Hound Dog Network - Firsts

0:00This episode of the sportsman's empire is brought to you by Interstate Batteries. Since 1952 Interstate Batteries has been evoking compassion and a trustworthy spirit into the surrounding communities. Interstate Batteries is a mission driven company fueled by purpose and guided by their values. If you need help locating a specific battery, stop into your local Interstate Batteries retail store and speak with a battery specialist. They even offer cell phone repairs. Interstate Batteries. Outragiously dependable. This episode of the sportsman's empire is brought to you by Nathan and Sun's makers of underbrush remineralizing gum. I started keeping a packet my desk for after lunch, and honestly the chew is so satisfying. Most natural gums turned a mush, but underbrush has this incredible texture and natural saps that hold up. My favorite is the spirit. It leaves my mouth feeling insanely clean without that artificial fake sugar taste.

1:00Plus, Nathan and Sun's makes it from scratch in Northern California using the same mineral that your toothy name is made from. It's such a great habit to get into because it supports remineralization and freshens your breath all at the same time. If you want a simple daily upgrade for your teeth, head over to NathanandSunds.com and check out why underbrush remineralizing gum is right for you. Right now, you can get 30% off your first order when you subscribe. Visit NathanandSunds.com today. Daylight breaks over the ridge. The hell's strike. No crowds. No cameras. Just a track. And the hell's that bring the story to life. That's what this shows about. Dogs, dirt roads, early mornings, and the people who live it. This is Creekside Chronicles.

2:02Hells, hunting, and heritage. I am your host, Heath Hyatt, Houndsman, Hunter, and the lifelong student of the outdoors. Here, we chase more than game. We chase knowledge about hounds, hunting, and living the outdoor life the right way. From Bear Country to Backroads, this is where the hunt meets heart and every story runs a different trail. So pull up your chair by the creek, unleash up your best town, and let's get after it together. Performance starts in the feed. The nookshooks high fat continent feels long runs and hard hunts. Giving dogs a steady energy they need, while quality protein supports fast recovery after the work is done. That's why I trust a nookshook dog feed. Packed with energy and nutrition, dogs need

3:07to go further, run harder, and recover stronger. If you want extreme performance, you can look them up at a nookshook professional dog feed or cori-nookshooks.com. Welcome back to the Creekside of the Woodside. This is wonderful. Wednesday is where we talk about everything from the woods to the water. We talk about it all, you've been leasing along. You know that you're a part of the Creekside crew. Just pull up that chair and we'll get another stick that would on the fire. We're going to get this episode started. Let's talk about the heat this past week. I elected. Sometimes I feel lazy, but I elected not to hunt this past week because we were up in the 90s for the majority of it. Even in the morning when I was, I mean I was still getting up at four o'clock, checking the temperature, checking the humidity. I decided that if my dogs were out past

4:15eight, nine o'clock at the latest, that temperature starts coming back up at 10. I just didn't want to have any problems. I didn't hunt and I feel horrible about it because we all know that we have a select few days to hunt here in Virginia anyway. It's kind of like a double edge sword. I'm kicking myself going to work. Then once I walk outside and that heat hits me, I'm like, man, so it's kind of a struggle to do what to do, what not to do. Some of the guys that I hunt with, they hunted all week and had a great week. They did get out a little early and most of them were done by eight o'clock in the morning. I could have definitely handled that. I seen some other posts. I think George posted about the heat. One of my other buddies had posted that, you know, they didn't have any trouble with it. Maybe that's just me being overly cautious

5:15and not taking the opportunity that is before me to hunt. I don't know how to feel about it, but I chose not to take the lazy route. I guess you could say, but I didn't hunt. It is what it is. We got back after it later in the week. We just finished Labor Day weekend. Hope everybody had a good weekend. You know, the struggle. It's been a role coaster for me this year. I have been out of pocket, out of place. Wherever I'm not, that's where the action is not going on. If you go with one of the other guys that hunt with me, that's where all the action is going on. I have trailed, entrailed, entrailed, and I have run. Now, I've seen Bear. Can't say that I haven't. I've caught my

