Two Days In March

My home hunting ground lies along tributaries of the Red River, in Grayson County - or what used to be the Red before Lake Texoma backed up behind the dam.










Ecologists call the narrow stretch of hardwood bottomland that runs adjacent to the Red, between the Arkansas border and the western boundary of Grayson County, the Red River Area and generally consider it part of East Texas, a categorization I agree with. Culturally and ecologically, the Red River Area feels like the South.



I feel at home here.



West of Grayson County, the Red River country takes on characteristics of the much drier Cross Timbers and Prairie Region. Just to the south, out of the river breaks but still in Grayson County, the terrain opens up into Blackland Prairie.




Although squirrel season never closes in Grayson County, fox squirrels start breeding in late winter and stay busy with their young until late April or so. For me, the season is closed until May 1, the traditional opening day of spring squirrel season in East Texas.



Week before last, Cate and I spent two consecutive afternoons scouting our bottoms. Had I been inclined, I could have taken 10-squirrel limits both days. Things are looking up for May.











Spring is upon us, although the woods still have a open, raw, late winter look.







I think of these woods as mine. I'm occasionally reminded that others stake their own claims...







.... and employ their own methods. A homemade deer feeder, hidden on public land. We are, after all, in Texas.





Each to his own. I'll take this any day:













They're rarely this easy to spot.





In areas more exposed to wind, post oaks and blackjack oaks predominate - fine, gnarled old- timers, stocky, bent, and thinning on top, much chewed and drilled by their tenants, worthless to lumbermen....









... but benison to a transplanted Kentuckian.


Trees grow straighter down in the sheltered creek bottoms. There are giants here. My photos never do these woods justice.

High fiber diet? Actually, she's after the chewy center, which, seconds after I snapped this photo, shot out the end of the log...

... and disappeared here.

This piece of country suits me.

Cur-Dogs

A.L. "Leak" Bevil to Campbell & Lynn Loughmiller in Big Thicket Legacy:

“What we call a cur dog was just a general mixture of dogs. They had dogs of all kinds and descriptions, took the best ones and interbred them, developed the cur dog, and the strain breeds true, the best dog in the world.”

* * *

This is Cate's daddy, Coker's Dorcheat Tiger, with his boss, Greg Coker, after winning the treeing competition in the 2006 UKC Black Gold Challenge, in Dover, Arkansas. (As you can see here, and probably already suspected, tree dog competitions aren't real tweedy.) Tiger is a Mountain Cur, mostly of the Kemmer bloodline.

This is a purloined photo of Smoky, Luisa's new cur puppy. (Luisa, I didn't think you'd mind.) We've all been fussing over Smoky for the past several days. If you haven't yet read his story and registered your unqualified approval and support, please do so at once or else your status as a sure-enough dog nut may be called into question.





Luisa made an executive decision: "He is a Mountain Cur. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

Given Smoky's appearance, I'm inclined to agree. And this:

"Smoky has one of those barks that's more of a single, sustained roar."

Well, yeah. Sounds about right.

At least one commenter suggested that there may be some Plott Hound in his lineage. Could be. There may also be a some Treeing Tennessee Brindle. I could go on.

No matter. I'm sure he's a cur. I've seen a few.

In 1957, when Riley Daniels, of Georgia, Woody Huntsman, of Kentucky, Dewey Ledbetter, of Tennessee, and Carl McConnell, of Virginia, founded the organization that would become the Original Mountain Cur Breeders Association, they were less concerned with establishing a breed than with preserving a once common general type of herding and hunting dog that nearly disappeared after World War II as mountain people began leaving their subsistence way of life for steady wages in cities and towns.

Take a look at some of the old photos on the OMCBA website and you'll see that the old-time mountain curs varied greatly in appearance, and, I suspect, working style. No doubt, the old-timers were pretty open-minded about style, so long as the semi-wild cattle and swine got bunched, penned, and marked and the 'coons and squirrels ended up in the pot.

And I seriously doubt that the old boys would have hesitated to bring in hound or shepherd blood if they thought it would produce a better cur-dog. Today, we tend to think of the mountain cur as a specific breed or type. The old-timers were simply breeding curs for working conditions in the Southern Appalachian mountains. Had you asked a mountaineer what kind of dogs he ran, he would not have said, "mountain curs." He'd have answered "cur-dogs."

