"Home of REAL Treedogs"

Hello once again to everyone out there in FULL CRY land, and the faithful readers of Out & about. As I sit here typing this article I can't believe that is almost August. Time sure has flown by in 2005!

None the less it has been plenty busy for me around here the last month; I attended the Jamestown Spring Hunt. While there I saw familiar faces and met a few new ones. I must say of all the clubs I go to, as far as the facilities go Jamestown and the OMCBA club is tops. We arrived on Saturday; we did not hunt in the hunt but went down to do some dog dealing and talk to friends. I was joined on my journey by Chris Powell and Gary Skaggs. Chris took his dog Doc down to Danny Wilkinson so Danny could transport Doc to his new home in Southern Louisiana. Gary rode along and brought a young Torgeson bred Mt. Cur to enter in the treeing contest. I took along my old dog Mike to his new owner Jarrett Corley who made the trip up to Jamestown from Georgia. Every year that I attend Jamestown the hunts seem to be growing by leaps and bounds, it is getting where it is almost hard to find a good place to park. Upon my arrival to Jamestown I was met by Ronnie Roland of South GA, Ronnie is a great guy and he is sure fired up about cur dogs. I meet Ronnie a couple years back at one of his squirrel hunts in Georgia. Ronnie is one of those type fellows's that if you meet him once you feel like you have known him for years. I had a nice conversation with him and glad we touch base with one another from time to time. I talked with James Menser for a while; James is hard at it again with the Apache dog that was just purchased from the Loudin's. James is fine tuning Apache and I am sure that he will have him just the way he likes him when he is finished. From what I understand Apache was a nice outfit to begin with, and James hunts as hard as anyone in the game, put the two together and I am sure it will be a deadly combination. I spoke with Danny Wilkinson; Danny is having great success with the pups out of his Hank dog. He is proud of what Hank is re producing and I wish him all the best. I met Tommy Torgeson for the first time, he is a great guy, and really seems to know what he wants when it comes to a tree dog. We share a lot of the same beliefs when it comes to what we look for in a Cur. It was a pleasure talking with him. I saw Mark Morrison a time or two, never really got to speak with him besides a lowly hello, I sulked about that all the way back to Indiana. I am just kidding of course, but however it was good to see Mark. While I was waiting in line to get some grub I ran into Chuck Loudin, I have spoke with Chuck on the telephone before but we have never met. Chuck is one of the nicest guys I belive I have ever had the pleasure talking to and I look forward to hunting with him someday. He introduced me to his son Adam, the apple don't fall far from the tree. Adam is a courteous young man that really has a passion for these Cur dogs. Chuck and Cash Berry were there as well. Chuck had Capone in the bench show and also a young pup that he had delivered to him that day. I believe he went home with hardware on both dogs from the bench show! Chuck is a friend of mine and lives North of me here in Indiana, we see each other at hunts but have not yet gotten the opportunity to take a pleasure hunt together. Hopefully this season we can make that happen.

I talked with Carl Smith; I was going to interview Carl for this Out & About column. But unfortunately I did not take into consideration how tremendously busy Carl is at the OMCBA hunts. Carl was running around there like a chicken with its head cut off. Trying to keep everyone happy and everything running smoothly is quite a chore when you have a few hundred guests over. I did however talk with Carl and he was familiar with my column, he said he would be more than happy to talk with me. So hopefully next month in September's FULL CRY I will have a Q&A with Carl Smith for you to read.

My friend Gary Skaggs did end up putting his young dog in the treeing contest, he was standing about 75 yards away from the event waiting for the judges to call his name. The whole time his young dog was barking his head off, once his name was called and he released his dog into the circle and his dog stayed as busy as all there and then came a momentary pause which probably cost him the contest. Gary has a fine tree dog but he seemed to bark himself out before the he got up to the plate. Gary told me he will know not to do that next time. Gary's dog was 17 barks behind the leader and two barks behind the third place dog. But he was glad he entered and tells me that next year he will hope to redeem himself. I had a great time at Jamestown and hope to go back for the fall hunt. Being a competition hunter, it was kind of hard I must admit, not to be entered in the hunt. I only have one OMCBA female at this time and she is young, she shows all kinds of promise but I feel she was not ready.

