EP. 4 Cecilia Steel and Marianne Jacobs

On this episode we have on Cecilia and Marianne! Cecilia is the owner of Steel Catahoulas & West Texas Tracking Dogs & Wounded Game Recovery. Marianne is a European hunter with a wide range of versatility under her belt, from big game to small game.

Cecilia's FB: https://www.facebook.com/ceciliasteel

Marianne's FB: https://www.facebook.com/jacobsmarianne

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:25

All right guys, welcome back to another episode of Lighthounds. Uh we have got two special guests on tonight. I had I had messaged Cecilia Steele out of West Texas today and was talking to her and was going to see if she'd like to record when she said, Well, I'd love to, but I also have a a friend over from Luxembourg and she's a big into deer tracking and all kinds of dog work. So we got fortunate enough to get both of them on here tonight. And uh so we're just gonna talk all kinds of things. Um, will you introduce yourself and kind of tell us where you're from, and then we'll kind of move over to Mary Ann.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Sure. Um, my name is Cecilia Steele. I live in Texas, kind of in the San Angelo area. I'm from Virginia originally, but I've been out here in Texas um nearly 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Okay. And Mary Ann where are you from?

SPEAKER_05 1:18

I'm from Luxembourg, so the other side of the big pond. Always lived there, lived for a few years, a couple of years in Droney, and I moved back to Luxembourg and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Cool, cool. Well, um, I'll uh I'll pick on you first, Cecilia. Tell me tell me about your dogs and and how long you've been doing the I know you do a lot of blood tracking. That's how I know you. Um I've I've always heard if you're you know in San Angelo, West Texas area, you're the you're the person to call if we got a wounded deer down. Um so tell us about the the deer dogs, and then maybe we'll venture off into the hog dogs you got too.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Sure. Um I started with hog dogs, but then I had a puppy that was just his parents were hog dogs, but he was just naturally into tracking. And I I went to a little tracking seminar um put on by Courtney Ferris and started that's when I first learned about blood tracking, and I lived on a ranch at the time that was leased by a great group of bow hunters, and so uh uh we got a good crash course in uh in tracking. We used to track a bunch of beer for them, um, and it helped help train me and my dog because I was a total rookie back then, and um, you know, there's a big learning curve in tracking, and it takes takes years to really have any idea of what you're doing, uh, especially when you're starting out with a young dog. So we've we've grown and developed, and that dog is 12 years old now, and he's semi-retired and mainly used for training puppies. And I've got another real good uh five-year-old dog that's that's my main tracking dog at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Okay, and what are they?

SPEAKER_03 3:10

They are catahulas.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Okay, and they're full blood.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Um, my younger dog is a full-blooded registered dog off of cow dog bloodlines, originally from Louisiana, Mississippi area. My older dog is not full-blooded. He has a tiny, he's one eight to go though. So he's a he's a real big dog.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah. What's that dog's name?

SPEAKER_03 3:34

That is Turk.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Turk, okay. And uh and the OG dog, what's his name?

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Turk is the OG dog.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Then Gobbins is the younger dog. That's a family name.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

That's right. I know I've I've heard those two names quite a bit. I'll, you know, following you. Um, they're both super good looking dogs. Uh you're you're pretty damn good at taking pictures too, but uh they're they are very sharp. I like their build, I like their head, and they're you know, they're not they're not little small pin-headed dogs at all.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

No, they're both big, they both range between 75 pounds and 80 pounds, which is pretty big for tracking out here in the heat, as as young as you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Oh yeah, oh yeah. So was that that event that you went and saw Courtney at? Was that the Texas Blood Trackers deal or was that one of the Lacey deals?

SPEAKER_03 4:26

That was the Texas Blood Trackers. Well, it was in conjunction Texas Blood Trackers with uh their Lacey um organization.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Was that was that down there in uh was it Brownwood or was it out there in Hamilton?

SPEAKER_03 4:41

No, neither. It was near Buchanan Dam the when I went. They have were having a little seminar and they were offering testing for Texas Blood Trackers.

unknown 4:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

And for me gave a seminar. So Turk actually actually tested with Texas Blood Trackers when he was one year old.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah. Do you remember what year that was?

SPEAKER_03 5:04

I'm just I was that was when Turk was born. That was 2014, the first time I went, and then he tested with them in 2015.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Okay. So we me and you probably started right about the same time. Yeah, we uh I had a Lacey at the bat, and then another crossed up dog, and then I finally found my hunk dog that I've got now. And but he's he is uh he'll be 10 this summer. So yeah, uh but they're all getting old.

SPEAKER_06 5:36

I know it.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

But anyways, um, so I also you you run hog dogs too. Is that do you do you hit that pretty hard still?

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Yes, mainly just on the ranch that I live on and take care of. Uh we actually caught three today, so heck yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And you're running, are y'all running the catahulas to to find and bay them? Or are you are you running the dogo cross pit bulls just to catch them? How are you doing that?

SPEAKER_03 6:04

I run the catahulas, plus I have one German short hair pointer that is a super versatile dog.

unknown 6:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

And also one of my best hog dogs. But I run her with my catahulas for finding and baying. And then I've got lead-in bulldogs that are a mix of American Bulldog and Dogo. That's from a line that my friend in East Texas started about 25 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Wow. Wow. Yeah, those are those are some sharp dogs. I like I like the looks of all the dogs you have. If I was, I've kind of I've got uh uh like a thought in my brain about like the way I want dogs to look and and like the size. Um, you know, they all have different jobs and and different little knickknacks, but like I feel like for the your country, you could probably get away with running a bigger catch dog, and I like those. I like the way those look and and that their size. They're probably they're probably closer than 80, 90 pounds, or they're they may look bigger in photographs.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

They're multi. They're I run two females, so they're about 70 pounds, probably.

SPEAKER_06 7:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

But I know that the males in the bloodline will be a little bigger.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, uh, Marianne, you mind you mind kind of giving me a rundown of your kind of background and and the dogs that you're running right now?

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Good. Um I was born into this, so I didn't really have a choice. Um, my grandfather was crazy about dogs, he used to breathe through my short hair pointers for I guess 60 years. My great-granddad used to breathe them and why I hairpoint us for I have no idea how long. My mom is crazy about dogs too, so it runs in the family. Uh I grew up with that, so I had all kinds of dogs from butt tracking dogs to dribble hunt dogs and bird dogs, uh a little bit of everything.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Wow. So what what what dog did you so you tell me about the like the professional deer tracking or you do y'all track deer and other animals or just deer?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, we have to track every animal. So they the Latinary counting or any German one, for example, are really strict about this. Whatever animal you wound, you have to track. And it doesn't matter, actually, it doesn't matter if it's a raccoon or if it's a deer or a hog.

SPEAKER_05 8:22

So you have to track them all. Uh same time for ducks, for example. So that's a legal obligation that everybody has. So tracking dogs are very common in Europe, and you have people that do it more professionally and less professionally, although there's not too many that do it as a main profession. Mostly those are foresters and people that already work in a forest that uh do that a lot, and all of them are always hunters because you have to be a hunter in order to track.

SPEAKER_06 8:48

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

Things are quite different here uh from back home.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah. I was I was kind of listening to you talk on that podcast earlier, and the legalities and the stuff behind it is pretty wild. So uh Joey, they they have to they have to if they cannot track the the deer themselves, they have to use a tracking dog. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 9:11

That's correct. Do not do that. You there's even a prison uh as a sanction of it. So it's not really like okay, you did like a small thing and you have to pay like 50 bucks. No, no, you can go like for example in Luxembourg, you can go after six months to prison.

SPEAKER_06 9:27

Yeah, or whatever we call it here.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

That's wild. Um I have a friend and we do the the Hide the Terrier USA project, and uh so Arnie Pulmeyer, we have some hides from him, and then we have several different lines of the hide terriers. And and and Josh has gone over there and hunted with him, and he just he's told me so many different things about it, the legalities of it. It blew my mind, like you said, if you wound something and you don't even like you don't worry about it, you can go to jail.