The National Kennel Club recognizes the cur's varied lineage. While it lists specific cur types such as the Mountain Cur, Leopard Cur, and Yellow Blackmouth Cur, the NKC also has a category for the general working cur of recently mixed heritage. While breeders of treeing curs must keep accurate records, the NKC standard specifies a height of 18 to 28 inches and a weight of "over 30 pounds." Eye color? "Green, blue, or brown." Coat color? "Any color variation is acceptable." Tails? "Any length."

What, then, does the standard absolutely require? "The Treeing Cur must show strong treeing ability in the hunting area(s) of squirrel, coon, boar, bear or cat. Their hunting ability must prove them to be more than just an average dog. "

One of the best hunting dogs I've ever known was a treeing cur owned by my buddy Donny Lynch. Molly was a quarter treeing Walker and three-quarters mountain cur - a typical treeing cur mix. She looked just like a big mountain cur. In fact she looked a lot like Luisa's Smoky. And she was a little more open on the track than your average mountain cur, and deadly on squirrels and 'coons. Whenever she'd bark or give a little yelp on a cold trail, Donny would smile and say, "There's that Walker dog showing through."

So, Luisa, is Smoky a mountain cur? I suspect so. I'm almost certain he's a cur-dog in the broad sense. Take him up to your cabin, and then he'll be a cur-in-the-mountains.

That's all the old-timers ever wanted.

One That Got Away

Where the hell are Terrierman and his little scrappers when you need them?

Late January, and the remaining fox squirrels are sure-enough survivors. Cate treed this one in a blackjack oak, but as I approached it jumped out. She almost caught it on the ground, but not quite.

The fox squirrels will be breeding soon. I'm starting to see signs of pairing up. I'd say this one is fit to pass along his or her genes.

We'll hunt this weekend, then leave them alone until May 1, when spring squirrel season opens.

If in doubt...

The evidence: osage orange cuttings.

If you wait until conditions are perfect, you'll rarely hunt. I know that.

Still...

Tueday before Thanksgiving, I'd put in a good day at the word processor and had a couple hours to hunt. Wind was howling in out of the west. Treetops were whipping. A bad time to squirrel hunt, but it was the time I had.

We hunted for an hour or so without a strike. Then Cate treed a bowhunter. Fortunately, he turned out to be friendly, but I felt bad about disturbing him. Yes, we were hunting public land and I had as much right to be there as he did, but he'd picked an excellent spot overlooking a stretch of dry creek lined with oaks. Acorns covered the creekbed. I had seen several deer in the area on previous hunts. And he'd obviously lugged his portable tree stand a long way.

Then the wind really picked up so that I doubted I could hear Cate if she treed more than fifty yards away. Feeling low, I decided to call it a day.

I started to unload my shotgun as we started to head up the trail to the truck. Then Cate raised her nose and bolted into a thick stand of cedars. Since she usually yelps when she strikes hot scent, I assumed she was either cold trailing or smelling distant air scent. Moments later she treed.

I found her on an unuually large bois d'arc (osage orange or, in local parlance,"bodark"). The whipping branches revealed a fox squirrel hidden near the top.

I let her carry that one back to the truck.

Just go.

More Tough Going

Cate after a short hunt this past Thursday. Folks who think squirrel hunting is a kid's sport have never tried to spot a fox squirrel flattened out on a branch near the top of a mature oak.


Temperatures dropped here in North Texas, thank goodness. Then the wind picked up. But if you wait until everything's perfect, you'll rarely hunt.

Cate and I got out a couple of afternoons last week. Late Thursday, with the wind howling in the treetops, she disappeared into a patch of cedar and Osage orange. I heard her strike and wondered where a squirrel would hide in such low scrubby stuff. Moments later, Cate emerged with a fox squirrel which she efficiently dispatched with vigorous head-shaking and much impressive growling. You'd have thought she was fighting a bear. She handled the two squirrels in the photo in a more traditional manner.

We're heading for deep East Texas tomorrow. Soon, it'll be time to head west for quail.