I got a disturbing call from Jarrett Corley, it appears that two dogs that he has gotten from me, Mr. Microphone (Mike) and Russell were shot by an adjoining landowner. Jarrett tells me that he turned both dogs loose behind his house, Russell treed shortly and was followed by Mike when he heard two blasts from a shotgun. He franticly ran into the woods fearing what may have just happened. He was calling for the dogs and was met half way by Mike who appeared to be limping and had a small amount of blood coming from his leg. He grabbed up Mike and quickly returned him home to the kennel and set out looking for Russell, despite the numerous times he called Russell did not come in to him. Fearing the worst had happened Jarrett quickly ran back home and got into his vehicle, he drove to the neighbors house to ask if he had heard Russell treeing and or the gunshots. His neighbor told him that he had shot at the dogs because they were treeing to close to his house. Jarrett kept his cool and went to the back of his neighbor's house into the wood line and found Russell still alive. He rushed both dogs to the vet and luckily they will make a full recovery. Jarrett made a full report and ended up going to Court with his neighbor. Jarrett had everything in order and presented a solid case against his neighbor's negligence. The Judge granted Jarrett payment in full of all vet bills and any time lost off work. Also the neighbor has to issue a full apology to Jarrett in this magazine. I guess that will be in a letter to the editor type format. A story like this will make you stop and think. It could happen to any one of us; it happened to James Menser not long ago; unfortunately he was not lucky enough to recover his dog. Be careful out there, I hope that no harm like this ever comes to anyone's hunting partners.

I got the sad news that Streaks Redman owned by Frank Cox and John Stewart has past away of age. The following two comments are excerpts taken from Squirrel Dog Central, It is John Stewart and Frank Cox talking about this fine dog he walked miles in the woods with:

How do you start to describe a legend? Redman truly was one of the greatest competition dogs ever. Carl Smith was the breeder of Redman and his nephew raised and trained him. Yes I had to put a handle on Redman and fine tune him for the hunts but that raw power was already there. I will never forget the first time I hunted him at Jamestown TN. Ed Bell came up to me asked me how I was going to hunt Redman down there when at the time there was almost no squirrels around. Please note that when I first started hunting Redman when you cut him loose he never came back he would always tree some where in some county and have the meat. I told Ed that if Redman didn't find any thing in twenty minutes he would be back. When we came back in from hunting Ed asked the cast members if Redman ever checked back in and they told Ed he handled like a dream. Thanks to tri tronics for this. In all the years, since early eighties, that I have hunted OMCBA dogs, Redman and Pearl are the only two that I had to teach to check back in. Redman is the type of dog that always seemed to be able to come up with the meat and a lot of times the other dogs wouldn't have any idea there was any game around. I am yet to see any dog that has or had any more heart than Redman. Redman would never quit you; he was always ready to go again day or night.

The last time I hunted Redman was last summer when it was hot and he hadn't been hunted in a couple years. The boys and I cut him loose in a cornfield hoping to make a quick tree so he wouldn't get to hot. To make a long story short we found him by our tracker well over an hour later, he had a coon up a big poplar tree that was leaning out over a pond.

Frank Cox had this to say about Redman: It is hard for me to single out the many things Redman has done. I saw many people just withdraw their dog in a hunt when they heard Redman was entered. I guess the winning the squirrel hunt , night hunt and combo dog at the KSBA world hunt in 1998 was one of them and another was when UKC first started the cur/feist program the hounds hunted in the UKC State championship hunt. Redman put some whooop on all of them. He beat 84 hounds and scored 1450 points I believe. Redmans cast was Redman and 3 hounds. He treed 3 separate coons on that cast that the 3 hounds wouldn't even honor him on the tree and he had the meat. I could go on and on about his accomplishments. I have some great memories about the Old Man and will always remember him as one of the greatest…..Frank Cox

Redman will be missed, I am sure. But luckily his legacy is living on through his offspring. Those of you that seen Redman perform truly knew what he was about. I was not fortunate enough to hunt with Redman, but I was at a few hunts were Redman took home the trophy.

Well, that's about all that I have for this month. I hope everyone is geared up for squirrel season. Ours starts August fifteenth here in Indiana, the nut crop looks good and the squirrels seem plentiful, it should be an outstanding year! In the meantime I have been doing some fishing. It keeps me busy in the outdoors during the off season. I have included a picture of two of my friends Kenney Losekamp and Morgan Headrick after an eventful night of Bass fishing on a local lake.

Until Next time, KEEP LOOKIN UP!

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