anything I could do with a dog I'll do. And we went in the game reserve in Leslie County it's Redbird Wildlife Management Area and as soon as we dropped the tailgate the dog took off. About 30 minutes that dog ran a deer. About 4 in the morning we found the dog With one of them old transmitter and had to bring it back. Now it's killed, sore, worn out and I thought, boys, I don't know if this is for me, so that was a bad experience, so you know Anyway. So yeah, I think I might try it now.
Speaker 2:I might go to easier terrain for sure, for sure, and plus now we have all these nice telemetry and training callers that can help you out with an instance like that yeah, you know, yeah, these new garments or something.
Speaker 1:I'm getting ready to put one on an english pointer. I'm gonna be'm going to hunt in Montana and Dakotas, uh, this fall. And yeah, I'm going to get, I'll get educated on track and collar.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Well, trevor man, thank you so much. We got to get back again. I'll follow up to you, maybe after all these championships and you're not worked to death and have a breather and maybe we can recap some of these competitions this year and how they went and stuff. Uh, I, I really appreciate you. I want to do more to promote the coon hunting on my podcast and other types of uh. You know I I really need to get some on here at the current fast uh background. If you, if you suggest anybody to me, I'd love to and let people know about those dogs. I've had both feist and original mountain curs. I actually love mountain curs. They're a greedy, greedy dog and uh, yeah, they got drive and that's what I like in any kind of animal right. So but anyway, trevor, thank you and uh, it's a pleasure having you on and hope I can have you back. And how can people find you?
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me on. If you guys want to reach me, you can always give me by email, twade at ukcdogscom. Hey, just go to ukcdogscom, navigate to the Coon Helm stuff and you'll see a lot of me on there.
Speaker 1:You'll see my bulletins and my standings and my results and there's a lot of me on there there, so if you have any questions, reach out to me. I'd love to talk to you. Well, trevor, thank you very much and this won't be the last time. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation. I'd like to encourage all you listeners and viewers on our YouTube channel to check out patreoncom forward slash gundognation. For $10 a month, you can become a member of our community and we'll have access to lots of stuff. Mainly, we'll do a monthly forum, an open forum, where you can ask me anything gundog related and we'll learn from each other in community should be a lot of fun. Each month we will do that, so check it out. Patreoncom forward slash gundog nation.