Tough Going - But Good

Cate after a very warm morning hunt in the Red River breaks.

Squirrel season opens October 1 in most East Texas counties. However, in the timbered hills and draws along the Red River, in a few north Texas counties where Blackland Prairie and Post Oak Savannah meet to form some of the best fox squirrel habitat anywhere, the season never officially closes, though summer heat keeps hunters out of the woods June through August and most of September.

Last week, with early morning temperatures in the low 60s, Cate and I hit a certain section of woods - post oak, blackjack oak, pecan, elm, cedar, and Osage orange - for a couple of warm-up hunts.

We did, in fact, warm up.

We started at first light, and by 9 o'clock I was drenched in sweat and Cate was stepping on her tongue. Compared to gray squirrels, fox squirrels are late risers.

Still, we had a fine time, and Cate worked well in spite of the heat. She treed several times, but the squirrels were very hard to see up there in the dense leaves. It's pretty tough for a single hunter and a dog this time of year. I blew a couple of easy shots.

But cooler days are coming. We'll try to get out a day or two this week.

Carry the Damn Camera

Back in the early nineties, when I started writing for the bird hunting and gun dog magazines, I had to provide photos with my manuscripts - for no extra pay, of course. On every hunting trip, I tried my buddies' patience by holding things up to photograph a dog on point or by bringing everything to a halt if the light was especially good. I have never been a good photographer, but a bunch of my simple shots saw the light of publication. But constantly worrying about photos took some of the fun out of hunting. I vowed that if I ever wrote for magazines that work only with real photographers, I'd leave the camera at home and concentrate on my hunting and any stories that might come out of it.

Well, I'm happy to say that I haven't submitted a photo in a dozen years or so. My stories seem to read better accompanied by photos by Wyman Meinzer, Russell Graves, and other pros.

But these days, of course, digital photography is easy and fun, and the results are immediate. And of course I like to include photos with my blog posts.

Still, I'm usually too lazy to carry a camera.

I paid for that laziness earlier today.

I took Cate to a creek bottom a few miles from home. It's within the city limits, so I can't carry a shotgun, but the place is covered with huge pecan trees, several kinds of oak, hackberry, and Osage orange, and it's loaded with fox squirrels.

Cate is really starting to tree. She's been treeing and barking at squirrels that she can see for several weeks, but lately, she's starting to tree by scent only, and she's learning to follow timbering squirrels through the treetops, barking every breath - a nice, clear, chop, almost as deep and smooth as a coonhound's.

Cate struck about 50 yards away amid a stand of huge post oaks. For several seconds, I couldn't find her even though she was raising hell. Then I heard scratching up in the trees - a squirrel running up a trunk or branch, I assumed.

No, Cate running up the trunk of a big oak that had fallen against another old giant.

There she was, my seven month-old pup, eight feet off the ground, standing on the trunk of a leaning tree and reared up on the tree that held the squirrel, barking her head off.

And I had no camera and no gun. Nothing to do but cheer her on.

Directly, the squirrel timbered. Cate ran back down the leaning trunk, following the squirrel by sight. She lost it after a few minutes, but had that been a real hunting situation, that squirrel would have gone in the bag.

Next time, I'm carrying the damn camera.

Cate and the Coyote

How 'bout them ears?

Two or three times a week, I run Cate in the woods along a creek that wends through a park near my home. I can't carry a gun, of course, but the woods are full of fox squirrels, and Cate is starting to tree. We're violating the local leash law, but no else walks in the woods. There are no trails there - other than old game trails - and real woods, with briars and deadfalls, are just too untidy for most suburbanites. They stick to the paved trails that run through open, mowed areas of the park.

A large male coyote lives along the creek. We see him on nearly every outing. On cool days, we'll sometimes find him lazing in the sun along the edge of the woods. As far as I know, he causes no trouble. The first time Cate encountered him, back in early October, she weighed all of 18 pounds. But in her currish little mind, this was something to be chased, caught, and whipped to a frazzle. She took off after the coyote, baying bloody murder. The coyote loped away, probably wondering about this crazy little blond dog. Nowadays, after a few scoldings, Cate pays the coyote little attention. Usually, he stops and watches us at a distance, obviously waiting for us to pass so that he can go on about his business.