SPEAKER_05 10:00

Oh yeah. You will lose your something like uh you will never get it back. Oh, there are so many things talked about. Yeah. We take that people very serious.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Mm-hmm. They should. I mean, uh if it was like that here, what do you think, Ricky? You think more people would be uh Oh my god, I'd have to have I'd have to have ten employees underneath me if that was a case. Yeah, that's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

That's that is pretty wild. So and what do you do for your job? What's your main job?

SPEAKER_05 10:30

Uh I work for government, I'm a forest engineer, so my main job is actually hunting. Um, I'm in charge of hunting uh for the Luxembourg government, so I can talk about hunting every day, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

So is it like invasive species? Is it uh tell me about like what your your day-to-day kind of deal is?

SPEAKER_05 10:49

Uh it is a lot of different things. So it's um I have a cool staff, a great team of people that work for me. Uh it is part policy making, it is part management plans. Uh looking after all the hunters, looking after all the day-to-day business of hunting um from up to down. Um so it's more desk work than than field work. But I do get to get out sometime too, so that's great too. Yeah, it's it's pretty versatile. There's no standard day. It can be that we are all day, you know, giving sitting next to the Minister of Environment and giving him good tips on how to proceed for the next steps. It can also be that we're the whole day on the phone talking to hunters. I do work a lot, and that's something that's really close to my heart, is in hunter dedication. Um our new future hunters. That's something I really like too because you can really set them up for the right directions to go. Yeah, it's a cool job. I really like it.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

That's sounds awesome to me.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

It does to me too, and I can pay for it. Yeah, that's just tell the story about the cemetery. Well, sometimes we fail also.

SPEAKER_05 11:59

We have uh there was kind of like an American operation just a few uh weeks ago. We had a lot of there's the Luxembourgish uh American military cemetery where uh General Patton is buried. The Second World War. And there's I think about 6,000 service members that are buried there, and uh there's a lot of deer on the site, but there's a big fence around. And uh we tried to get the deer out of there. So the idea, the first idea was to push them out of there because the people didn't want any further deaths on there and and so on and so on. We tried, we had like so many people there. Uh well the deer did not cooperate too well. So at one point we had to use the dogs and we we caught a few of them, so now there's way less deer there. Uh so that went well. The dogs did their job.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

They got to do their job, and hopefully nobody got to see that part of it.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

No, we were super early on to do that. Uh that was the reason because they couldn't they couldn't close the cemetery.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

Uh yeah. No, that would have been bad. No, no.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

So t tell me about the dogs that you use.

SPEAKER_05 13:05

Uh so right now, different dogs that I had in the past, so right now I still use tackles. I love them. They're great dogs. We use them for driven hunts, but we also use them for blood tracking and then hunting. They're great on on fox and badger, but equally great on on wild boar because they have I don't know, no sense of self-preservation and no sense of their size. So they're really good for that. And when it comes to tracking, they're great because the nose is already on the ground. Um, I I use draws. Uh I have a small path of terrier that is the most insane dog I've ever owned. But she's amazing. Uh she she weighs nothing. She has the size of a, I don't know, like a guinea pig. Uh but I can rub her like a hand grenade onto pigs, and that's amazing. Uh, she does whatever the big dogs cannot do. Um, never seen a dog like that. I'm trying not to get too attached to her because I'm I'm scared she won't live very long. But so far she's five and she's still alive. It's it's a miracle. I know and she's insane. And uh used to have a Hanover hound. It's a pretty cool dog, and in the past I had German short hairs mostly. Yeah, a little bit of everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So the the Hanno, the hound you use for blood tracking specifically?

SPEAKER_05 14:21

The Hanover hound is a breed that we only use for blood tracking, so they have no other purpose than that. Uh just for the the variant.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

You're you're starting to see a lot of that over here in the US. That seems like that that breed. I uh I'm curious to see how it's gonna end up in the next 10 years.

SPEAKER_05 14:41

Well, to me, it's a really interesting breed. It has been bred for ages, just for blood tracking purposes. So of course it's really good at that. Um, but I would not say that it's better than any other breed.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Okay. I uh I've all I'm I'm curious to see because I I feel like anywhere over there overseas, they are y'all are very uh your breeding is very restrictive, uh the everything is so much more tight-knit um and very specific, as opposed to over here, where somebody will grab a Hanoverian hound and breed it to a dogo and try to make a catchpoker, or just you know, it just seems like it's it's very off the charts over here. Is that is that correct?

SPEAKER_05 15:27

Yeah, that is very correct. I mean back home, we love rules. Um we follow rules. We really love them. No, that that is absolutely right. So the breeds, you won't you will find some cross breeds, but that's more rare. Most people they have their pure bread, they stick through breed, or uh uh there's not much trying out. So most but you also have to see that German, especially German breeds, but also French breeds, they are very old, so they have very proven bloodlines. There's no really the need to change something. Whereas your country is younger, but also your dog breeds are younger, so it makes so much more sense to kind of try out and and figure out, and then everything is so big here. Um, you have so many other breeds that we have, and such interesting breeds, so it does make sense to try out a little bit, whereas that doesn't really make sense for us because everything is so well established that there's absolutely no need for that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah, no, that that's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_06 16:22

I didn't even thought about it like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

So on the on like a given year, how many animals do you go and track?

SPEAKER_04 16:34

It is different.

SPEAKER_05 16:36

The last year it used to be way over a hundred, uh closer to what what we actually track is al always more. That would be like 150, 170 ish um per year. Now it's less for me because well, mostly job situations and stuff like that. But yeah, it can be for some tractors, it's really a lot, they go up to the 200s, but you have to imagine there's also many, many people that own hunting dogs, and most of them track for themselves. So those 150 tracks are usually hard tracks, those are not easy recoveries, um, because all the easy stuff you do with your own versatile dog before calling in a tracker.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I gotcha. So you're you're usually coming in and batting cleanup crew, you're having no you're having to clean up somebody else's mess.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, that's what I did over the past year, so we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Yeah, we I'm sure Cecilia has the same issues I do. We'll we'll end up following a lab or you know, somebody's GSP or something. Uh it's not right. It's not for me, it's not super common, or at least they don't tell me. Uh I think it happens probably more often than I know, because they just they won't they won't tell us. But I'm sure for you over there, if if everybody has some sort of versatile dog, they're gonna try that first before they call you.

SPEAKER_05 17:58

Yeah, and that is okay, that's what they are supposed to do. Because if because you have to track every animal, and just imagine there will be just a few people that do this on a very high level that you can call in for any shots, black shots, mother shots, whatever shorts. Um, and they would have to go and track also the easy things, there will never be enough dogs on the ground to recover all the animals. So it is actually what we support, and what we really want is that people have their own versatile dogs and that they do everything that they can. And once they no longer do it, they call somebody in. But they have such great discipline about that because that is such a long-standing tradition to do so, that it really usually doesn't mess things up. It's the driven hunts that are more complicated for us, but usually not that hunters mess something up. Whereas whenever I track here with Sicilian, I could really see their hunters mess a little bit up when they were just like everybody was on the reason running around like crazy just to recover the animals for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah. Um, I know we we down over here have to deal with it's more foot traffic and everybody and their buddy, and then or they'll be on you know, four-wheelers and UTVs riding around circles and just and now we got thermals and all that stuff, and I just put it's keeping people in the woods longer and making it harder on us, but I mean it it is what it is. I don't I don't get mad too often with people are trying to find their deer. Now, if they try to find it with 10 guys, try two dogs, and then call me 24 hours later, I'm I'm I'm a little bit annoyed because it's like you're really set me up for failure here. Like, and I'm hard-headed enough that I'm gonna come try it. Um even though the odds are probably not in my favor, but I can it's uh you just you never know. I mean uh but I also have guys that they pull the trigger and if they didn't see it fall, they're calling me. Um so it goes from one end of the spectrum to the other.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Yes, it really does.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

I'm sure you get the same kind of thing, especially do you you do you track on a uh quite a bit of high fences, Cecilia?

