Gone to the Dogs Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, Steve talks with five hunters from as many states that came to hunt raccoons with hounds in the White River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas this year.   Hunters from the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee are included in the conversations.

The episode offers more than three hours of content that collectively describe the hunts and the types of hunting the refuge offered this year.  Perhaps more so than any of the previous fourteen years Steve has hunted the White River Refuge, this year presented many challenges which are discussed in length in the episode.

Whether you take in the full volume of content at one time or carve it into bite-sized pieces to enjoy in coming days, you will enjoy meeting Billy Carter, Robert Cromer, Caleb Griffin, John Staib and Brandon Taylor as they tell their stories in our White River Recap 2004.  

We would like to thank those who support this podcast.  Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode.  Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links below

https://www.dusupply.com/alphadog

www.dusupply.com

https://alphadognutrition.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@DoubleUHuntingSupply/podcasts

At the point of the recording, two nights of a four-night hunt have been accomplished.  The account of opening night; a date coon hunters universally look forward to all year long, is the tale of a young dog coming of age and the tale of his journey from pup to coon dog.

Each listener that keeps hounds and loves the outdoors will enjoy this podcast. The conversation will paint the picture of two friends, two hounds, a coon dog and a pup, in an amazing autumn setting that can only be experienced in depth by doing as Steve has done, by getting in the truck and putting nearly 1000 miles on the odometer before the hounds are released into the mountain air on an incredible opening night. 

We would like to thank those who support this podcast.  Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode.  Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links below

https://www.dusupply.com/alphadog

www.dusupply.com

https://alphadognutrition.com/

In this episode we catch up with Casey Maggard of Hyden, Kentucky just three days after the Treeing Walker female owned by his uncle Jack Maggard won the prestigious UKC World Coonhound Championship.   WLD NITE CH GRNITECH (2 Little Lacey won four casts without a loss at the championship finals held in Marshall, Illinois one week before this episode airs.  

We talk to Casey about his origins with Lacey, how she came to live with the Maggards and how she began her climb to greatness and achieved the ultimate by winning the most prestigious coonhound world championship in the competitive coon hunting sport   We talk about her breeding, her hunting style and most importantly, Casey takes us along with his play by play account of her ascent at Marshall from round one all the final important seconds of the World Championship final cast.

If competition is your game, if you like staying on the cutting edge of that game, and if you are possessed of a genuine interest in what it takes to succeed at the game, this one’s for you.

Gone To The Dogs with Shininger and Cable

Monday, September 23, 2024

When the Autumn Oaks interviews suffered a hit by unexpected electronic foes, the onsite conversation with Plott aficionado Bill Shininger and youth handler/hunter Hannah Cable had to be rescheduled after the event.  What would seem to be a disappointment, lacking the on-site flavor of the crowd at Oaks, the interview turned out to be an easy-listening episode that listeners are sure to appreciate.

Shininger is no newcomer to the podcast while Cable is a first-timer. The exchange runs the gamut of all things Plott dogs.  Shininger is a breeder and fancier that has hitched his kennel’s star to a standout stud dog named Lazarus, winner of the trifecta for Plotts with three-in-a-row victories at the prestigious Plott Days event hosted annually by the National Plott Hound Association.

The name Cable is legendary in the coonhound world through the exploits of Hannah’s older brother Kevin, handler and promoter of the famed Big Money-line of Treeing Walker dogs.  Kevin’s seventeen-year-old sister Hannah has also earned considerable acclaim but with her Plott dogs.  Showing and sometimes hunting Gambler, her first Plott and Joe, brother to Shininger’s stud dog Lazarus, Hannah has compiled a long list of wins, largely in Bench Show competition but not all.

Shininger and Cable appear in this episode because of their demonstrated willingness to give back to the sport they love.  Shininger’s efforts in encouraging hunters to preserve their hounds through frozen semen and Cable’s efforts to encourage and help other youth to excel in the hound sport she loves make them both worthy of your time.  The inspiration and encouragement they bring is infectious. 