6:17dog crossing the road several times. I think a part of that too is like I'm hunting in the mornings and then I'm going to work. I'm trying to get to work before lunchtime or around lunchtime. So, again, it takes me an hour, hour, 15, 20 minutes depending on where I'm hunting, to get home, and then time I do my chores, feed, clean my pens, make sure everybody's got water, take a shower. That's a two hour, two plus hour task right there. So, I've probably caught my dogs off a couple times that I should have let them go. In fact, last week, I caught them off and they were coming off. They were crossing the road, but they were getting ready to make a pull. And I knew, I was like, they'll catch you. I mean, the bear was literally 130 yard drive in front of them. And I'm like, they'll catch you on that pull. And I call them anyway. So, anyway,

7:17I've been overly cautious this year. And I've struggled a little bit. Again, the inconsistency, hunting two different packs is not working out. That's not going to happen for me later on in a year. I'm going to finish off the training season and make some adjustments like nope, not good. I don't like it. And that is what it is. So, let's roll into what you're going to talk about today. It's interesting because everybody can remember the first, your first dog, the first time you heard the dog open on a track, your first chery, the first night you stood in the dark, listened to the dog work, and you realize this is why I'm hooked and all of my stuff started at night time. That's why I bring it up. Now, but eventually, something's changed. It's not your

8:19first three anymore. Get your son, your daughters, stand up beside you, holding the lead, listening to the ham tree for the first time. And suddenly, you're not just hunting anymore. You're watching the things that you love get passed down. So, this podcast is going to be about those firsts, the dogs, the hunts, mistakes. I'm going to give you a good one. The successes because every Hansman has a first. And if you're lucky, you get to watch somebody else have theirs. So, I won't give you a few of mine today. I'm not going to talk about my first dog or my first hunt. My first dog was a plot dog named Ace. He was a butcher with weems, butch and jeal crawls.

9:26Super nice looking dog, good feet, dark coat, little brinnellock, dark mixed in, good dark eye. Had a little bit of a bush on envy's tail. Could swim like a gator. I never lost a swim race with him, Steve Fielder. I'd like to have him around when you got, when you got old fever out. That had been, that had been like watching uh, Earnhardt and whoever he was racing in Tallibaga because he, he never lost a race ever. And the first time I turned him loose, I had no clue what I was doing. Didn't have a track in collar. We were carrying the, the big nine. I think it was the nine vote. The big old square battery flashlights. Through the woods, we turned a dog loose and we thought you just had to run behind them. Yeah, that's what we did. We're not going to talk about that.

10:26But I was, I was thinking about this, this episode. I was thinking about a couple of these things that really stood out to me and still like, hold weight. You know, we talked about last week, how, how memories you, you go through a certain area, you smell a certain smell or you see, see a certain thing or somebody, somebody says something to you. You, it brings everything back up. It connects those emotional dots, right? So I was thinking about this and I want to talk about my first solo bear. And actually I have the, the scars, the proofing. So I was hunting in an area with two older gentlemen that I used to hunt with. Big jam and Eddie, big E, what we call it. And they'd sit in the truck and Tyler was, my son was young, four, three, four, five years old at the time.

11:29And a lot of times he didn't want to go. So big E, it's sitting the truck with the tie while I go hunting. You know, we walked back then. Sorry, yeah, youngins. We had to do a lot of walking back then. So I hunted this area and I'd walk way back in there and made a loop and was headed out. It was up in the day. It was pushing 11 o'clock and back to the end. Of course, you couldn't start hunting until the last Saturday in August. So this was mid September almost the same time of year. And I was walking out and I had three dogs. I had Frosty. You all heard me talk about Frosty. And I had two pups out of him. Bear and house. And I had bred Frosty to Brandy, which was my plot female. And these pups were out of that. And they didn't know anything. And back then, you know, bear were not easy to come by, especially for a new hunter that didn't know a whole lot.

12:33But I was walking back out and I'd hit the Logan road and I was headed towards the truck. I was probably a mile from the truck coming up around this Logan road. And Frosty, this is one of the things that I vividly remember. Frosty was just out in front of me just kind of nanchilantly. You know, he'd walk and trot you know how dogs do. And it was like somebody dropped a cinder block on his head. And it was almost like his rear end come off the ground. That's how fast this happened. And it was like boom head down tail up. And there was no, you know, body language, you know how you start an old track. The dogs tell it's dark to wind. And you know, you could see the the behavioral changes in their body. And that was none of that. It was literally head down tail up. And the biggest, longest ball. And over the bank, he went down down off the mountain.