SPEAKER_03 20:10

I do. I do. I don't know what the percentage is, but I'm definitely on call on on as a regular tracker on some of the high fences, which is great because you know, then they they call me immediately, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

They'll keep those hunters at bay a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Well, and then you know, and of course, I'm sure just like anywhere else, you draw blood, you own that animal. So exactly they're they're gonna if it's a five hundred dollar animal or a fifty thousand dollar animal, they're gonna pay another however much to get you out there to track.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

Right, yeah. They wanna use every resource they can to recover that animal.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Right, right. And and um do you charge to track where you're at?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah, I uh I started just asking for a fuel, fuel and a tip, so I've kind of maintained that and it's worked out well for me.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

And that's the opposite for you, right, Maria?

SPEAKER_05 21:10

Yeah, so we usually don't charge, and if so, it will be like twenty bucks or something for for the for the trip. But then again, we don't have these large distances to go to the next track. It's usually within like the next 20 30 minutes because there's people around.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

So there's no need to charge for for gas. Or I've got a pretty tight area. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah. If it's inside an hour, I'm freaking excited.

SPEAKER_05 21:38

Right. Yeah, that would never happen for me. No, yeah, it would be in a different country.

SPEAKER_06 21:44

Maybe too, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Maybe two country. Lord, I couldn't even run White Boy Rick over there. No, he'd be in the lost. I've I've got one one old dog that just when you turn him loose, he he's a supposed to be a hog dog. Sometimes he finds hogs, sometimes he don't. But he he goes and he just hunts. Way, way go yonder. We had a race yes day before yesterday morning. It's the first trip out this season and it was nine point two eight miles. That was after I got it jumped. I was like You gotta be kidding me.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

What kind of dog is it?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

I'm running walker, fox hound.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

American foxhound. Well I I don't typically run any hounds. I started out with all terriers, um, yacht terriers, um, airedales, patterdales, and then I started with the the hide terriers, and then somewhere along the line I got into all the cur dogs, and now I gotta run a walker. I don't know what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

That's cool to test them all out though.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, I I've still got my terriers. Uh you it's hard to go wrong with a good terrier.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

That's funny. Um so tell me about like y'all's season over there where you're at, Marianne. Like the y'all can you hunt year-round? Is there how's that work?

SPEAKER_05 23:19

It depends on the species. So uh different species, like all the invasive species, what we call invasive alien species like raccoon, um, nutria, etc., we can hunt all year round. And then wildboard too, because they cause so much damage, and we have African swine people really close by. So you always need to be careful of that, and the populations of uh of wild boar are really high. So these you can hunt all year round. Then for all the other species, the deer species, roe deer, red deer, fellow deer, etc., mufnos, uh and so on, you have different uh seasons. And then also different seasons for driven hunts and different seasons for stalking or shooting them out of uh a deer stand.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Gotcha. Okay. So how long is it is your typical deer season?

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Uh depends again on the deer. The longest deer season is for road deer, for the male road deer. It starts now in Luxembourg, for example, on the 1st of April, and it lasts until the 20 the 31st of January. So it is a pretty, pretty long season.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah, that's awesome. I was about to say, if you were like us and you only had three months to track, I didn't figure you'd be over here.

SPEAKER_06 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:30

Right, exactly. That's right. The the driven hunt season is usually the busiest season because that's when most of the animals are killed. Um, that usually lasts from mid-October until end of January. That is really a very, very busy season also for tracking. Um, but also for all the dog work because then you have all the dogs out for driven hunts. All the rest of the year it's it's the same. It you have like the the rot of the road, the road deer and of the red deer, where it gets a little bit busier, but all the rest it's more or less the same.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

So since you're talking about driven hunts, I gotta I gotta hear about it. I don't know anything about it. So do you do you have dogs that drive the deer or guys walking and driving the deer? How's all that work?

SPEAKER_05 25:14

Well, both. Um, so classical driven hunts, you do it mostly in the forest. We also have driven hunts on pheasants and stuff like that. But let's say with the deer and the wild boar, yeah, it's usually known in the forest. You have hunters placed on usually more or less strategic spots in the forest, uh usually where deer already passes where you have known trails of them. You put them there on stands or on the ground, whatever. And then you have people with dogs or dog handlers, but also people with other dogs, and then sometimes they also the hunters just let the dogs lose from the stand. And the goal is to move the deer, it's not to kind of taste the deer, you don't want them to run super fast because they cannot uh shoot properly at them. And the goal is just to move them around so that you can shoot a large amount of animals in a short time so that you can reduce the populations. That's more or less the goal. It is practice a little bit different uh depending on where you are. If you have lots of traffic, lots of roads in between, that is a very big issue for us that we have lots of dogs killed on the roads. Um, so of course, you're not going to hunt with hounds if you have lots of roads and yeah, highways and stuff like that. It really depends on the species you're targeting and the region. You're not going to use lots of tackles in the mountains, that would be very stupid. But if you have, like, for example, open forests with lots of red deer, you would love to have tackles and terribles, for example, in there.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

That makes perfect sense. So given uh like a what's the average drive? Is there gonna be 10, 20 guys with guns at the end of the uh trail? And how many dogs are you turning out? What's that? Is it just kind of dependent on uh where you're at?

SPEAKER_05 26:56

Exactly. It depends on the size of the hunting ground you're hunting, it depends a bit on the species you're targeting. It is depends a lot on the the landscape, and if we have lots of uh brushes, if you have what we have right now is because of the climate change and everything, we have lots of dead or dying trees, so they fall over and they overgrow. Um if you have that, that's of course perfect habitat for the wildborns. Really hard to get them out of there. Then you would want to have more dogs and more people in there. It can be anything up from I would say like 10 hunters and then 10 people with a few dogs up to 100 hunters. Um, there's nothing in between. Uh we as a government do hunts too, and we usually have around 50 to 60, sometimes up to 70 hunters and nearly an equal amount of uh people on dog handlers.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Wow, that's a hell of an operation.

SPEAKER_05 27:43

It is, it is. But we are so used to you have that basically every day of not every day of the week, uh it can be every day of the week, but mostly on weekends. And people just turn around. So today I'm with my friend here, next week I'm with my friend there, and then the week after everybody's at my place for the hunting. So being that hunting season-driven hunt season, uh people they don't get to see their houses anymore.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Um so on the on the tracking part up there, are you are y'all allowed to run off of leash? Or do you all have to use a leash?

SPEAKER_05 28:15

Well, it depends on the country. Some countries like Luxembourg, there's no regulation on it, but people usually out of tradition, run the dogs on leash until they jump the deer, and then you let them off leash. But because of all the roads and the highways, imagine it's a small country, um, but with lots of people in there, so you have lots of roads and traffic, you don't want to run them off leash all the time. So that is usually the tradition throughout whole Europe, that you run them always on leash and just let them lose once you've jumped the deer.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

So will uh will a tackle run down a deer like like a like a tail wounded deer that's got a broke leg or something?

SPEAKER_05 28:51

You'd be surprised. Um well, mainly I think it's because the deer do not take the tackle seriously. I have no idea why, but tackles are really good at playing wild board, but also deer, and they might even catch the red deer. I have no idea how they do.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

That's it's I mean, I I would stop and fight a little dog before I'd stop and fight one of Cecilia's dogs. I mean, it makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_05 29:14

Honestly, that's what I think is happening because I have lately experienced that it was way easier and faster for me to play you and wildfall with the tackle than with the drop off. Way easier. I think that's mostly the reason. They I guess they think like, what is the fucking weasel doing behind me?

SPEAKER_06 29:32

I don't know. Um it's not gonna hurt me.