Steve’s guest is Tennessean T. L. Jones. Many of Jones’ friends know him as Tracey. Tracey is a third-generation houndsman and bear hunter. He is also an ordained Baptist minister and a newly-published author. He appears as our guest in this episode because he is a great speaker and an altogether interesting fellow on many subjects. Tracey has written a unique book titled The Old Men. Born in 1970 in East Tennessee, much of his boyhood was spent in the company of old men, farming, hunting, fishing and as he puts it, “loafering” in the Appalachian Mountains. Jones’ book consists of eighty-four essays representing conversations with the old men of his experience that help boys become men. Steve and Tracey are longtime friends. They share a love for the Plott Hound and much of the conversation in this episode centers upon their experiences with the special old houndsmen in their lives. For Steve, it’s the many years he hunted with his dad. For Jones, the experiences with his dad and his grandfather continue to inspire his pastoral work and his writing. Each attribute their attitudes and accomplishments to the good sense to listen to the old men. Whether you are young or old, you are bound to find something to enjoy in this unique episode. 

In this his final episode, at least for now, Corey joins Steve in recalling their memories of coon hunting in Michigan.  Each served on the staff of Michigan-based United Kennel Club, albeit some ten years distant in times served, and they share, in this episode, many memories of hunting one of the very best states for coon hunting in the nation.

As summer winds down, what better way to usher in fall than stories of hunts under a harvest moon with corn shocks rustling and hound voices echoing across the fields, swamps and woodlots of Pure Michigan?   

Jamie Estep is the busiest man in the coon hunting game.  He's a sharp guy with boundless energy and a winsome personality.    Not only is he a Field Representative for United Kennel Club, he serves as an official interpreter of UKC rules, anchors the annual YouTube broadcast of the UKC Tournament of Champions, is President of the West Virginia State Coon Hunter’s Association, the president of his local coon club, the principal of a Christian school and serves as a full-time pastor of his local church.  Recently Estep was the overseer of a very successful West Virginia Championship which he and Steve discuss at length in this episode.

Being from the State of West Virginia, Jamie and Steve have a lot of common memories of hunts and hunters of the Mountain State.  This one presents Dog Talk At Its Finest, Appalachian style  It's a good one.   

The conversation moves to the topic of the Autumn Oaks shows.  Currens is an octogenarian that was a hard hunter but remains very active by showing his Treeing Walkers in major competition.

We talk about the judges UKC has selected for “The Event Where History Is Made” and talk about Lee’s experiences having judged the event three times.  

The “Dog Talk At Its Finest” mantra is well-supported in this episode as two veterans discuss many facets of the coonhound sport by way of their many years of experience, Steve as the manager and Lee as a major competitor.  This one provides an enjoyable look at one of the nation’s most important coonhound events

The boys engage in the usual “dog talk at its finest” in the opening minutes of the episode before cracking the lid on a can of mayhem and confusion centered on the age old “just who gives you the right” challenge.  Triggered somewhat by comments on recent social media, Corey opens a discussion about who gets to decide what quality is in a given breed of hounds?  And, beyond that, who has the authority to call the shots when it comes to breeding quality dogs?   Does simply owning a great dog make the owner the be-all, end-all authority on the breed?   Opinions in this episode are flying like starlings in the wind, the opinions no more authoritative than the flapping of wings yet no less passionate.   

This is a lively discussion that’s bound to stir a reaction or two within every houndsman, color and conformation preferences aside.  

We’re taking about cheating. When Steve was with the registries he dealt with it on a fairly frequent basis.  Determined to keep coon hunting in a positive light, he rarely wrote publicly about the subject, choosing to let the system deal with perpetrators behind the scenes.  Now, unburdened by what was before, he and Corey spotlight the pencil crooks, the blind voters, the dog pitchers and catchers, and the movers and switchers in a sport that was built, and owes its very survival to the premise that honor belongs to whom honor is due.

You’ll enjoy this eye-opening look at the sport behind the scenes and, believe it or not, may come away feeling better about it in the process.  There’s no substitute, no better remedy, for correcting the ills of dishonesty in competition than a good working knowledge of the rules of the game by all participants. The problems and solutions of keeping a level field are all here in this episode.  We not only see the elephant in this episode, we skin it out and tack its hide to the wall.