Canines are our passion.
They are our addiction.
They are our way of life right down to the very core and without them we would be lost.
The canines of this world really are something to behold.
They assist us at work, they accompany us at home, and they perform for us in the field.
No matter where we go, they are by our side.
Canines really are a ride or die and for that we are grateful.
This podcast will showcase working canines of various breeds and disciplines as we search
for those canines and their handlers who are always striving to be the best at what they
do.
Those who are always grinding.
Those who are always pushing the limits.
Those who are always dogging.
Join us on our adventures as it is sure to be a wild ride.
I'm your host, Bryce Matthews.
And I'm your cohost, Stephen Basham.
And this, this is Simper Doggin.
Welcome welcome welcome to another episode of the Simper Doggin podcast guys.
I am your host, Bryce Matthews, and tonight I am joined by Mr. Stephen Basham.
How are you today, brother?
Man, trying to stay warm.
Man, I'm, you already know I don't like the cold weather and this has been like the worst.
I moved back to Indiana in 2012 and this has been the worst winter that I can remember
in southern Indiana.
I mean it's just, it's ridiculous.
I think we got like six inches of snow and I just can't get past it.
Yeah, it's been brutal up here too, man.
Like I just was leaving Indy.
I was working down there in Indy today and on the way home it was snow flurrying and
God bless the roads got slick quick.
Like it's cold and slick and it just ain't worth the dawn for much right now.
No, I mean I already don't care too much for hunting in the winter time, but with all the
rain that we got and because you know at the beginning of January we had all the ice and
the snow and then it melted and then we got like I think over like a week time frame we
got like eight or nine inches of rain and then turn around and now we've got freaking
snow and it's everything is completely flooded.
Now everything is freezing and it's just it's ridiculous.
Yeah, brother.
All right, buddy.
Well, hey, why don't you introduce our guest here tonight?
You were the one who scheduled this and got us all lined up.
So let's give him a warm welcome here to the Semper Dogg podcast.
Yeah, guys, today we're going to go a little off topic, but with a familiar face.
Mr Ashton Hall has agreed to sit down and talk to us today and we're going to Ashton's
kind of a interesting individual in that he's one of the guys there ain't I ain't going
to say there's a there ain't any but there's not a whole lot of guys that kind of do the
competitive squirrel hunting, you know, I can name, you know, a few but there's not
a whole lot of guys that do the competitive squirrel hunting and hunting and Ashton happens
to be that one of those.
So thanks for joining us on Semper Dogg and podcast, Ashton.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So I've known Ashton, you know, for quite a while just through the coon hunting world.
And for those individuals that don't know who Ashton Hall is, won't you introduce yourself
where you're from and kind of what you do?
Well, I live in a little town in the southern part of Ohio out way.
I've been around dogs for my entire life.
My grandpa and a bunch of my uncles all had Foxhounds and still do had them my whole life.
So I kind of started around Foxhounds, but my stepdad and my uncle's were all coon hunters.
So they really got me into the tree dogs when I was seven or eight years old, I really started
coon hunting.
But other than that, I've been all about dogs pretty much my whole life.
And it's got me to where I'm at now, I guess.
So who took you on your first coon hunter?
My stepdad would have been the first person I went coon hunting with.
Okay.
Now, let me guess.
No, no, actually, that's funny because where I'm from, a lot of blue ticks where I'm from,
like used to be, you know, years ago, a lot of guys have blue ticks, but they were all
totally against blue dogs.
That's kind of why I said that.
Yeah.
Now, I want to know more about this, this Fox dog thing.
Let's just go off you guys.
We're going to talk coon hunting, squirrel hunting, and I'm just going to jump right
down the rabbit hole into the Fox dogs.
Like, okay.
So are we talking like old school Fox dog in where you just turn the dogs loose, you
build the fire, you listen to them run circles for hours, or are we talking like the fancy
Fox dog and where you're riding around on horseback and keeping up with the dogs?
Like what, what kind of Fox dog?
No, no, no horseback and what?
None of that.
Just cut them loose, sit around, let them run for till they get tired pretty much and
round them all up.
We went to a lot of the field, they call them field pros, which are their competition hunts.
And a lot of those are three days long.
You stay out, you know, for a stay somewhere for three days and it's a good time.
It's really kind of more, I would say like an older man's kind of game.
Like I know a lot of guys that used to coon hunt, they kind of get where they can't follow
the dog around no more and they'll get some Fox hounds and stuff.
Okay.
So like, are you, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Are you actually like, from what I've been told about Fox, Fox dog and like, you're not
at, you don't ever hardly ever catch the Fox.