SPEAKER_05 29:34

Yeah, they don't take them serious, which is great for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Uh I like that. That makes sense to me. Like, I I'm real big on like I only like to track with one dog at a time. I feel like two dogs is too much pressure. We usually end up a lot of broken bays like that. Now, of course, you gotta train your puppies and and and run them with the older dogs here and there, but like if I am if I am in tight corridors or you don't have a lot of land to work with, uh, it's a big deer, you know. Of course, it makes things more these guys freak out over here with these big white tail. And uh there's a lot of weight on you to get the job done. And if that's the case, I'm running one dog and I am on top of him. Now, obviously, he's off leash and he's doing his thing, but I am I'm staying pretty tight to him because I'm trying to get that follow-up shot immediately as fast as possible, because you know, a broken bag could lead you onto the highway or the next property. Yeah, and uh, as you know, over here, we don't have the right to retrieve animals on on neighbors' properties without making calls and stuff hurt. So um to me, it's it's in my experience, one dog seems to be a whole lot less pressure, depending on the dog you got. Hell, you might have a dog that wants to catch. Uh you know, that's a different story. But if the one one loose bay dog to me seems to be the best result.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

I agree on with that a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah, I've I've had, you know, I've I had a dog that I got from a fellow that we know down in central Texas, and and when I started running him with Huck when he was probably one year old, and um that dog did not give a rat's ass about trailing, but by God, if that sucker was alive, he was going to catch it. And it was like disaster every time. And I'm like, every every you know, Huck would go out there and have this thing bait in his first bed, and uh, we'd be easing in for the you know the finish shot, and he that dog would come out of nowhere and just break the bay, push him another half mile, and then they'd both be caught when I got there because Huck's not gonna let anybody else one up him. And uh it was always just a damn disaster. I don't have a dog anymore.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Oh yeah, and it just can end badly.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Makes for some wrecks for sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Have have you had very many um like bad injuries with the dog, Cecilia, on the deer?

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Knock on wood, no, not with deer. Uh but like you said, I prefer running one dog or very loose, uh I prefer a looser bearing dog and then you know, I'm dispatching the deer versus the dogs catching the deer. Um I would I would rather loose bay and I dispatch.

unknown 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:35

I don't want wrecked with the hog dogs as can be expected, I think. But you know, a lot of people have issues with you know, injuries rain deer too.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Right. Oh yeah. No, uh I guess I've I feel like I've been fortunate that we haven't been wrecked out more than we have. You know, that first couple years running two dogs, that I learned pretty quick that that was not the route I wanted to go because it was always we never got hurt real bad that first time, but it was just like, man, one time I got there and they had this deer stretched out or whatever, and you know, you can't even hardly get a follow-up shot on the deer, and then we get done, and Huck didn't have he had a stripe of skin between his eyes where he caught like a brow tie or something, like it looked like a mohawk, but it was a just you know hairless through the middle of his face, and I'm like, God mighty like you just ask him for freaking disaster.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Um so Marianne, would you do y'all carry a weapon to whenever to dispatch? How does that work? Does the hunter have to do it? Do you get to do it?

SPEAKER_05 33:46

I never let the hunter do it. I always do it myself, and most trackers do it. Um but then again, all the trackers are hunters. Uh yeah, we usually carry a rifle um or a knife. Depends. If the dog catches, then of course you you're no longer shooting it, you will splash it with the knife. It really depends on the situation, but yeah, you always have. Well, I got a little bit arrogant over the years, so whenever I was catching um tracking road deer, I would never use um a gun, I would just leave it in the car. Um I had some situations where I regretted that choice. Um but yeah, that is definitely a problem that I had over the years. But usually draw toss they will catch any roadier in the world. So I did not need to worry about that part, and I could just say there was a few kilograms on my back. Uh but yeah, I would never let a hunter um shoot my dog. I had a very good friend of mine who's a trucker. Um, he had a dog that got shot by a hunter. Unfortunately, it didn't kill it, but it lost a knife. Uh, there was a situation like that, and that really made it clear to me like I would never, even if I know the people and I trust them. Uh if somebody's going to shoot my dog, it will be me.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yes, yeah. I 100% agree. There's way too much excitement and and stuff going on. I I have let it happen one time, and it was because I didn't have a choice. Uh, we were we had tracked a deer from private property into like uh it's a state park, which is a like a national uh refuge where you cannot hunt, and you're not allowed to carry a uh gun at all. Um and I had a game warden tag along with me. Wow. And uh it was a disaster. The deer kept breaking bay, and poor the poor game warden, he was he was a little heavy in the bridges and couldn't keep up. We finally, for the I think it was the third or fourth bay, uh, I was like, man, you're gonna have to let me have this gun. Like, I've got to get this over with. We're gonna end up in uh the park with a bunch of people and like there's tent camping and campers and all that stuff. I was like, we gotta get this done. He's like, I just can't let you do that. And I'm like, well, you're gonna have to get your ass in gear because we're we're we're not gonna we gotta get up here. Like he just couldn't keep up. Well, finally he got there, and uh, we had him bait up in uh kind of like a edge of a pond. And I told him, I said, Listen, I said, whatever you do, do not shoot my dog. I don't give a shit if this deer leaves the country. We never see him again. I said, do not shoot until I tell you to shoot. And he and I was like, I'm I'm serious. Like I'll could I looked him dead in the eyes, like I'm I'm he saw my face, like he knew how serious Felp was, but I was like, when I say to shoot, you shoot. And of course, he did, and it all worked out, but that was the one and only damn time I ever let that happen.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

Right, yeah, your dog is worth more than any deer.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Oh god. I I used to be pretty gung-ho on, you know, trying, I mean, to recover these deer at all costs, and now I'm anymore. I'm just like, I don't care if that deer makes it to the next county and we don't catch it or not. We tried our best and it is what it is, but it's not worth the dog getting killed.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Oh man. So Cecilia, I was gonna talk to you about your kind of your sentinel conditions over there where you're at. And kind of like what do you prefer? Um so basically, what's your what's your average humidity and stuff whenever you're tracking over there? Do you do you keep up with that?

SPEAKER_03 37:34

I do, I do keep up with that.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

You know, we're real dry out here in uh West Texas, West Central Texas, and you know, normal day during the fall, during deer season, you know, the humidity can plummet down into the peak during the day. It's about it's about the worst tracking conditions you could ask for. So oftentimes uh I will wait until the evening to track. I track a lot at night, especially if it's still hot. And just at night when the humidity is up higher and the set the scent conditions are better. It it's just a 90-day difference for the dog. It helps it helps the dog track better and faster, and we can get our job done more quickly, more efficiently than trying to track in the in the heat of the day in the bright sunshine.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Uh that was one of the things that took me a long time to learn. Like I who knows how many times the you know, the first few years I set my dog up for failure, you know, and didn't didn't know what I was didn't know any different.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

You know, I just the hunters don't understand and they pressure you to come sooner rather than later. Whereas sometimes later is better than sooner.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Oh, more oftentimes than not, it is, in my opinion. If you know, if you've got a dog that can take a track that's you know, I don't have like a super cold nosed dog by any stretch, but you know, I mean a a 12-hour old track at you know, 70% humidity is gonna be a whole hell of a lot better than a three-hour old track at 10% humidity.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

Right. Sometimes I know we have to deal with the younger trackers trying to come in and come and do whatever. So we have we have to deal a little bit with that, but it comes to a point where you just have to tell the hunter, sorry, um, I can come at at dusk when the weather is better and the conditions are better.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

That's that's the offer we can give you.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Yeah. And I'm sure you take enough tracks to where you, you know, it's not gonna hurt your feelings if you miss one because the hunter can't wait.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