13:39The pups went with him. So I'm, I'm by myself, you know, biggie and the ember back at the truck. And I told him I said, hey, I just struck a track. I really just didn't strike a track. That bear had literally just walked out in front of me and I just didn't see it. That's how, that's how hot this track was. So that awful mountain he went across the little valley, started pulling up the other side of the mountain and veered back. Veered back. If you're standing there looking at the mountain, give you a visual. He would be headed till your one o'clock. So he was going up into the, to the right. He gets about three quarters of the way up this mountain. And then frosty was a ball mouth bow. And he gives out a big, old long ball and then he switches over to those short balls. Oh, oh, oh. And I said, I think he's true. I flipped my tracker on, you know, the old beep beeps.

14:49And that thing is going, and the excitement that was coming out of me was probably hard to contain. Because that was the first tree that frosty had made by itself. And with me, me and him, just me and him and the puppies. So I had to hike back into the country. I just come out of across the valley, pull off that state and I get up in there and I've actually got a picture of this and I actually, I tell you, I have a picture of this up on my basement, the walled downstairs. It was September 18th. I can tell you that to the date because I got a picture of it. And this bear's setting up in a big old oak tree, but he's on the bottom limb. And I get up there and I holler down and I'm like, hey, you know, we're creed. We got it.

15:51You know, all the things you do. And Big GM asked me, he said, well, how many dogs is there? And I said three. He's like, I don't hear one. Well, he had him puppies. They were just there. They were just tagging along, right? They were just on the train. They just got home bored and went to wherever we're in the right. And I mean, I'm immersed in this. This is my first tree with my dog after Frosty was two years old at a time. And I'm trying to get some pictures. And Frosty, which was not a dog that was typically bad about running the tree, he just wasn't. That the bear was setting so low that when I was up on the bank, like I was looking right into the bear's eyes, like that's how close he was. Well, Frosty was running up the tree. Tree had a little bit of lean to it, lean in off the mountain. Frosty was running up that

16:56tree. And every time Frosty would, that bear had turned himself around, he was smacking the tree and bark was going everywhere. So I'm like, I better, I better catch my dog. So I go down to the to the base of the tree and I'm going to catch Frosty. And about the time I get my hand on his collar, he goes up the tree. And I'm my arms stretched out and I'm bringing him back with the bark starts peeling. And I look and literally the bear is literally his butt is at my head. So I turn to go to get away, you know, to get away from the tree. Well, the bear comes down a tree and literally knocks me into the rocks. We're in a rock bar. Like he just, I want to say he sat on me basically, but he knocked me back. Like I wasn't far enough away from the tree when he come down, eyes just in his way. So boom, I get knocked down. I don't know how I held on to Frosty, but I did.

17:57I got him tied up and it hurt like it hurt me. I get him tied up and the pucks tied up and I don't remember what sequence that happened. I don't know if I had them tied up before I call him or I call him and they didn't chase it off. I can't remember. But anyway, I had a pair of the car, car hearts pants on. If you guys remember, they, you know, they have the double-need car hearts. And my knee, my left knee is split. Like it looks like you took a knife and just split it right down the middle of the car heart. Well, there's blood coming out of it. And I'm like, okay, I pull my pants up and I've got a pretty good gash in my kneecap. Like it's bad. So I haul her and tell them, I'm like, hey, I got cut. I'm going to come out. So they convinced me to walk around and come

18:57out of different areas to to pull on all the way back up and all the way back out there. So that's what I did. So I had two dogs. And once I got the dogs away from the tree, you know, I don't have to lead Frosty. And we walk out and it took me like an hour, I almost say a good hour to get down to where they were at. Maybe a longer net. And I get down there and they're like, you're going to probably need some stitches. And I'm like, yeah, I like I know. So I get in my truck, of course, for you, for you, young and two, I was driving straight drive. I was driving old blue. My 19, 9, 4, GMC Sierra with a Dale Earnhardt sticker in the back. So I load up the dogs and I go to my family doctor. And lo and behold, you're like, you're going to need stitches. You need to go to the emergency ring. Now I am driving this straight, this straight drive with only my right foot. So I'm

20:02I'm pushing the clutch in and the gas and everything with the right foot to break everything. So I'm like a one foot wanderer here. Anyway, I get to the emergency room. They finally get me in. The doctor asked me what happened. And I said, well, I was bear hunting and a bear pretty much not run over me and not me down in the rocks. He goes, do what? And I'm like, yeah, he was coming down to the tree and I try to explain it to him. And I still don't think he grasped what I was saying. I think he thought a bear had like literally tried to mow me, but that's not what happened. We've all been there, right? Well, then he decides he says, I think I need to take you back for an X-ray just to make sure your kneecap is not like broke. And I'm like, well, I just walked an hour and a half to the truck. Like, I'm I think it's okay. He as well. We just want to be sure. So the end of that story is that was my first bear with frosty and it left a scar. And that