You're just listening to the dogs run.
Well, your goal is not to catch the Fox.
You never try to kill it.
Okay, there we go.
That's what I needed to know.
Hmm.
Yeah.
That's not the goal.
It's, it's just like to comp like any other competition hunt.
They got a rule book that thick, just like everybody else does for their field trials
and stuff.
And there's a bunch of judges and they're out there scoring dogs all the time.
They run for five hours at a time and you catch them and run them five hours the next
day.
And basically whoever's got the highest accumulated score for those three days is your winner.
Yeah.
It sounds a lot like the coyote dogs running in the coyote dogs in the pins.
Same thing.
Exact same thing.
They'll run, you'll go to a Fox and you may, they'll call it a Fox hunt field trial, but
you may be in a coyote.
Okay.
You are.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Or it's, it's a lot like your Beagle trials too, right?
Yeah.
I've never been to a Beagle trial, honestly, so I don't really know.
Yeah.
All right.
Sorry.
Had to go down that rabbit hole.
I apologize.
I knew that was coming.
I knew it was coming.
Yeah.
So, so the coon hounds, man, like let's dive into the coon hounds a little bit.
Let's get on there first.
Like seven or eight years old, your stepdad took you out there.
Like where, where has this developed now?
Like what all are you doing?
What dogs do you prefer to hunt?
Like what, what's a weekend or a month look like for you in the coon hound world?
Well, I kind of go through spurts where I'll be hunting the dog for somebody.
I'm going to a bunch of hunts and then I may go a month where I don't go to no hunts, you
know, and I got a dog now.
I'm hunting the dog for a Kevin rash guy from Texas.
I'm hunting the blue tick actually, but we got some entries and stuff.
Yeah.
I got a blue tick right now, but we got some entries that we're going to go to Oklahoma
for the truck hunt and Claire more.
And I was going to hunt Monticello this weekend at the world qualifiers.
But obviously they've got canceled, so we're not doing that.
So yeah, I mean about the same as everybody else.
I go when I can and try to do the best I can when I go.
So I mean, do you have a, he's got one for Kevin rash.
Is it airplane three?
No, it is not a complaint.
No.
Oh boy.
You just had to go there.
Didn't you bash them?
No, it's no airplane.
You just had to go there, man.
I hate that about the Monticello and all those other qualifiers.
Like man, I 110% understand.
Like we need to keep the dogs and the handlers safe.
Like I'm all for that.
So I get it.
The places that are flooded, but canceling Monticello, I'm having a hard time wrapping
my head around that.
I live 40 minutes from there.
Like that's a club that I frequent a lot.
And I know that the weather is not, it's not cancel bull.
It's not where you shouldn't be canceled up here.
I guess right now, you know, it's cold.
Don't get me wrong.
It's cold.
But it didn't make it.
Don't make it.
It's kind of like, I'm with you.
I don't understand.
Like has anybody given you an actual reason, man?
So I've, I mean, I even talked to Shane Patton about this because whenever I called PKC to
get my entries refunded, I talked to him and I was like, dude, what's the, what's the reasoning
behind this?
He said, well, people were just calling and complaining and saying that it was too cold
and Coons weren't going to be moving and dog was going to be traveling too far.
And there was a risk of getting dogs in trouble and on places and property that they shouldn't
be on because of how far they're traveling due to the cold weather.
So that's the explanation I got straight from director PKC.
I don't know.
I mean, I mean, if that's the case, if that's the case, why did we move the world hunt to
March?
I would love to answer that.
Like I mean, I'm stuck here.
Like I mean, how many times have you seen the cold weather in the middle of March?
Yeah.
And we're going down to work.
We're going down a rabbit hole here guys.
And I'm sorry, but I mean, it's just part of what's going on in the dog world right now.
But it's like, this sucks for a lot of the working guys who rely on these qualifiers
to have a chance to get a dog in.
Now I will say Angie cable made a post on Facebook the other day that I was on board
with.
And she said she'd like to see it go back to a hundred percent week long event where
dogs have to win six hunts in a row, like six rounds in a row in order to crown a true
world champion.
I agree with that statement.
I'm not mad about it, but I also fall into the category of the guy who can't take off
work and go down there and hunt five nights in a row if I need to, you know, everybody
would love to double up Monday night and be done with it and go back Friday.
Everybody loved that, but that's not reality for a lot of people.
So these zones are a critical and crucial way for guys who can't make it to Salem for
a week to have a viable shot at a world hunt.
You know, I, I was one of the ones that before that ever came into effect, you know, I talked
to Shane quite a bit and I'm not going to lie.