Right, exactly. Well, you know, a lot of hunters learn and then and then they don't know they don't understand initially the difference until they see it and they they see the difference between the dog tracking. Oftentimes if I end up in a track late morning, early afternoon, and and we can't advance it all, just turn to the hunter and say, Okay, we gotta take a break, but we'll go back to camp, hang out, have dinner or whatever, come back at dusk. And then we'll come back and it sounds crazy to them, but then we come back at dusk, and then the dog is able to pick up the track and we can finish it and recover the animal. So when the hunters get to see that, then they uh they can understand you know what is happening and how how it's different for the dogs depending on the time of day and the humidity and the side conditions. So a lot of it they they don't know and and have to give them a chance to learn.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah, well this is kind of off the topic, but uh we we took a we went to a ranch there uh a couple days ago to go hog dogging, and uh we kind of we turned loose at this creek uh with the with the guy that runs the ranch. And uh he hadn't I take it he'd never run dogs before. If he had he didn't pay a whole lot of attention, but uh I mean the dogs weren't on the ground five minutes and we had a big bait at like 300, 400 yards pops. And uh the guy was like, damn, that took long enough. I didn't I figured it'd happen quicker than that. And I I looked at him and I was like, do you know what just happened? Like, do you realize how how big of a blessing this just was? Like, we just turned dogs loose, they didn't so much as drain out and had had a pig bait at 300 yards, like within walking distance of here. Are you far like are you are you high right now? Like I just it was just so funny. He was just like, what? I uh yeah, I figured I didn't figure it would be quicker and wouldn't be so far of a run. I'm like, you don't need to go with me. Oh god. I was like, uh, you're in for a treat today, God almighty, you know. And the the the funny part was is we drive we drove to him, well, which is we could have walked, but I had my kiddos with me. And uh so we drove around to him, and sure enough, we got to a hundred yards and that pig broke, and then and it never stopped. It ran it ran a figure eight or two on us, and it was like he knew the he knew the uh deal after we I don't know if he heard us. That guy was driving a big loud dodge pickup and come hauling ass up there, and boy, that was it. We never saw that pig again after that, but it it was just I couldn't it blew my mind what he had said that. I was like, you really you truly have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

But I feel like that's a it's really common with the deer tracking deal because folks just have no they shoot, they see blood, and then they take off, you know, and it's like they don't know what kind of blood they're looking at, they don't know deer reaction, they don't know anything. It's just by God, there's blood on the ground, and it's great blood. We gotta go. It's great blood, you know. Yeah, it's lung, it's bright red lung blood. With bubbles, yeah, with bubbles, but there's also bone on the ground, but you know, a lot of white hair, yeah. Oh Lord. So Marietta, I was I was curious, you were talking about you you mentioned they're a hunter, they're a hunter. What do you what are you saying when you say that? Because every over here everybody's a hunter.

SPEAKER_05 43:41

Oh no, not by home. Um hunting, to be a hunter, it depends a little bit again on the country, how long it takes. But for example, Luxembourg, my country, it takes me nearly a year, a little bit over sometimes, to get your hunting license. So you start doing kind of like an internship where you have to be with somebody that hunts for quite some time, and you have to fill out like a uh like a diary where you have to put in like all your hunting logs and you have to prove that you have seen all this and that, that you have got it here, that you have been to driven hunts, that he has been to all of the things. And there's a whole um exam committee that is going to read through that diary and it says, Okay, you're ready to. Take the classes and take the exams. And only after they give you the go, you can go take the classes. Um, that will last about from September to February. Um, other classes they will be in the evenings, usually Tuesdays, Thursdays, and and the weekends. You go to these classes, and then you take a written exam, you take an oral exam, you take a practical exam, and then you start with all the shooting lessons um where you have to shoot four different um disciplines, so to say. So 100 meters uh standing, 100 meters sitting, 50 meters on a running wildboard, and clay pigeons and a security test. And only then you can call yourself a partner.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

So it does take a little bit. That that would be amazing here. Lord. I wish we could have that. I do.

SPEAKER_05 45:12

Well, you have way more people than we do, uh, but it's it's more or less the same throughout the whole of Europe. Some countries it's a little less, some countries it's even more. Um, so it it really depends, but I think it's a good idea. You have a way more liberal approach to owning guns. Uh that would not work in in Europe. People would freak out.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yes, my own.

SPEAKER_05 45:34

So they really want you to have a certain kind of knowledge before you're running around with a gun. Um uh and I think like have knowing that hunters have this, I would say, long time that they have to study things and having to take all the exams, that makes people in general more comfortable with hunters and and people having guns, only guns, and and then killing animals because that's what what we do at the end of the day is kill animals. Well, for management reasons or for food, but whatever. People are already I don't know about the states, but back home, uh killing animals is a very sensitive topic. Everybody likes to eat meat, but knowing how it ended up on your table is a different story. I feel way more comfortable knowing that there is a big education behind of what people do.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

And I think that's where we lack a lot of things um as far as it being a publicized information um about the education that you do have, because we do have to have hunt hunters education programs here. We do have those. And you know, as usually as a 10 to 13, 14-year-old person or child, you'll you'll take that uh course. Uh I I I had to retake it when I was what 35? I think I was 35 years old and had to take it again because they they couldn't find me. I was so old. Uh but anyway, but I one thing I wanted to ask, and and you probably just answered it for the most part, was how many uh accidents, fatal accidents, do you guys have by hunters in your country annually?

SPEAKER_05 47:10

I can not recall the last fatal accident. Uh there was one. Wait, wait, wait, wait, there's one that I recall, but it could have been a suicide, nobody knows at the end of the day. Um, but that's over ten years ago.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Wow. See, I mean like you can you could probably Google it right now, and there'd be hundreds in the US that just happened during turkey season.

SPEAKER_05 47:35

Right, no. Well, a euro way more people. Uh so that does not help with the whole thing. But I think we have a pretty good record. Um, I think there was one fatal accident last year in Germany, which is one, and uh, that was kind of like a who knows whatever happened there. There's more in France, but then again, I can see the correlation that in France you have uh like the the way to become a hunter is is very much easier to put it that way. Um, and then of course you have a little bit more accidents. I'm not sure if there has been fatal accidents. We do have fatal accidents, but those are mostly because people get gorged by deer or uh by wealth or something like that. That can happen, but not with guns, or at least not gun related, that's very rare.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

I got you. That's what happens when you leave your guns in the truck and just go with your knife, right?

SPEAKER_05 48:29

Well, might be. Well, I think it's more during the driven hunts where you have the what we call the beaters, the people that go with the dogs and stuff like that, they don't have guns, which is also a very good idea. And then if you have something that's wounded in there, of course it's going to attack. That's that's pretty clear. Um, also if people put put too much pressure on the animals, that can also happen. Well, they're always animals. You they didn't read the book on how to behave.

SPEAKER_06 48:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

That's that's mind-boggling. Uh it's it's so wheels off over here. I think the the biggest deal we've seen lately or in my country is is the thermal hunters shooting these shooting each other.

SPEAKER_06 49:11

Oh wow, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Like they'll be like lined up on a herd of pigs, and they'll all have ARs, and they'll all, you know, of course it's pitch black outside, and they'll sling on a pig and shoot the buddy in the shoulder, or or uh we had I had a I know a guy that got shot in the shoulder last year. Um well, you know, point blank range with a 762 about 39 or whatever, you know, and luckily he he didn't die, and then there was one um over the holidays over here where I don't know the full story, but it was just right here west of my house, and it was, you know, family was in town for Thanksgiving, and they went pig hunting, and somebody shot somebody, and it was like you know, they're looking through a thermal swinging on a pig and you know not paying attention to their surroundings.

SPEAKER_05 50:03

Oh well. Yeah, this is gonna be really important. I told you we like rules.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

We we do not like rules here. Yeah, nobody likes them here. We are quite the opposite of that.

SPEAKER_05 50:19

Oh, that I realized. I'm not saying that one is better than the other one. It's right.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Well, we have a lot more consequences or not consequences, a lot more problems with with not following rules. Oh Lord. So uh that was I had another question. Um, the all is there much archery hunting over there?

