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-- Hunts of the past (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?threadid=928306497)

Hunts of the past

Do any of you remember the days when a registered dog was something special? At UKC hunts they would have a registered dog hunt and also a Nonregistered dog hunt. The Nonregistered would greatly outnumber the regs. Do you remember how some of those dogs looked? Most were of hound decent or at least you could see hound in it. Others, you wondered what on earth kinda dog it was! Long haired and wire haired ones too! In those days they had 3 hour hunts and I remember the unreg dogs would come in with all kinds of plus points. The reg dogs might not even see a coon. That was back when they had the old coon in a log...kind of a tough dog event. If the dog could get the coon out under time faster than the other dog it won. I never saw a hound win it...usually an old bull dogcross took honors. Long time ago now! I actually hunted with a flashlight. Others had lanterns. We led our dogs with rope and some just had old wire for a lead.

no trackers no fancy boots or fancy lights my grandad took me and blue boy in his 1968 ford custom 500 blue rode in the trunk in the early 70s my first hunt was in the grade hunt in connecticut al german who gave me blue boy as a cull gave me his papers that night after i won first place and said good job ! blue boy had to cold of a nose to win big but did win 9th in pa championship with a 150 dogs there back when they placed 10 dogs he did not win his cast that night but he had a better score then 141 dogs and i was 14 and proud as hell ! and that dog put 600 bucks in my pocket every hide season like clock work ! man i miss those days

I remember my Grandpa talking about all those old grade dogs he had. He only had one or two that were registered but he quit hunting in about '65.

Clubs can still have a grade hunt in conjunction with their licensed event. There is nothing that prevents it. I can't tell you the last time I heard of a grade hunt going on (with or without a UKC hunt). Back in the day the grade dog was the norm and the registered dog was the odd one out. Nowadays it's just the opposite.

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Paul Frederick
319-371-6362

And those grade dogs were just as famous back then as some of the reg. dogs today. My grandpa had several old hounds that were pretty famous. He liked a hound but hunted a catahoula/cross or airedale cross too.

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Half the lies they tell about me aint
true

A lot of those grade dogs that were hunted back then are the true descendants of many of the registered dogs today.

It was pretty common practice by some to buy or trade papers from registered dogs and attach them to a good houndy looking grade dog and then hunt the registered hunts with it.

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Golden Woods Bo
Golden Woods Fancy B

Here in Texas thee was a foxhound that was reg named Buzzard Wing. Apparently he was a good foxhound cause many of the fox hunters wanted his blood. As those dogs got older and couldn't keep up as well they started falling off by themselves Treeing coon. Many dogs in the 60's around here could trace their coon dog line to old Buzzard Wing. He was a good looking walker too, kinda tall and leggy but tri colored. I was just a kid then but I remembr those foxhounds could fly through the country. I hadn't seen too many coondogs run like that...unless they are chasing deer.

My father in law won alot of grade hunts way back when, with a hound directly out of FR Chief. He had his papers but didn't think it was important enough to send them in, said papers don't tree coons. That was when hounds hunted together and raced each other to the tree. They didn't go four different directions. No tracking collars so you had to be pretty quick and follow the hounds, and if one dog split off to do his own thing everyone else wandered what was wrong with that fool.

Makes me wonder how many of these great grade dogs ended up in the hands of a thief, and then sold out of state to a honest guy just looking for a nice dog. Early 80's seemed to be too many dog hunters lurking about trying to take that nice registered dog off a tree, and make a few bucks off of him as a grade dog. It wasn't uncommon to have 10 or 15 casts at a night hunt.

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From the great philosipher, Ron White...."You can`t fix stupid"
The 9 most terrifying words " I`m from the government, and I`m here to help".....Ronald Reagan
"If the government was in charge of the Sahara Desert, it would be out of sand in 5 years"......Thomas Friedman

how the times have changed....