I pushed for the store, the qualifying rounds just like UKC does because of the fact of
how many more entries do you think they get in all these qualifiers?
Because you know, you get Joe Smo from freaking Texas.
He's never been to a world hunt, but yet he may go to a qualifier and if he doubles up,
okay, now I will go to the world hunt, but he's not going to take a week off and drive
to Salem to go to a hunt a normal, a normal year.
So I felt like it gives the qualifying events give the normal guy, the working man that
isn't going to take off during the week and travel, you know, from Florida or from New
York or from Texas all the way to Illinois.
It gives them, because it's not like the UKC, UKC moves there and I'm not giving props.
Everybody knows my history with UKC, but I'm not giving props to UKC.
I'm just saying the facts and that is UKC moves their world hunt around.
So if I'm hunting and the world hunts in New York, but I know next year it's going to be
in Texas.
Well, I may not even try this year in UKC because I know next year it's going to be
around my hometown and then I'll try, but with PKC it's always in Illinois.
So there's a lot of guys that don't get the opportunity to go up and hunt the world hunt
because they don't have a job that they can take off.
So I really pushed for the world qualifying and kind of bringing you into this Ashton,
you know, what's your thoughts on the world qualifying versus kind of what the speculation
is that a dog needs to win those six.
Well I think like, I mean, I get what they're saying about, you know, they win six cats
that week.
But if you win, let's say you double up on at a qualifier, then you go out there and
you win four more rounds starting on Friday early, you still won six cats.
I feel like that doesn't take away from your world champion in my opinion.
And I think you almost, if you want to have a big world hunt, you probably need to have
these qualifiers because like you said, how many more entries can we get if we have these
qualifiers from guys who ain't going to go out there and take a week off work to go hunt
and try to get doubled up and hunt them.
That's kind of where I'm at with it.
I agree 100%.
You know, like, like you said, I do think I like the idea of going out there for a week
long event, a dog has to hold it together and make it happen Monday to Saturday.
Like I'm all for it, but I see the other side of the coin as well because I'm on the other
side of the coin.
Like I cannot get off work and go to Salem.
It's just not going to happen.
It's not feasible.
So, um, you know, I have to rely on these qualifiers and, and to see them get canceled
always sucks, but I accept, I'm going to repeat it.
I am a hundred percent for safety where it's flooded and everything that needed to happen.
Monticello.
I don't understand.
And then I'm just going to leave it at that, but yeah, it kind of sucks because I, you
know, as I write this moment, like, you know, I'm out before it even starts.
So is what it is.
There's not much you can change, but it's just interesting to get other people's perspectives
on it.
Right.
So you got anything qualified Ashton?
Do I have anything qualified for the world?
Take out there.
Yeah.
PKC world.
Yeah.
I'm well, like I said, I had those entries.
I was going to hunt the blue tick that I'm hunting for Kevin.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we're going to take those two reservations and move them out there to Salem.
And then my mom will go out there.
That's a good King George is the name of the dog.
I'm hunting for Kevin Rock and R King George.
Gotcha.
Oh, dude.
What like guys to give us a little bit of background on that dog.
Like when did you get him?
Like what, what all has he done?
Where are we at?
Is this dog you're hunting for him or is this something you sought out trying to get?
I'm hunting the dog for Kevin.
So I kind of got, I got hooked up with Kevin through Dustin Womack.
Okay.
I don't know who I don't know if you guys know he's Coon Hunter and a squirrel hunter
from Georgia.
Doesn't build boats as well.
Yeah.
Well, I think he does all kinds of stuff.
Yeah.
I think pretty sure he builds like some really cool wooden boats.
I see on Facebook.
Yeah, he does.
Yeah.
But I got hooked up with Kevin through Dustin.
I met Dustin through some squirrel hunts and stuff.
And I haven't had him maybe a month and a half.
I haven't had him very long.
I haven't took him nowhere yet or nothing.
But like I said, we got some entries and I did take him to an open event a couple weeks
ago and got in the late round up there.
But other than that, I haven't really took him nowhere.
Awesome.
So going to Salem, do you think that that is going to help your chances?
Like do you think that he's a dog coming from Ohio over to Salem?
Like would you rather see a regional event over where he's at or where he's been hunting
the last month?
Or you think he's going to do okay in Salem?
I think really just the kind of dog he is and he's been hunted.
You know, he's been hunted for a long time in Georgia.
He got hunted for a long time in Texas.
He's been hunted for a long time in Michigan.
I mean, a dog's been hunted about I'd say about any kind of terrain you'd really want
a honey man.
So I'd say I feel like he's probably going to operate about the same just about anywhere
you take him really.
