HOW DID YA GET HERE?

[fair chase]

My father always raised and trained beagles while I was growing up.My brother is 15 years older than me and he always had beagles and coon dogs.I started hunting at age 7 when I got my first 410.I would go to the kennel behind the house and get a dog out and take it to the woods,At that early age I loved to get a coon dog out and take her squirrel hunting.It wasnt long that rabbit hunting got in my blood , which untill this day I still love the sound of a pack of beagles.My father died in 1987 and after that I have breed and trained my own dogs.I have 8 at this time with 6 being under a year old. I love training young dogs,I wouldnt be out there very much if all I had to hunt was old dogs.Iam 45 years old now and the thrill of rabbit hunting remains the same.Thanks M. BAKER

[wright boy]

Myself like a lot of others was introduced to rabbit/deer hunting by my dad. I lived for it. Back then I knew nothing of registered or grade, just that my dad had some very good dogs that would pound rabbits all day long. Folks from all over would try to book hunts with him. To bad I was to young to keep it going when he started working on Sats. I would rather take a butt whipping any day then to have my mom tell me I couldnt go hunting with my dad on the wknd for something I did wrong!! When it wasnt time to hunt we were fishing. I can remember my dad getting picked at by our club members on Saturdays because he always had me and my brother with him. "Irvin cant go anywhere without his boys" is what they would say to him. Dad would simply reply, I wouldnt want to be anywhere that I couldnt take my boys.

He would often tell them to wait about 10 to 15 years and them tell him where their boys were, then look and see where his are(still with him).
He would always tell people that he was taking us while we were young, so we would take him when he was old.

I`m 34 years old now with my own pack of beagles. I`m still doing it, and every chance I get I have him out with me. He`s only 57 now and in excellent health. When he slows down I`ll still have him with me even if I have to wheel him or carry him. God I love that man. Guys I`m gettin teary eyed here. Sorry for getting mushy on you.
Good topic Jimmie, I`m gonna thank him in the morning.

[dogrunnerone]

Great Topic Jim! Brings back some memories of my childhood and times with my dad in the field. My dad got me into hunting back when I was so young that I couldn't cock my single cock Daisy BB gun without putting it on the toe of my shoe and pushing the lever away from me. I didn't have the arm strength to cock it the right way. I remember walking with the grown men, stomping brush piles and walking through thickets well above my head. I was the beagle. We usually were pheasant hunting but rabbits were fair game if we came across one. We never had hunting dogs but he always had the police departments K-9, that is where I fell in love with dogs. Our neighbor right behind our house had one beagle and one walker coondog and I always took care of his hounds for him when they went out of town. I can remember getting up and going out back to see how many coons he got the night before. My uncle always had black and tan coonhounds too and between him and my neighbor I always wanted a hound. My father was involved in an accident that left him blind in one eye and he quit hunting, but I already had the fever and couldn't quit. I started deer hunting and that was my true love, couldn't wait until deer season every year and would spend all my vacation time on it. Then I changed jobs, I was 25 and met a guy at my new job that was a avid hunter too, he asked me if I ever rabbit hunted and I said I used to all the time but hadn't for several years due to my love of deer hunting, he then asked if I had ever rabbit hunted with beagles, at that time I had never seen a beagle run a rabbit. He invited me to go with him on our days off and hunt with his dogs, needless to say I have been hooked since and went right out and bought my first beagle. She wasn't worth a plug nickel but she was a sweetheart of a dog and I kept her until she died a couple of years ago. I pretty much quit deer hunting for several years because I would be sitting in a tree stand thinking that I would rather be running my hounds. I ended up getting my dad back into hunting (deer) but I never got a chance to take him with my beagles and I am sorry for that. After he died I became very close with my coonhunting Uncle, he would always say "if you take me rabbit hunting with your beagles I will take you coonhunting with my black and tans." It was always a done deal. A couple years later my uncle died from cancer. I think about them both often and miss them very much. I wish I had more time to gain houndsman knowledge from my uncle and more about becoming the man my father was from him!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty good Jim, you got a 40 year old man crying and typing at the same time!

[Buckeye Bob]

My dad always had a beagle for us brothers at home and I can remember all the firsts like it was yesterday.1st rabbit shot.1st time I heard a dog open on a rabbit.!st time that I heard more than one in a pack.But I got married started a business and didn't keep beagles for years.Went to a LP trial with my new brother-in-law 4 years ago and realized what I was missing.4 years ago I did not know what brace,Little Pack,Large Pack or Spo was.Didn't know the first thing about bloodlines and got a very tough education in buying beagles.Now my beagles are my therapy,all else drifts away when I run dogs.I entered a dog for the first time in a Little Pack trial last Sat.that I expected to win with but didn't.(Lost first cast by 5 points and Red lost a strike because he only opened twice) Now I want to take it to the next level and win.Trialing is a whole new dimension and I can see where it could get in your blood.I have found this board a lotta fun too,checking in on the advice and bs keeps me connected to others like myself.

