Painful Memories

[Kevin D]

LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-03 AT 06:48AM (MST)[p]The life of any hound dogger is a series of painful moments, but recently I was reminded of one of mine.

A few years back a buddy and I headed up to Riggins, Idaho on a bear hunt. The day we left I accidently dropped a cinder block on my foot and strongly suspect I broke my big toe (though, because we were leaving, I never bothered to get medical confirmation of this).

Anyway, my hunting partner brought along an especially obnoxious hound that insisted on barking the whole night long. Now few things are more irratating to me than a yapping dog in the middle of the night, so after about the tenth verbal warning, I got out of my sleeping bag, limped out of the trailer barefoot, and went to kick his ass. But as I rared back to kick the damn thing with the heel of my sore foot, the sumbitch took off wrapping his chain around my broken big toe and about yanked it off.

Now I must have laid on the ground for 10 minutes before I was finally able to crawl back to the trailer, tears running down my face. I never did get any sleep that night and I never was able to forgive that dog either. I'll admit, I never felt a bit sorry when I learned of its demise a couple of years later.

How about the rest of you? Anybody else have a painful moment they'd like to share??

 

[CATMAN]

I was lion huntin in the Strawberry river area one day when we happened along what looked to be a smokin hot lion track...wasn't a big track...just a lion....me and a friend having some young dogs along figured this was a perfect opportunity to let them get some experience. I turned loose a couple older dogs and three young dogs. They trailed across the river(on the ice) and then south up the mtn. I told my buddy that I'd follow along making sure the pups stayed in the race...my buddy said he'd wait by the truck and if they trailed up the canyon he'd bring the truck up and then meet me at the tree....well if any of you have hunted the Strawberry River country you know its full of ledges and some pretty steep country to walk in. First thing I did was fall through the ice and got wet to my waist....no problem right? hell this was a smokin track and the race would only last a little bit...well I continued up the hill in my soggy coveralls, I walked for a pi$$in long time before I finally heard those dogs treein. I made it to the tree, and was shocked to see a big tom in the tree. There was a kill not 100 yrds from the tree, and I figured the bigger lion run the other lion off the kill. Well after watchin the dogs tree awhile, and the wind blowin mach 6 I was gettin damn cold. My buddy hadn't shown up yet with the camera so I gathered dogs up and headed back out of there. I met my buddy about 1/3 the way out and he told me we could drop off into Timber Canyon and save some time. We slid on our butts for quite a while before I realized we were pretty much ledged up. Well we ended up lowering the hounds down as far as we could reach with their leashes, then lettin em fall the rest of the way off the cliff into the snow. Now us on the other hand ...we had a peice of rope in my buddies back-pack...we had to repel off the dang cliff and I AIN'T no cliff hanger. We made it off though...got back to the truck afetr dark with frostbit hands and feet...hungrier than chit...and wonderin why I ever got into this sport in the first place.....lol....sorry the story was so long

 

[HoundDawg]

I may have told this story before on here, I can't remember. I know I told Ed the story via email.

Spring bear hunt two years ago, we were putting up the canyon with our 4 wheelers loaded with dogs. We hit what looked like a fresh bear track in the dirt. I turned a dog loose and we quickly found out it was REAL fresh. He was leaving the country in a hurry. We emptied the boxes.

In 15 minutes we heard them down in a big canyon looking at a bear. My buddy decided to drop down in there on foot. I told him I'd go around. There was a wheeler trail that went clear over the mountain and in 40 minutes or so I be right down at the bottom of that drainage.

Along the way I encountered a big tree fallen right across the trail. I tried everything I could think of for an hour to somehow move that sucker or get around it. But to no avail.

I finally took the dog box off my wheeler and tried to slide under it. It was on a steep rough section of trail.

To make a long story short, my wheeler slid party through the procedure and the handle bar ended up pinned up against the tree, with only my thumb to cushion it. All the weight of that wheeler on a steep sidehill had my thumb pinned against that tree.

After that morning, it will be an impossibility for me to ever get into heaven. I cursed Diety, I cursed me, I cursed you, I cursed the flowers, rocks and birds, I cursed life, I cursed death, I cursed every possible thing you can imagine. But no matter how much I swore and yelled, it still wouldn't dislodge my thumb.

I don't remember how I ever freed my thumb, I was too shocked and awed at the words streaming off my lips.

But I clearly remember how painful that was. We caught the bear and 1 year later to the month, my thumb was finally healed to where the last remnants and scars of that day were gone.

I also know one thing for certainty... never again will I be able to duplicate that barrage of profanities and vulgarities that flowed off my lips that morning.

If there was such a place for that, I would surely be a Hall of Famer and possible MVP.

-Dawg