Orval Roberts called me on 6/21/99 and asked if I would be interested in helping him get
some hogs off of a man's place near Olla, LA.  He said that the man's (this gets to be
redundant but to preserve his privacy........) place was no more than five miles from his
(Orval's) camp.  I told him that I would love to do it and that I had a couple of loose ends
to tie up, but would be available later in the week.  Before we got off of the phone, Orval
said that he would get up with the man and make final preparations.

Orval called me again on Sunday, 6/27/99, to tell me that he had everything lined up and
for me to come on up whenever I was ready.  We decided that I would leave the next
morning, early, since it is a 3 hour drive.  The plan was to hunt as early as possible the
next morning.

I had "the baby" (Floyd) and his big sister (Becky) hook the truck and trailer up, load the
4 wheelers, and everything but the dogs, that night.  The "baby" and I got up early and
loaded the dogs only to discover that (?) dogs had chewed the wires off of my trailer and
my truck and I had no fire to the trailer.  Since it was dark, I couldn't pull the trailer
without lights, so I called Orval and told him that I would be much later in the day getting
there.  Orval said that the man couldn't show us around until after 9:00 AM anyway and I
told him that I would get there as soon as possible.  I went back out and crawled under the
truck and played with the wires until, I had some running lights and we took off.

When we got as far as Alexandria, LA, which is about half way I stopped and called home
and had "the baby's" big sister (Becky) call Orval and tell him that we were in Alec. and
wouldn't be far off of the 9:00 AM schedule.  Then we missed the turn off to go to Orval's
camp and went into Grayson, LA and had to turn around and go back.  By the time that
we got to Orval's camp, he was gone and had left a note on the door with directions to
where he wanted us to meet him.  We found Orval, the man, and two of Orval's friends
waiting on us at the man's hay meadow.  The man had shown Orval where the hogs had
been doing their damage and was on his way out as we drove up.

We visited, shook, and howdy'd for a full 30 minutes or so and prepared to go hunting.
At about this time Robert, lnu, pushed his Yamaha 600, Grizzly off the back of his truck
and couldn't get it to crank.  Finally, Billy, lnu, offered Robert a new spark plug that he
had and "the baby" changed the plugs out for him.  With a new plug the Yamaha started
and we went hunting.

In little over 3 minutes, we heard my dogs baying I made everyone wait a while cause I
wanted to see if the hog was gonna run and give Orval's young dog a chance to get in on
the action.  It was hard to just stand there and wait, partly because of the dogs being
bayed less than a quarter of a mile away, but mostly cause that is what we live for.  After
what seemed like an eternity, we drove another 100 yards along the edge of the hay field
and parked our bikes on the edge of the woods.  The dogs were really telling the world
about their find so we put the vest on Tiny (my little Bulldog, I mean little, about 25 lbs)
and got our handcuffs and tie string, and headed to the dogs with Orval leading his Plott.
When we got close, I expected to see the hogs break and run so I was literally shocked to
see them bayed under a big wad of muscadine vines on the edge of a more or less dry
slough, and looking at us like "who invited y'all to this party".  There were 3 hogs in that
wad of vines, a big reddish one, a smaller black one and a blue sow.  The bigger hog was
keeping the dogs busy on the edge of the slough and I figured it was (or hoped it was) a
sow that I could take home.  Orval asked if I wanted to go ahead and catch one and I told
him to wait on his young dog and as soon as the young dog got in on the bay, I turned the
little bulldog loose.  In my experience it seems like they always catch the little ones when
you "catch" out of a bunch, so I was surprised when Tiny sailed in and latched onto the
bigger hog.

Now, the fun began.  The bigger hog turned out to be a pretty good size Russian that was
in as good a shape as any wild hog, I have ever seen.  I mean healthy!  From my vantage
point, I could see Tiny latched on and looked kinda like a tick on this big boy, and as the
hog busted out of the vines it looked like she was gonna be pulled off, so I took off to go
around to my left.  As I started off, I told Floyd ("the baby") to go help Mr. Orval and not
let anything happen to him, cause Orval had gone around and was in the slough already.

With this melee going on the other 2 hogs broke and ran for it and all of the dogs but Tiny
and Orval's Plott that he had on the leash went with them.  During all of this, you could
hear the dogs baying the other hogs and an occasional squeal.