So I don't think that's going to play much into our chances, you know.
That's awesome.
Sounds like you got a pretty good thing.
You know, it's always it's always a little different feeling whenever you're running
the roads for somebody else.
I mean, it's just it's almost it's almost like a little bit of a security blanket, you
know, because you don't have all that, you know, it's your dog weighing on you, shall
you say.
Right.
But it is a catch 22 because then you do if you have any, you know, morals or values,
you do feel bad for them whenever you're not able to produce.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I totally agree with that.
Do you have any do you have any dogs of your own right now?
Are you just strictly hunting for people?
I'm strictly just hunting for that's the only dog I got right now.
Gotcha.
Just in general.
Yeah, man, I very rarely do I ever have my own dog.
OK, so let's let's dive into that.
Like that's a good topic.
Why?
What are the cons of hunting for people and why don't you want to keep one of your own?
Well, I'll just be honest, I'm not what I would consider to be a trainer.
I can take a dog and get it ready to go to a hunt and feel pretty confident about that.
But as far as training a pup or, you know, like a lot of guys would do, I wish I could
do it, you know, buy a young dog, get him going, get his money on all that and selling
to make a bunch of money.
I've tried to do that a couple of times and that just ain't really my game.
So I kind of realized that that's not my game and I just kind of try to stay away from it.
I usually lose money, honestly, if I buy a dog.
Man, I mean, but it's all it's good to like know where you're at on that kind of stuff,
because I mean, I would say that I fall in the same category, like because I don't number
one, I don't enjoy pups that much.
Number two, I don't have the time to dedicate to them, to take them from the zero knowledge
level to the next level.
You get a dog like what I've got right now with wheels.
Like when I bought him, that dog was rocking and rolling.
Like he just needed put in the woods and hunt it.
I can do that.
Like, but I'm not going to ground pound him for six hours a night either.
You know, that's just not my style for the life that I live.
So I think it is very important to know where you fall on that spectrum and, and know, I
guess where you thrive, because if you're, if you're a jack of all trades, you're usually
a master of none.
But if you can focus in on one little thing, man, you can really thrive in that.
And as a handler, like if you know that your game, like guys are going to trust you, they're
going to respect you, they're going to send you their dogs and they're going to send you
to some hunts where you can do some winning.
Right.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
I don't try to pretend to be something that I'm not, you know what I mean?
I just, I do what I feel like I'm pretty good at and I'm fine with that.
Where do you fall bashing?
It depends on what day you're asking.
Some days, I mean, depends on who's sending the money at the time.
It all depends.
I mean, I think it's well known that, I mean, some of the young dogs that I've trained and
sold and, and, you know, throughout the years.
So I mean, you know, with my background, I mean, yeah, I'm, I guess I'm more of, you
know, kind of the trainer, you know, I can, I guess I'm kind of the jack of all trades
in that I can take one from nothing and turn it into something, or I can take one that's
something and add a few tweaks, you know, and get him ready for the hunts.
I think in knowing how to do it all, I think that puts another level of pressure on you
because when you are hunting for somebody, I tend to think that they send you a dog and
they're like, Oh, well, this guy can take it and turn it into something nice.
You know what I mean?
Me, actually, it's funny that you asked because me and me and dodgery were actually talking
today and just talking in general and, you know, he straight up told me, he said, you
know, it's kind of like with Jed, you know, the Jed dog and Ashton's hunted with Jed a
lot, you know, when Maynard had him and he's, he is the exact example of me and you have
talked about it.
When is a dog ready to go to a big hunt?
Never.
You don't for me, for me, it's hard because I've never had a guy behind me to just push
me and say, here's, here's an open checkbook, go to whatever hunt you want to go to.
So because of that, I don't, for me, I feel like the dog has to be almost perfect for
like two weeks before I think he even has a chance.
And even then if he goes the wrong way and gets outstruck, I just cost that guy $5,000
on an entry.
And Jason said it perfect.
He said, you know, with Jed, you literally don't know what dog you're turning loose until
10 minutes after the hunt starts.
He's just different.
And so he said, you can't win if you can't go.
And that's something that Jed taught him was, you know, nine times out of 10, the dog that
wins that dog wasn't looking good on Tuesday and Wednesday either.
You know, it's just, you just go and as long as your dog is, is mostly consistent.
And what I mean by that is, is it's a dog that gets out there, moves around, gets treated,
has cones, you know, you stand a chance to win.
And as long as you, you know, you take a dog like that, a consistent winner, you just got
to go and show up.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And so the training side of it is just, you know, it's kind of like I've told you before,
all the homework's done from Monday to Thursday or Monday to Wednesday on some hunts, you
know.
