Melon Ranch Hounds

How do I consistently catch as many cats as I do is a question I get asked repetitively. Although there are a lot of factors that contribute to consistently catching bobcats, I’m going to talk about the one factor that I feel is most important. DISCLAIMER: You can have the best bloodline in the world and if you aren’t somewhat selfish, a lot realistic, damn near crazy, and extremely good at being humbled, you won’t make it half way up the ladder. For now, let’s discuss bloodline and why it is important.

In my opinion the contributing factor that stands at the top of the list is, bloodline. You cannot expect greatness out of dog that isn’t bred to achieve great things. In order for a hound man to consistently run and catch bobcats he/she must have hounds that run to catch. In this game there is no room for any hound that runs behind what he/she is smelling only to bark because some 200 year old DNA strand tells him to do so. A good cat hound has one goal and one goal only; to catch and to kill the cat it’s running. I call this trait, run to catch, and it is essential that every hound in the pack does it. Ultimately, if you can get a group of hounds to compete over who’s going to catch the cat first, you’ve achieved your goal. Why is this so important? Unlike a coyote or deer, a bobcat doesn’t automatically assume they can beat their pursuer with speed and longevity. On the contrary, a bobcat isn’t wired to beat a pursuer with speed and their ability to go long distance. A bobcat will run but during every step of that run it will be scheming on how to outsmart, trick, or confuse what is chasing him. Because of this trickery the most important thing a hound can do is maintain the pressure which causes the cat to panic rather than look for tricks. A lot of times one of a cat’s favorite things to do is something I call, squatting. The race will be going just fine, dogs roaring behind the cat, running a circle, and suddenly it’s lights out. Everything goes silent and not bark is heard. The longer that silence remains the more likely it is that the cat is sneaking away or just sitting still. If hounds aren’t bred to run and catch, their first instinct is to start making big wide circles looking for the trail they were smelling. The longer they look the less interested they get and before long, the cat is in the wind and the hunter is wondering what happened. I pack of hounds that’s bred to catch what they are after will double back on its own track and then circle from there. Ultimately, something will find the cat itself or the track within seconds and apply the pressure once again. Another example is in this low brush country in south Texas cats will get up on top of the brush and run across it thirty or forty feet and then jump back down. A hound that isn’t bred to put his teeth on its quarry will smell that scent up and lock down treed right there. Contrarily, if you zoom in my hounds when this happens, one or two hounds will pause where the cat jumped on top of the thicket. The rest of the hounds will fan out in all directions and quickly find where it jumped down. In doing this the pressure never really stops. If the cat climbs a tree and I happen to be zoomed in on my GPS you would see something similar with a different end result. Dogs would be coming down the trail screaming and run right past the tree the cats is in. Within two seconds every hound stops barking and doubles back. More than likely I’d notice Dixie, Bella, and Boots stop moving but the rest would be running in all different directions like they were on fire. Although they are looking everywhere they will rarely ever get more than fifty yards from where they made the loss. About this time one of the aforementioned three hounds that quit moving will bark treed. A second after you hear one of them bark treed, all of the hounds that are burning the brush down will come directly to that bark. About now, the three hounds that were stopped all bark treed and a couple of the others join in. But, if you look at the GPS, Ike, Stormy, Shooter, and Jazz are making another broader circle, maybe seventy-five to one hundred yards around where the other hounds are treed. If they don’t smell a trail they’ll be back under the tree within thirty seconds and treeing. What they are doing is making absolutely certain that the cat is up. They played this game long enough to know that cats are tricky sometimes. This brings me to another thing cats seem to do to others but rarely ever do to me; jump out of the tree. As I’ve said, cats are always looking to evade their pursuers and just because they are treed doesn’t mean they stop looking for more tricks. When a cat gets treed by a three or four dogs ( especially in smaller trees) there is always a way out. The cat will look and find a place where it can jump and not be near a dog. On the other hand, if a cat looks down from a tree with my hounds standing under it, there isn’t likely to be a hole. These things are just a couple of examples of the tricks that are up and wild cat’s sleeve. Bringing the heat and holding the pressure is the key to success in this game. To maintain that pressure the right bloodline is paramount. My brother and I have been working on our bloodline for forty plus years and we still continue to try and improve our hounds with every cross. I assure you that the hound that lives in my mind cannot and will not exist. But, as long as I keep shooting for that hound, I’m going to land somewhere on the north side of the middle ground. Of the last one hundred cards I started, I caught 96 of them. To me, that is terrible, but apparently to others it is really good.

Thank you for your time in reading a few more of my thoughts, I look forward to your comments and opinions.