 I ran through, naw that ain't right, I started through what looked like a vine thicket of a
lesser degree of thick only to find my self thrown back.  I tried another spot a little further
to the left and had the same reaction so I gave up and went the way Orval went and the
way that I had sent Floyd.  When I got around the vines and into the slough I could see
Floyd hiding behind a bush and peeping around it.  As I got closer I could see Orval
holding a hind leg of the hog and I yelled at Floyd to stop peeping and go help Mr. Orval.
He looked at me for a moment as if deciding which he would rather tangle with, me or the
hog and took off to help Orval.  When I got there I got the hog by the back leg and Floyd
and Orval turned it loose to get the dogs off so that we could handcuff him.  Orval got his
Plott off and after about a minute Floyd got Tiny off.  Well....... that is when I realized
how much help she had been (Tiny), she was holding the hog by his top lip and when she
let go, it felt like I was trying to hold down a runaway merry-go-round.  This ole hog
wasn't that big probably a little over 200 lbs, but strong.  I started to tell them to turn the
dog loose again, LOL.  But we, not I,  managed to get him on the ground and I plopped
my "more than 200 lbs" on him with my knee in his neck.  I breathed a sigh of relief which
lasted longer than my position, just described.  This bad boy just  humped up, twisted and
came out from under me.  Now, I was in a pickle, the hog was standing up and I was
standing up by his side with nothing to grab a hold to, but he made the mistake of turning
slightly to the right and I got his tail and hung on.  When I got down on the hog, he was
so fat and round that I could not keep my balance and pull a leg to me to keep him from
getting up.  This time when we got him down, Floyd and Orval were able to get a leg and
help hold him until we could get the handcuffs on him.

After we got him cuffed, I stood up and realized that I was blowing leaves off of the trees
out by the 4wheelers (bending over this belly shuts of my breathing, apparently).  As I got
enough oxygen back into my lungs I became aware of the fact that the other dogs were
bayed less than a 100 yards away.  We then walked over to them and found another male
bayed under a pile of drift wood in the middle of the slough.  The driftwood had become
entangled in the maze of cypress knees and this male was the middle size hog of the
original three that we found.  He was right there and very catchable but I was still trying
to get my breath back so I told them to wait and let Orval's young dog bay awhile (I try to
be considerate as often as possible).  I got my breath back at the same time that Orval's
young dog had enough experience with this hog and we turned Tiny loose again.  This
time she had lots of help and the hog stayed exactly where she latched on to it.

Let me explain why I prefer this small catch dog.  First she is small, doesn't take up much
room on the 4wheeler, second she is too small to pull real hard on the leash, going and
coming, and third,  all I want her to do is be the trigger.  When one Catahoula  catches,
they all catch,  the bulldog is predictable, when released it simply catches, no bay no bull,
just catches.  Using a dog this way I can decide if it is a hog that I want to catch or not.  If
not, hopefully I can get my dogs and go on to the next track or sign.

Back to this caught hog.  I was missing a pair of handcuffs so Orval had one of the new
"hobbles" that are being advertised around, so we put the "hobbles" on him.  This took
nearly 2 forevers, they were difficult to tighten up on the hog to the point of being tedious.
Once in place we got up and now I was really "blowing", so I walked out to the 4wheelers
and got a cold can of pop out of the cooler and sat down for a few minutes.  I looked up
and to my surprise saw Billy lnu leading the bulldog out to the bikes.  The reason for my
surprise was the fact that Billy had serious foot and leg problems and here he was leading
the bulldog, but then, how hard can a 25 lb dog pull. Other than the need for a small dozer
to get the 4 wheelers to the big male to load him on the front of Orval's 4wheeler and the
fact that the smaller male had 2 feet loose and out of the "hobbles" when we go back to him,
requiring us to catch him and tie him with string this time, the rest of the hunt was relatively
uneventful.

Of course "the baby" is still taking quite a ribbing for letting Orval catch the hog while he
was "peeping" around the bush at him.

All in all, everyone "passed a good time" and nothing or nobody got hurt.
 
 
 
 

        These pages Copyrighted ©  1999   by Gary S. Tullos, all rights reserved..