21:02bear was a good one. Like looking at him now, you guys at bear hunting, you got a good grasp on the size of bear. That bear is sitting in the tree and you can see that big old hump between the shoulders. And you know when they've got that hump, they're 250 or better. This was a 300 pound plus bear. And it was my first one. It was my first one solo. I'd been on other bear trees. My dog's been on other bear trees a lot. Well, you know, enough. But this was the first one that I did it with him by him with me. And we did it together. So that was my first solo bear. And I named him stitches because I ended up with 18 stitches. And it was on the 18th, right? We can't forget that September 18th, 18th stitches. And all comes together. Like everything has a reason. Now I want to tell you about Maddie's first bear. So Maddie was five years old. And she's a daddy's girl at this point in her life. She's 17 now. And she's growing up to be a

22:08a young lady. And sometimes you know how that works. She did hunt with me this morning. And she said, dad, bear's on the ground. She goes, I think I'm going to stay at the truck. And I said, okay. And if you need, if you need to, you can come pick me. If I need you to, you can come pick me up. So that's that was our arrangement. She got a little buffaloed a couple of years ago. One again, come out of the tree. And she was standing on the wrong side of the dogs and the bear didn't have nowhere to go. And again, she was kind of in the way. And it come for her. And when it got right at her, it turned, it went up there, went around her. And that that spooked her a little bit. But she she's been to several trees since then. But she don't like them on the ground. So Maddie's first bear, she's five years old. And at this point in time, I'm in pretty bad shape pack wise. So forced. And I can't remember who all were tree, but we ended up getting in with them, packing in with them.

23:09The tree to bear really close to the road. And we go in and we a mistake. We didn't have the dogs back. We were we were fooling with the kids and trying to get pictures and stuff. And the bear gets down and takes off. And we got a handful of dogs called at that point. But I still had two or three, two, maybe three that I didn't get my hands on. And they ended up going a mile and a half. Now here's here is something that I think it's important to note. The same valley, the same valley where I treat my first bear by myself is the same valley that Maddie went to her first bear. But anyway, they were 1.2 miles from the truck. So again, we hit another logging road. We we walk up and look five years old. She's got a little moot boots on. And we walk in there.

24:17They're tree right on the edge of a marshy swampish area in a small tree. And as soon as I go in there, and I told Maddie, I stood her back a little bit. I went in there and I just grabbed dogs and make sure they got tied up. So we walked a mile, 1.2 in, 1.2 out, never complained, never said a word, was just happy, happy, happy to be there. And I'll never forget that. Like that was her first bear. And Maddie and I have treated, oh, I'm gonna say a lot. I'm not saying I'm not trying to over exaggerate. We've treated several bears just me and her over the years. We've been to a lot of trees just me and her together. But that was the first, that was the start of something at five and at 17 today, at 17.

25:23As long as the Lord keeps blessing me with her wanting to go, I'll never say no. I always want her with me. But that was her first bear tree, first of many for her. So I'm going to end you on this one, at first. So during that time period, in the late 90s, yeah, 90, 96, 98. Yeah, so that would be 98. So this is, so the valley that I trade the big bear in, I decided that that wasn't trained in season. I decided in December. I wanted to go, go after that bear. He was a good bear. And the two guys that I hunted with, that was the kind of their, their home range. They liked it. And I hunted that same area. And when I say that same area, I walked the same

26:28foot trails day in and day out. I may make a different loop. I may go a different direction, but I hunted that valley every day in December. And towards the end of December, it was actually Christmas week. We finally cut a track in the snow and put all frosty down on it. And he trailed that thing out of that valley across the mountain. We were just talking about across that one into a big flat down through some flat country, across a couple roads, started pulling the next mountain over. And as we were getting around there, there was another group that had cut the track where it had crossed the road they were on. And this is miles away. And frosty got across the road and got in with them. And they began to know who they were. So he hauled around more radio to say, hey, black doe comes up through there and they say, well, we're walking the track out.