SPEAKER_05 50:41

It depends on the country again. So every country has different rules there. Is a lot of archery hunting, for archery hunting, for example, in France. Um, none in Luxembourg for there, it's uh forbidden, same for Germany, but um Poland it's allowed. Uh, some of the Scandinavian countries are about to allow it or already have allowed it, like Finland. It really depends a little bit on where you are, but it is way less common than next year.

unknown 51:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

No crossbows.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Oh lord. I'll I'll I guess I'm just I was just thinking about it when you were talking about the driven tracks and all the stuff, and we were uh I was like, I wonder I've never seen I've seen a bunch of road deer hunts on TV and driven hunts and all that stuff, but I've never seen somebody with a bow, so I was just curious.

SPEAKER_05 51:32

Yeah. You will find it a lot in France. They're it's very, very common, and they even do driven hunts with bows, which is uh interesting that it works, but it doesn't work. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:45

They're still very, very common, and Belgium is uh about to allow it.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Well so I've got a I got on for you, Marianne. Um say you've got well, let me ask you about your conditions over there as far as tracking. Is it what's the humidity? Is it more forest type stuff? What what's it like for you? Does it depend on the season or what?

SPEAKER_05 52:10

Well, we say like oh worst day is still CDS best day. Um we do not care about that at all. It it's usually rather on the cold side than the humid side. So that is nothing that really worries us. If you don't know up high in the mountains, the snow can be a problem. Snow generally is not a problem, but once you have an ice layer over the snow, that can be a problem. Uh snow typically doesn't really pose a problem to the dogs. You might think that if you have a big layer of snow on top of the track, that that will be super hard for the dogs, but it seems like it's it's it doesn't bother them at all. Uh it actually captures the scent really well.

SPEAKER_06 52:46

Right.

SPEAKER_05 52:47

Ice is our I would say ice and wind are our biggest problems, but we rarely have to deal with humidity issues and and things like that. Might be in the high summer, and then we just do it in the afternoon, um, evening uh kind of things, or the next morning. We don't usually do not track light. That's very uncommon.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

At night, you said?

SPEAKER_05 53:08

Yeah, no, we don't do that. You have to imagine there's too many people on a on not too much plate uh ground. So it won't be too dangerous. You don't see uh, especially if you have to dispatch with a with a rifle, it would be just too dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Yeah. I uh I don't I if I could do everything during the daylight, I would, but that's just not conducive for early season for us. It's you know most like I'll that first two weeks for me, if not the whole month of October, it's it's predominantly a first first thing in the morning or or after dark. It's just I just assume wait longer, let the deer get sicker, and run it less, then you know, try to catch them four hours after shot and you know get there and the deer is very green and alive, and you end up on a long race and overheat everybody.

SPEAKER_05 54:02

Right. We've seen a change like that in the last, I would say, like five years, and things are getting hotter, but still not you cannot compare it to Texas, for example.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Yeah. So on on a deer that you that you've been called to track and you feel pretty confident that it's a gut shot type deer, like a liver gut shot, how long will you wait before you drop a dog on that deer?

SPEAKER_05 54:27

At least four hours. I prefer to go six hours, something like that. Well, at least four.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Cecilia, how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_03 54:36

It depends on the ranch, if it's low fence or high fence, if it's a heavy populated high fence, I'm still gonna go as soon as I can. Dependent on the weather conditions.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

If it's a low fence, if you got perfect weather, like it's it's 70% humidity and it's 50 degrees out.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

I mean, I like to be at least five hours on a known five or six hours on a known gut shot.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

I'm I'm I'm pretty much the same. Um, you know, obviously in different situations, pose different problems, but anymore. I just assume I'd I've I have ever gotten out ran at the longest I've ever, what was like at seven hours. Well, I take that back. Uh I got outran this year. Now this was this was extenuating circumstances. We we got to the deer track at 22 hours-ish after shot, and we jumped the deer at probably 700 yards from the shot site and ran him 700 yards and got him bayed. I'm talking like bait solid, and I'm like, you know, 22 hours, this deer is, you know. And he was uh it was shot with a bow on video. I knew exactly what it was, you know. Um, there was no guessing on where the deer was hit. And uh we got that deer bayed, and where we were at, what was the deal? Can't remember. I did not have my gun. I think it was because we were on state land, and I don't I'm not allowed to carry on some of these lake properties. So, like some of these lakes around me are are core of engineer or state park stuff, and I'm not allowed to carry on those properties. Okay, um, they will let you dispatch with bow, which is for the dumbest shit on the planet. Um but they will, and that was the scenario. So we got there. I was getting the hunter in line with his bow, which is another just absolute no-no for me. And I was I was gonna pull the dog completely off. Like I was toning him to pull him off, and when he drew back to shoot, that deer ran, and I I let Huck go. And that deer went uh a thousand after that, before we lost him, and never saw him again.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

And pretty out of the norm for me and for you know, for the dog. Like I anything after eight hours. Like I've been I've been blown away at seven hours before, but I've never been blown away past eight hours. Like usually, you know, it's your typical, it's still alive, but you know, maybe run you know, six, eight hundred yards, thousand yards pops, kind of deal. But for that one to to be bathed pretty solid and then break, and then we lose them.

SPEAKER_06 57:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Um that was a first for me. That's never never happened. And I would I would put money on it, but that wasn't gonna happen. Like I that's you know, I'm pretty I stay pretty true to the eight-hour mark. If I can if I can get there after eight hours, and we get him bathed, like we'll we'll get them. Like I feel real, real confident with that. But um, yeah, that was that one that one weird one that I had this year the first time in, you know, 10 years or whatever it was that I ever had one past eight hours blow me away.

SPEAKER_03 58:07

Yeah, we've got a tracker friend from up north, Al Sherman, and his motto for tracking is never say never, never say always.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

Oh gosh. You are not wrong. The amount of times I see people comment on Facebook, oh wait, there ain't no way that deer would do that. And I'm like, bullshit. Like that deer, I don't give a shit what the circumstances are. You shot them with a freaking 300 win mag, uh you know, I don't care. Like, if they can they will do it. All bets are off with a deer. I mean, in any animal for that instance, I mean, it just seems like these deer are pretty damn tough now.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

They're super tough.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Yeah. What was I gonna say? Uh, Marianne, what's what's the longest track you've ever taken as far as time, like after the shot, and then like how far was the track?

SPEAKER_05 59:05

If it's two tracks, or I I you know if you count all these things, but it happens that we do it two days later. That can happen. It's really rare. That might be really weird circumstances that, for example, the first tracking team said, like, I think um there might be some you could maybe do it, or I jumped him and I backed out. Can you please start again at the beginning? So it can happen that we have 48 hours. So most of our tracking tests are always either 20 or 40 hours, therefore. But that's very rare, usually it's overnight, and um, and then you you you're there because it's so common and so easy for people to call a tracker, so they don't have this jumping over their own shadow to call a tracker because it's just a normal thing to do. Therefore, you usually don't have these sorts of long tracks, but it can happen, for example, that I track something and I jump it and my dog gets too hot and it's already too long, and I might call it tracking friends, and they'll be like, Oh well, I can come there tomorrow morning, and then they have a track that is, of course, way uh longer in time-wise for distance. Oh wow, we sometimes have to track the two different teams depending on the shot. If you have a leg shot or a muzzle shot, something like that, it can go miles, but that's something that's also very known to you, I guess. Uh, we don't have high fences, so uh they will run and we don't have to take care of property lines, so we can just go.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Okay, that would be a blessing.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:30

It is a blasting and occurs at the same time, trust me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Yeah, I uh yeah, I'm sure there's times where I wanted to quit.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:38

Yeah, no, because we are all stubborn, most trackers are, and then there comes the point where you have to call it, and it's way easier to call it if you can say, like, well, I don't have the right continue. Whereas you have to say, like, well, I can't. Uh my dog is too tired, I am too tired, or whatever. It's yeah, you always have to make up that decision for yourself and then see if if it was the right one or not, and nothing is more frustrating if somebody calls you two days later and said, like, oh whoa, we found it, like 200 yards.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

That's the worst call ever. I know. And it happens every year.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:11

Oh, sure, it happens for everybody. The ones discuss it doesn't happen, either they lie or they don't go on tracks. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

