Wade came down with Queen tonight. We sent her and Josie west along the far edge of the middle club field. They didn't get too far before striking. The dogs dropped down onto the river bank and trailed back east. It's rough in that direction and I didn't really want them to go that way. When the opportunity arose, we caught the dogs and moved...
We drove to THE big tree and sent the dogs west. Josie struck in the corn and was running a track pretty well. Queen was a little slow to join in and maybe she never really did. Queen was running a track about where Josie struck, while Josie had moved out of the corn and was in the woods by the big bend. Eventually the two dogs ended up together on the river, by then the coon had put too many moves on them. The dogs fumbled around for a while, Josie quit and then a little later so did Queen.
Wade was a little sad that Queen would quit a track and come back. I had to remind him that this is the river and even the best dogs can't finish some of the tracks down here. It doesn't bother me at all anymore when a dog quits a track down here. In the early days, I got rid of some pretty nice dogs because of the poor performances I witnessed on the river. Now I know better.
We went back to the middle club field butr this time let loose from the other end. Josie struck and headed east, Queen checked her and didn't bark. Josie shut up and we kept walking the dogs east. Within 50 yards, both of them began trailing east again. Queen got hung up in the thick brush & we called her to get her past this. This is the same spot where Josie hung up two other nights this wee. The dogs were going pretty good now & I headed back for the truck while Wade continued after them.
As I walked by the spot where Josie first opened, I saw some eyes low to the ground. From the color, didn't seem like a coon, maybe a possum, skunk or even a woodchuck? Maybe this is what she opened on & why Queen didn't bark? Not sure she did anything wrong, but I'm always questioning what those young dogs are up to.
I drove up to meet Wade & he was already to the woods. The dogs were now in the spot I had been trying to avoid on our first drop. Josie got hung up on some fallen trees and I caught her. Queen had already made it past there and was trailing towards the swamp.
Queen was grubbing out a tough track & we just let her continue. I kept Josie in the box, she doesn't have the experience to work something like this out and could only have made it tougher on Queen.
She trailed for about 20 minutes and then sat down and treed. She had a mother & 3 kits up the tree. I told Wade that she had done a really nice job, but I'm not sure he believed me. It's true though, it's incredibly tough trailing down there & she really grubbed this out nicely.
That was about 1:30, enough for tonight.