27:31And they're like, well, we're coming. He's coming. So just catching. So they ended up catching him. We call it the day. It was pretty late in the day by then anyway. But I want to tell you that because it took me a while to realize, and this is where we go into doing the same thing every day and inspect the different results. Is the definition of insanity, right? I didn't know any better. I mean, I was into it. I was learning. Now I was and I have a dear hunter. And I understood food that you got to be in food to find animals. And you know, you got to do this and you got to do that. I understood how that worked. But being in a different element, in a different environment, and depending on the dog, some of that stuff didn't resonate with me. Like the dog will just find it. Well, he got to be able to put the dog

28:33where it's where the bears at. So I hunted that place the whole year, found one track. And I say the whole year, I mean, the whole month, I spent every day that I hunted in that in that in that area. And it didn't catch a bear. I didn't catch old big boy. Old stitches either. But it's a learning lesson. That was my first. That was my first experience trying to figure it out on my own. So you guys that have good mentorship, you've got old houndsman that are teaching you and guiding you, giving you advice. Let me tell you this. And I tell some of my guys this all the time. It took me 25 years to figure some of this stuff out. The hard way.

29:33Don't stuff, don't stuff, changing it, don't stuff, don't stuff, changing it. And till you finally figure out what brings you success. So they're taking all their knowledge 25, 30, 40 years of experience, 50, whatever it may be. And they're blessing you with this knowledge. You're not having to do the things the hard way like we used to do. They're giving you the information. And you should appreciate it. And you should respect where it came from and how it was obtained. Because they're saving you miles and miles and miles and years of running and chasing dogs. I'll promise you that. And sometimes that's why we may be a little bit tight lipped on things. Have you earned it? Have you put your time in? Have you been respectful?

30:35Have you showed that you're a good steward of the sport? Something to think about. But we get off here. We wrap this one up. So this dropped more on the Wednesday. Guys Friday. Friday is 9-11. Been 25 years since 9-11 happened. And while we're talking about firsts, I can tell you where I was at, what I was doing, who I was with when this come up on the TV. I was at work. We were in the cafeteria eating lunch. And we were sitting there and it came up on the TV where the first plane flew into the first tower. And we're like, man, that was like, how did that happen?

31:36And then after lunch, we have a 30-minute lunch. We got to get back to work. And back then, you didn't have access to cell phones and ear pods and headphones and stuff like that. And when we left work at evening, we come to realize that it had been a terror attack. And they had taken two buildings out and then the plane went into the field in Pennsylvania. So for those of you who can, be grateful where you live and the country you live in. And the people that sacrificed their lives that day, that flight that went into the Pennsylvania field was because the passengers took it over. They said, we're not going to, that's not going to happen again. Into all the people in New York and those buildings, the firefighters, police officers,

32:38the civilians that went in there and tried to help. We should never forget. That's going to be a wrap for this week's episode of Creek Side Chronicles. We appreciate you spending your time with us, whether you're in the truck, in the woods, or sitting by the creek, just listening alone. Thank you for walking this trail with us. And we got to say thank you to W. Supply for hosting the podcast and supporting everything we do. Be sure to check them out and go to W. Supply.com. For all your how-and-hunting needs. Until next time, keep your dogs fed right, whose leads tight, boots muddy, and we'll see you at the tree.

33:50We're going to have a wonderful, cheerful cheer. From the Virginia mountains to the Carolina clay. We're burning fuel in miles each day. Every turns another town through mountain mist and paper trebles. Rise through the fog in old W. B. North Carolina's pines echo loud with the cry of a heart run hell. New York forest, maize deep snow, vermon valleys where the black bears go. Truck keeps rolling, wheels don't care. We're chasing daylight, chasing bears. Rift off's fuel, the roads are long, but the fire in our heart still burns strong.

34:54Wisconsin mornings, cutting crisp and clear. Canada's wildwoods drawing near. Still got states, we ain't run but that hand of fever won't let us quit. We see the sun set red in Tennessee. Rise through the fog in old W. B. North Carolina's pines echo loud with the cry of a heart run hell. New York frost, maize deep snow, vermon valleys where the black bears go. Truck keeps rolling, wheels don't care. We're chasing daylight, chasing bears. Gas station coffee, alpha excel on the dash. Another background, another bear track.

35:58Friends made fast, the story's told slow. Understarts, where only hunters go. We see the sunrise, gold and Canadian there. And it sits on a trail down in Appalachia. Back in steel and leather, grit and care were built for the road. And chasing bears. So low the dogs and slam the gate, there's a trail ahead. We won't be late, we don't have dust. We're always there. Chasing daylight, chasing them bears.