I I I'm I got really small country where I'm at. I'm so I'm probably three or four, no, I'm further than that. I'm probably four or five hours east of Sicilia. So uh my country is not real big, and uh I might see two, two or three high, maybe five high fences uh out of 120 tracks a year. So um I don't get to I don't get to play with those much. Um, but man, I got you know, I'm if I'm fortunate, we've got 500 acres to run on, which is nothing for most folks. So it's my deal is not anymore as like I'll wait, I'll wait as long as possible on some of these tracks, you know, to to make sure that my race at the end is not gonna be too crazy, you know. Uh if I get on a thousand acres, I'm ecstatic, you know. I I feel like I'll go earlier. Um so it's different for all of us. And like uh for me, I do I do mainly archery tracks. Uh I've got uh several counties by me that are archery only for deer season. So um they're closer to towns and stuff, and they've just they've just always been bow only. So if I you know, probably 75-80% of my tracks are usually archery. So a little bit different than some some folks in Texas.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Yeah, I think I'm about 50-50 archery and rifle.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:59

Yeah, so we have a mostly rifle and then some car crafting. That is something we track a lot as uh road accidents.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Oh yeah, that was I forget who I was talking to. It was uh God dang. I think he was in Germany, but he was saying how many times they get called out for like a like a like you said, a road accident, and then you have to use a dog to go find that animal too. Is that that's like a legality pill too?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:24

Um it can be, it can be. It is mostly in Germany, more legal part. We have the right to track the road accidents, but we don't have the obligation to do so.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:33

Um you still do it whenever you're called out because we have this very strong sense of ethical behavior around animals. So if you know that something might be in pain, you want to dispatch it. Uh, that is something that, yeah, we do that. They can be crazy because very often you just have internal bleeding, so you have absolutely no clue what you're dealing with. You cannot trust the people that were driving the car. Sometimes they tell you it's a really big, I don't know, uh guinea pig and it turns out to be or hamster and it turns out to be a white boy. They have absolutely no idea what they hear in which direction it ran. You have no blood because it's all internal. Um that is uh very interesting. Also, the size uh estimations of white boar can be crazy. I think it's really a huge male. Uh you never know. Or the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Right. Speaking of the pigs, so do you the way y'all hunted today, is that how y'all find pigs over there?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:31

No, not at all. That would something. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

I think I knew the answer. I just had to ask.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:41

Well, most people I talk to, they do not even appreciate that way of hunting because they think it's cruel. It's uh it's not a great way. I think you really love it, the dog work behind it. Uh, but no, that's nothing you will. You might see a few people do that, but most of it would not even be illegal. Well, it would be very illegal. So you will not find that uh in Europe.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

What would be illegal about it?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:07

Um, running animals to chase, well, running dogs to chase an animal is usually not legal. Um there's certain exceptions to that. For example, in France, they still use the hounds to run down deer until they're exhausted and then stick them with a spear. Um, but that would be much about it. You have still the fox hounds in in uh England and the UK, but for the rest, no, that would not be legal and it would be very frowned upon. Uh so most hunters would just really disapprove of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

Yeah. Oh, there's there's a bunch of disapproval over here too, but it is what it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:46

And then sometimes I think they have weird ideas of what what you're actually going to do, and um because they've never participated in it. They have no idea what to expect.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

Right. And that's I mean, in my mind it's I think it's a knife or whatever is just as ethical as a rifle. I mean, they're it may be quicker in a lot of people. Right faster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:11

I have a a very strong German sense of ethical hunting and I um I think it's uh a very great way of hunting. It's very well, like I said it to the eight to see I said we caught three, that was very effective, I would say. Um Within like a very short time and it was not even fun.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

Y'all were just taking the dogs for a run, they just so happened to have collars on.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

Right. Yeah. We like the waters on the van if we were on horseback. So bit of a radio, but it was fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

That's funny. So how long are you in town for? Did you come in just to hang out with Cecilia? You got other plans?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:49

Right, that's my only plan. I fly back next uh Saturday. No, Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

That's awesome. Have you been over there to see her, Cecilia?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

I did. I went uh two summers ago, and we went hiking in the Alps, and she took me hunting in one of her hunting grounds, and we got to go on a track there that was on a wild war with non-recovery, which is always pretty interesting to see at which point you would determine that the boar was not fatally wounded, and went to fall track. So that was really interesting to get to see.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

That's cool. That's cool. We talked to people all over the Degum place, and it's like I just if I would have started this little journey when I was 2 I would have I would have been all across the planet by now. But now that I'm you know in my late 30s and got two kids and a wife, and it's like it's I I talk, I just gotta live through other people because it's just not it's just not in my cars for at least for you know, I don't know, the next 15 years.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:03

Yeah, no, I think we have a great deal there. We can travel.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

I mean I I I say that, but I I still go Elk Huntington every year and I get to do those things, but uh it would be nice just to take off. Like we talked to a fellow from British Columbia a couple weeks ago, and right now they're in the thick of spring bear season, and uh I'll talk to him yesterday, and he sent me some videos, and I'm like, uh he's like, just come on, man. All you gotta do is get a plane ticket and we just come on. I'm like, I wish it was that easy, brother. I wish it was that easy. Yep. Cool. Joey, you got any questions for him, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

I I mean you covered most everything I was interested in, like the the humidity, the the length of tracks, the time. Uh that's that's pretty much the same stuff I would ask, you know. Um, I'm just kind of just sitting back listening and uh just running it out through my head. I just think some of it, like with the teckles running down a deer, I I just think it's so funny. Yeah, because I want to feel yeah, like I've I got on a kick for a long time for for years. I wanted to to find a good tickle, and it was really hard to find one here. Now, this has been 20 years ago, also fifth 15 to 20 years ago. So it was it was hard for me to even find one that I would fit the bill for me. So I never got to own one. That's one of the very few breeds I haven't owned. And I don't know, I just I keep thinking about it, and I was like, now I want now uh now I want one again. I can just see me coming through there because I'm I'm not a little guy, but I I could come through the woods, you know, with a big knife and four little teckles, and we could just we could whip anything, bro. Like we just get them. Nothing's gonna stop us. But first off, they're not gonna take us serious.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:59

No, I hope everybody would take this serious. Oh, yeah. We you have this thing, the bigger the animal, the smaller the dog.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:06

So the the fact that the terrier is for a really big stuff, but you would use big dogs for the small stuff, like the cartridge and the whale and stuff and use the big dog.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

When when I first started using the uh the the Yacht Terriers, when I would come to a place like nobody had seen them here. This was in the early, early 2000s. Um, not many people had even seen or heard of them. And when we would get there and they were like, they wanted to see these hog dogs. And I would open the box and out come these little 20, 25-pound dogs, and they were like, What are those? I was like, You just sit back and watch. Yeah, you know, and I would keep four to six of them at a time and we'd run them. And then then I got into the you know, the airedales and the patterds, and of course just had all different all different breeds, but I've always liked the smaller dogs. And I think a lot of that holds true even with the wild boar. I can take one or two smaller dogs. If they'll go in there and and bay, it's like a big boar hog doesn't really even take them that serious. He'll just, he'll just, you know. But now if I put a big cur dog or a bird dog or something like that in space, he tends to want to want to break and run more, or he wants to fight more, you know, one of the two. So I uh the little dogs, I like them, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:24

So I love them. We will be lost without the little dogs. The little dogs in Eurobot are number one dogs if you want to go whiteboard hunting. Oh, yeah. With the big dogs, you just cannot get into where they are. And the little ones and they get them out, they get them out really good, and they that tend not to be hurt that much because if they attack them, they just fly out like a football.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:44

Yeah, they go back in. Everybody used to worry, they were like, Man, are those dogs gonna get hurt? I was like, to be honest with you, they never get hurt. Like that, like you said, they just get hit, they fly over a little bit, and they come right back.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:58

Um, I have the least accidents knocking work with the terriers, although they're the most insane on the whiteboard.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