Unfortunately, he terrifies folks who walk their small dogs through the park, even though he never bothers anyone. Someone has complained to the local animal control people. Lately, I've been finding wire snares along the game trails. I suppose I ought to start packing wire cutters in case Cate runs into a noose.

Of course no one worries that dogs might get caught in these snares. After all, no one actually goes into the woods. There are wild animals in there.

I wonder. Just how tame do our woods have to be to satisfy safety-obsessed suburbanites? Can we not tolerate one beleaguered coyote?

A Productive Trip

Well, look what I brought home from Minden, Louisiana.

It started on a Tuesday afternoon three weeks ago when Donny Lynch, my East Texas hunting buddy, called. As usual, he began by expressing his surprise that I actually picked up the phone then complained for five minutes or so about how it’s damn near impossible to reach me.

I assured him that I always screen my calls and only took his because I misread the number. That seemed to satisfy him.

I said, “What’s up?”

“Nothin’. I just called to talk dogs and squirrels with an old hunter.”

Of course he was up to something.

I waited.

He paused.

After a moment, he said, “I found you a cur dog.”

Yes, I’ve wanted a cur ever since I hunted over Donny’s old dog Molly, and especially after spending time in the woods with his young cur, Whitey. But I had convinced myself that I ought to wait until next year. This coming season I wanted to get Maggie, my German shorthair, into a lot of quail, and I wanted to scope out some good squirrel hunting spots close to home. Then I’d be ready to take on a cur pup.

Donny already knew all this, but I repeated it. He said, “You won’t find any better breeding anywhere around here.”

Coming from Donny, that meant something. He convinced me to give the breeder a call. I promised I’d call in a few days.

“Them pups is ready to go. They’ll be gone before Sunday. His dog has won everything around here, and the gyp is out of top Kemmer lines up in Tennessee.”

Okay, I’d call right away.

And I did. Then I called Donny back and told him I’d pick him up on my way through Marshall. He’d started it. He’d have to ride over to Minden with me.

I knew before I went that I’d buy one of those pups. The breeder, Greg Coker, is a serious squirrel and ‘coon hunter. His cur Tiger, the sire, is an excellent competition and hunting dog. The dam, a superb 'coon dog, belongs to his friend in Tennessee. Neither of the men were professional breeders looking to make a profit. Rather, they were breeding hunting dogs for their own use - always a good sign where experienced dog folks are concerned.

There were ten pups. Two females had been selected to go back to Tennessee with their Mama. True to their Kemmer blood, most of the pups were yellow. Greg and his brother would keep a pair of brindle males. After that I had my pick. I’ve always found dark brindle coats striking and backwoodsy. All of the curs I had known back in Kentucky had been brindled. But Jane likes yellow. (When Mama ain’t happy, and all that….)

Anyway, the pups tumbled out of the pen, and their mama, probably to her great relief, went over to join Tiger in another pen. Two bold females caught my eye right off. In the end, it was just a matter of picking one because I like her four white socks. I found the sire and dam calm and friendly, and neither barked or paced excessively despite the visitors and excitement.

So we loaded “Cate” and headed west. Donny, who took a shine to the other yellow female, later admitted that he had to repeatedly remind himself that he already had a yard full of good dogs at home.

Of course Maggs was appalled that first night, but she's a good sport.

Since then, Cate has been eating like a hound and growing like a thistle:

'coons beware!

Much to its benefit, the mountain cur isn’t recognized by the AKC. Hence the healthy variation in size and color. Until fairly recently, the mountain cur really wasn’t a breed at all, but a “type”bred strictly for working qualities. We all know the benefits of breeding records, judicious line breeding, and competition.. We all know the dangers, too. The cur has always been a rawboned, rural meat, hide, and stock dog, the sort of dog unlikely to catch the attention of the Fancy and well-heeled competitors. Let’s hope it never does.

Cate, a Kemmer Stock Mountain Cur, or Kemmer Cur, can be registered with the United Kennel Club, the National Kennel Club, and the Kemmer Stock Mountain Cur Breeders Association. For those interested in such things, the UKC website offers a brief history and breed standard.

Should be an interesting fall and winter.