[TickedDog]

I remember the first rabbit I killed after getting dogs. I had a grade female and my brother and dad had a couple grade males. They were far from good rabbit dogs but they were all we had. The two males jumped a rabbit and were heading in our direction. For some reason my female hadn't even joined in. The rabbit came by us heading for some hay bales and we shot it. My female came from behind us and didn't even know what was going on and after the gunshot both males stopped dead in their tracks and headed to the house!! Needless to say those dogs are no longer around and we have since improved on them greatly with some AKC registered blue dogs. But even the bad days are better than no days at all.

[S.R.Patch]

S.R._Patch

Junior Member



In man or beast,
hunting is bred in
not taught.

Posts: 186
Gender:
Re: Youngest Age U went hunting
Reply #12 - Oct 7th, 2005, 7:21am

I'll give you all a laugh...

I got my ponies when I was 6 yrs. of age. Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger & Tonto, Zoro were my hero's. My grandfather hunted American foxhounds, but he was killed before I ever knew him. In my case, hunting skipped a generation and my father never cared or had time for hunting. He rasied 6 siblings being the oldest, and cattle and farming became his passion. That left me with no guidence or anyone to show me the way in hunting, but as I believe, hunting is bred in, not taught. I was whelped with an itch that I never could quite reach when it came to hounds and hunting.
My first hunters were a mix of dog but were keen for sport, especially when it came to fox or groundhog. The foxes, they would run off and I was left behind, but, the groundhog was our sport together. We had an 80 acres of bottom ground with a large creek running down one side. Here is where we would stalk down the edge, hopeing to catch one of the hogs out in the bean field feeding. The dogs would work the trail out into the beans and when you saw the tops of the beans go to shaking and Brownie sounded off, the chase was on. The other dog, Snowball, would run for the creek to head off the hog from getting to the hole and when all three clashed, the fight was on. They had a knack of working perfectly together in this way. Snowball would take the hog straight head first and Brownie would come in from behind and break the neck with a sounding chomp. I always had my Daisy BB gun with me and would pop a few shots to the hog for good measure, just to be sure he was finished off. We kept the hog population in check and I was proud that many a bushel of beans was saved, due to our management. Twine was always in supply on the farm and I kept my pockets full. It was handy for tieing the hog to the saddle on our return trip home. I was always in trouble for retrieving dead critters to the house to show mother, and father would send me back to the woods to leave the spoils where nature could deal with them best.
That was hunting when I first began and then, as now, my blood rushes when hounds sound off the find and my feet want to leave me, to be in at the finish.
Through all the years gone by, this unwavering passion to hunt, only proves, we really can't help ourselves, can we...

[ky joe]

Yes. I can remember my first rabbit, It was cold and there was a snow on the ground. My dad took me behind the house with a gun that he had given me earlier in the year. a 20 guage mosseberg pump. We went back there and we had a dog named cookie, she was better than any dog that we have now. she jumped a rabbit and run it up a fence row and i shot him running right toward me. That was about 8 or 9 years ago and I still remember every single detail. It is funny how you can remember stuff like that so clear after such a long period of time. And you are right Danny. Billy and Cody are something to be proud of. Good guys. And yes, you all have accomplished so much in the past year it is amazing. You shoould be proud of your dogs, and Billy and Cody.

[anderson7807]

my story is nothing like all of yours. i have only been in beagling one year this Christmas. last fall i enjoyed sitting on the porch and watching the neighbors female beagle run around the yard and barking. Then they started not taking care of her and i asked them if i you just have her. i was told no. all i talked about with my wife was about this beagle. couple of days before last Christmas my 14 yr old daughter went over asked for the female for her me for a present and they told her no and to tell me to stop feeding and petting her. so my wife answered an ad in the local paper. on Christmas Eve i came home from work to good meal then a knock on the door. another neighbor was standing there with a male beagle pup wrapped in a towel. he looked at me and that is all it took. i became a child again on Christmas morning. i did not even care about the other gifts under the tree. about a month later i got on the internet and started finding beagle sites and calling people. my wife told me that she did not know that this was going to turn out to be a hobby she that just man's best friend since she studies all the time for nursing classes. i still did not know or care about bloodlines. i called the breeder to ask a couple of questions when he started to tell me about the pups grandfather (syris).
i have met some very helpful and people(especially tim h) who have taught me the little that i know and help to train my male. i did end up with the female across the street. if i have not heard them chase a rabbit in week i go nut about as bad as they do. i have not shoot my first rabbit yet do to no rabbits at the state property, but i have not give up yet.

[Huntin54]

My dad always talked about rabbit hunting when he was a kid. He would also talk about the pheaseants being all over the place. Then one year for christmas my cousin gave my brother a beagle. Me and my bro trained it. And now the dog is 4 and hunts great. My dad didn't want to get a dog until we were old enough. Now we have 2 beagles and im glad i got into this hobby. I don't know what i would be doing right now if i didn't have dogs. Probably be out doing drugs or something worse then that. My grandfather helped get me into it also taking me when my father couldn't.

This is the best thing that happend to me. I don't wanna stop this is better then drugs.