First Coyote hunt w/ Hounds -- Vargy's Bulletin Board

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Date Posted: 13:17:32 03/01/03 Sat
Author: Shane
Subject: First Coyote hunt w/ Hounds

The following is an excerpt from my "Hunting Journal."

January 26th 2003

I met Vargy (Clint Vargason) on the Internet after signing his guestbook on his site. http://www.rapidcreekridgekennels.20m.com/ He instant messaged me the next night and I asked him questions for almost two hours. We decided I should ride along some time but I should wait for snow so I would see more. I continued to talk to him for about two weeks and one Saturday night we were chatting and it was snowing here in Vinton and in rural Iowa City where he lives, so we planned on a hunt for the following morning.
It was an early rise to make it there by six thirty a.m. and I even went to the wrong house once luckily they were nice and already up for the day. We loaded Seven dogs into his dog box. He has eight but one had to stay behind because she had a litter of pups to tend to. All dogs wear tracking collars that he can track with a tracking box and antenna that he has in his truck a 98 Chevy Z71 that has a dog box that takes up all of the box except enough room for a tool box. The truck also is equipped with a business band radio so him and his hunting buddies can have their own channel and very long range.
We were on the road by seven a.m. and we drove around trying to spot a Coyote or two. Vargy would stop often and glass a field or waterway. That went on for about an hour. Vargy spotted some pretty fresh tracks going up a creek off of a dirt road. One of his hunting buddies (Dave and his boy) showed up in a mid eighties 4x4 Chevy by this time so we got some dogs ready. He uses a normal looking dog lead but it has a snap on the handle end that you hook on to the cable that holds up the tailgate when its down. Then you get the Hounds out one by one the lead will hook up to three at a time. This time I took two and he took two. We walked up the creek aways and unhooked them and they were off. We drove to the side of the mile and sat and Dave was across form us. We sat and watched for movement Vargy looked through the binos often and he had the window down to try and hear them barking you can hear them for a long ways. The hounds never left that square mile and didn't have any luck on a yote either, so we got all the hounds caught and loaded up and were off to check some other spots. Two more pickups showed up to join the hunt Tom in his early nineties Chevy and his boy Andy in a spanking new Dodge. We drove around for about an hour and a half I would guess, pushing weed patches and tree lines with the pickup that's were the Z71 was handy driving through snow covered fields and rough terrain. We pushed one side of this brushy creek and got to the end and crossed it, just started to push the other side we spotted a yote running over the hill up a water way. Vargy says on the radio "We have visual he's headed north we are getting hounds ready." The other trucks try to get into a good position to see and he and I jump out and hook the leads to the truck and I get two and he gets two. We walk up the water way where we last seen the yote and the hounds noses are going nuts you can hear them sniffin. About that time one opens up like a dog got ran over if you can imagine what a hound sounds like that's it. We let all four go and get back to the truck and Vargy tells the others who we let out Ruger, Bear and I don't remember the other two for sure. We drive to the top of the hill and the hounds are on the other side of the mile already. Unbelievable! So we go back to the road and everyone is in pursuit of a better location trying to keep an eye on hounds or better yet a yote. The hounds ran that yote for about five miles but didn't catch him we caught a couple dogs here and there but Bear was out about the whole morning by himself. The hounds had trouble when the yote would come to a gravel road he would run straight down the road one hundred yards before running into the next section. Like he knew the hounds would have trouble in the dry lime dust gravel road. When we finally caught Bear the last one to be caught he had a hole in his ear and was bloody. Vargy thought he might have caught up with that yote but needed the others to take him. It was afternoon by this time Tom and Andy were done for the day. So we were off to find a weed patch. Vargy had one in mind and we were there in minutes. This time we each took three and walked into the weed patch aways and let them go. We got in the truck and Vargy told Dave who was out, two young ones and four others. We sat and watched a load of pheasants flush from the weeds. Wow there was a lot. We drove around to the side of the mile and we could see a group of deer standing on top of a hill. About that time they were off. We hauled ass around the mile and I grabbed my video camera. The deer crossed the highway in front of us Two nice bucks and a few small bucks and a couple does. That was cool. Then sure enough here came the two young hounds. We got them caught and did they ever get a spanking. See a coyote hunter wants his hounds deer proof these two weren't. It took awhile to find the rest of the hounds but we did and that was it for the day it was about three p.m. we got back to Vargy's and penned up the hounds fed and watered each and we looked at the pups for a while. Vargy made me a disk with pictures of previous hunts and a kill video to watch it was awesome. He fed me a ham sandwich and told me to come back again. "I would love too!" I said...

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