Yes, without it. I just sent Ricky a um a high terrier, and uh he's gonna try he's gonna start trying him out this week this coming week. He's young, but he'll his I I've got his brother going really good, and uh, and and they're really good. They're they're a little rough, you know. They don't they don't give much mouth on nothing except they do a lot of teeth, not much barking.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:24

Yeah. Well that's why they wasn't written out of Germany.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:29

It's a costly. Yeah, that's not a lot. It's not recognized by JSP, but the hydrogen are very common, or they started to become more common and people run them in packs during the driven hunts too.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:39

Yeah. And and here they're still very new. There's a couple of guys that have really good stock. Uh, like I said, my friend Josh, he actually went to Germany. Uh he goes every year and he visits and he goes and hunts and he does all the traditional hunts, the the driven hunts. He embraces the culture. And what you know, when someone's that serious about it, I have to take them serious. And so I was more than more than happy to be a part of it. And we have we have quite a few of of the dogs here now. We just had two imported uh and they are some of the finest animals I've ever seen in my life. And uh, but they they were what I needed instead of the the yacht terrier. Instead of 25 pounds, I got 50 pounds, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:27

They were a bit bigger.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:28

Yeah, they're they're a bit bigger.

unknown 1:13:30

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

But but like you said, the the a lot of the Germans, they uh they breed some really good dogs. They really do.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:43

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:46

Do do what I didn't think. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

Oh, I said I agree, I agree. Um and I think here in in the States, the French breeds, they are not very common and known. But if you ever want to look into the French breeds, they have amazing dogs too. Really? Uh they have lots of hounds, uh, wonderful dogs. Uh just so so cool. Pretty dogs too, uh, but hardworking dogs.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:11

So, what what would be the number one French breed that you would recommend? Or the just give us two or three.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:17

I could not. They have so many hounds, some of them are really rare, some of them are more common.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:23

Um, you would have to see them from the Saint-Hubert over to well, Saint Hubert is more Belgian, but they have so many flat hound types and and and things like that. It's just amazing. Every time I see them, it just um amazes me. And they always keep them in packs. It's just wow. Also great pointing dogs. Um, we always think about the German pointing dogs, but they have wonderful pointing breeds too. I really love the French breeds too.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:48

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna look into them more.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:52

I think the biggest problem is that the why you don't have them here is because the Germans speak better English than the French people do.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

It's it's funny. We were we were putting up a a trap to to catch some wild boar, and I had a number on my phone, and was it was from France, wasn't it? It was a French number, and I was like, I said, no, I don't know anybody. I said, why would anybody be calling me from France? You know what I'm saying? I answered the phone, and sure enough, it's two guys from France and two guys from Germany. And oh wow, yeah, they were wanting to come over and and stay a few days and hunt, and they were wanting to hunt one of our tournaments, and and we we never got it all put together, but I just thought it was really really funny, you know, that that that they caught, and like you said, the the guy that was originally from France, I couldn't he couldn't hardly understand, he could understand me better than I could understand him. But so I talked with the guy from Germany, and it's like I could talk to him all day long.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:55

Yeah, right. So it really depends on the region. Most countries in the Europe speak English, some better, some worse, some more. Uh France is such a big country, there's no need for them to speak another language than French.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:09

Okay, I got you. No, I think this is I think it's been a really good episode. I'm I'm glad you had glad you ladies got on as guest, Ricky. It's been awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:19

Yeah, that worked out. That was good timing for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:22

Yeah. So what else you got on and Rick? You got you got uh any more questions?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:27

Yeah, so I've been kind of closing off the podcast, and it might be I hope it's not too hard of a question, but uh I'll ask each one of you like what are your what's like a goal for you in the next year or so with your dogs? Like, do you have anything that you've got got set that uh ahead of you that you're trying to achieve?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:50

I'm trying to develop a young dog now, which you know it's hard when you join the club. I've been blessed to have two good dogs now, but I'm I've got to get a third one coming on. So that's kind of what I'm I'm hoping to accomplish. She's about to turn a year old, so we'll see this upcoming deer season. She'll be getting hauled and seeing if seeing if she's got what it takes.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:18

Is that is she another out of the same line of dogs?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:21

Yes, so she is actually Turk's daughter out of Gubin's mother. So it was the closest I could get between crossing Turk and Gubin's. Right. And we'll see. She's she's the wild child. She's got a lot of drive. I've just got to try to harness it in the for good instead of evil.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:43

You said she's about to turn one?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

Did you introduce her to anything this year, the CPAS season?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:50

I was real careful with her. I I was real selective on any tracks I put her on, and I put her on tracks that I could use turk on too. And she she both she bade a doe here that was gut-shot on this ranch, and she she helped her dad track an aged gut-shot deer. And we're just kind I'm just kind of taking it easy with her. Taking it to one animal single altar to the song.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:18

Are you is there some things about her that you've liked so far? Like any characteristics?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:24

I mean, I I started her on some mop trail mop tracks when she was young, like just some liver drags when she was eight weeks old, and she just hit the ground running all over the place. Um, Turk, her dad, is a really, really slow methodical tracker, and she is the exact opposite of him. He is all over the place, but she has a lot of drive and she really wants to track. So I'm excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:52

Marion, what you got?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:54

Um, I am trying to get a little bit more back into the versatile dogs right now, um, which I'm having a lot of fun with, just like having the same dog, putting it one day out to duck hunt and then the next day out to track, and the next day out of the driven hunt. And I find that is to train these dogs is something that I always like to do, but to train and keep them is again a different story because then you you train even harder. And um I find so much pleasure in doing that, and I try to develop that a little bit more over the next years. See how that is coming along. I don't know. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:27

So the the more of a jack of all trays, the master of none?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:31

Yeah, you could say that, but uh you always have one and it's very strong, so they're always great at everything or good at everything, but then they're always very good at one specific thing. So right now I have one dra, and I've never seen a dog track ducks like she does, even the diving ducks and stuff like that, and that is just fascinating to me to see that dog work in the water. Whoa, and it's also tracking, but it's just very different. And uh I could watch her all day long, and we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

That's that's cool. I've got I've got a buddy that's got a draw, and he's picking up ducks one day, catching a pig the next, and tracking deer the day after that. It's it's pretty cool. Like he like say he's like, Man, I you know, it's got this, this, and this. I'm like, that's that's all fine. Like he more or less, we were talking about deer tracking, you know, specifically. And I was like, man, it sounds like you you've got the dog that you need, and that is, you know, if you get into a scenario where that dog can't find your deer because it's uh it's a you know a drawn-out track of the you know, whatever it may be, you know, call me for that. I've got the dog that is specifically for that. But for you to go bird hunting one day and doing all the things, like you've got the perfect dog for that scenario. It's just not he's just not gonna be specialized on one or the other, but he's really good at all the other, you know, all of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:54

It's been pretty cool to see.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:56

That is something I find fascinating about those dogs that they really can switch within like the minute and and and change that. You never have, as you said, the specialist in for one thing. Although I would say like mine is the one that I have right now. She is really the there's not many dogs I know that could outdo her on a dock. Um just finding that wounded dog that just started diving and and swimming around. They will find them. But she's not the best blood tracker in the world, to be honest. She catches braid, so I have another dog tracking, and I would just send her to catch or to bait. But that is something that really fascinates me, and I want to dive in a little bit further over the next years, is have these yeah, do it all dogs. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

That's uh that's uh a hell of a plan. I I I can't get my dogs to do one thing, much less three things.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:43

So you're cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

Well, I really appreciate having y'all on. That was perfect. So yeah, I uh whenever you said that today, I was like, hell yes, please tell me y'all can go talk tonight. And uh it worked out, so I really appreciate y'all having on uh being on.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:00

Yes, sir. Thank y'all for having us. Yeah, that was much fun. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:04

Cool. Well, we'll talk soon. Thank y'all.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:06

Okay, sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:08

All right, bye bye.