And then a lot of it's just luck.
I mean, it's been a running joke on my failures in the late rounds of super stakes, you know,
and I've had everything happen to me.
And I mean, we can sit here and talk about why, but I mean, we don't do that.
No, thank you.
No, you don't need to beat me down today.
All right.
Hey, let's, let's swap gears here, man.
That's a lot of Coon hunting.
We've done a lot of that.
Let's get into the squirrel hunting because that's why we really brought Ashton on here.
Man.
All right.
Teach me.
I'm a dummy.
Like let's go square one, the competition side of squirrel hunting.
Like what do we need to know?
Hold on.
Bastions got something.
Hold on.
Go ahead.
Hold up.
Let's start.
Let's, let's start from, even though he's not a trainer and just so we can build up
to the competition side of it, let's start with you've got a puppy.
Yeah.
You've got, you've got a puppy and you want to start, you know, you're, you're, you've
got your head set on competition hunting this squirrel dog.
Right.
Talk to us about the difference between, and even though you say you're not a trainer of
Coon dogs in your head, you, you know what it needs to do in order to win.
So tell me what, what you're doing to this puppy and let's build it all the way up to
actually taking it to the hunts and compete.
So I think it's a, there's a lot of similarities between the type of, like a winning type Coon
hound that you would want and a winning type squirrel dog.
You want them to have squirrels, you know, when the, I'm a little bit different than
some people, cause some of these guys, they want nothing, but they don't want them to,
you know, they want to be like Coon dog.
They want them to be super, super accurate all the time.
I want one treat every five minutes right or wrong in a squirrel hunt.
Ooh.
Cause those extra trees will keep you in the game a lot.
I've won almost as much money, never treating a squirrel as I have treating squirrels in
competition squirrel hunts.
That's not a lie, but that ain't always going to work, but sometimes it does work.
And if you got one, that'll make a few extra trees, not a wood monster, but we'll make
some trees.
He'll keep you in the game in 90% of your cast.
If that makes sense.
But you want one that moves around good.
You want one that absolutely is going to stay tree no matter what.
I mean, like I said the same, you want to be by themselves, you know, but as far as
training a pup to tree squirrels, I've never done it.
I've never attempted really to train a pup to tree squirrels.
I've hunted some young dogs that were a year old that people paid me to hunt and kind of
try to get them from a started pup to where they could go to some hunts and stuff like
that.
I've done that, but yeah.
And it's basically about the same for me.
It's kind of the same, you know, okay.
So go ahead, stupid internet.
It's like we're getting a little bit of lag.
Okay.
Bear with this.
All right.
So, so you've got a dog that you're going to hunt.
Like let's start out.
What's your favorite breed of dog to hunt in the squirrel dog?
Like are you a cur dog guy?
If I sky, what are we hunting?
I, if I could build a perfect squirrel dog for competition hunts, it would be a 100%
Walker.
I mean, it would be a hound.
Okay.
A hundred percent that that tree squirrels.
It wasn't just a wood monster that treats squirrels.
That's what I, if I could build one like that, that's what I get.
There's not very many of them out there.
There is some, but not very many.
I like a lot of the tree and curse, uh, which are, you know, like half pound and half mountain
curve.
That's kind of what I like.
Okay.
Now I think Logan Rose is doing some stuff with that.
Like out of that wild dreaming echo dog, he was breeding to a couple of curve bitches trying
to get some of those tree and curves.
Yeah.
So the, uh, if you can get it right, you know, if there's a science to it and you could have
it all perfect, you'd get the accuracy of the curr dog and stuff like that.
And then you'd get the tree power in the mouth and stuff and the ability to move around,
you know, from the, from the hound, it doesn't always work out like that, obviously, but
I think that's kind of the idea.
So you mentioned if you could build a perfect hound, we talk about the Walker dog in the
squirrel community.
What exactly is it lacking that doesn't make it already the perfect dogs?
Enough squirrels.
They don't have it.
Usually a lot of times they won't have enough squirrels or too much tree and it's not enough
accuracy on squirrels.
Okay.
So I've seen this too.
Now the, the, even the tree incurs and the hounds that are squirrel dogs, everyone that
I've ever seen has been a Walker dog.
Like I have not seen a plot or a red bone or an English dog that is a squirrel dog.
Is there a reason behind that?
Do you know?
Like have you seen any of them?
Yeah.
There's a guy, he don't hunt much USDC, but they have some, she's actually gotten the
finals of the USDC world two years ago.
She's an English dog and she's a bad cat and she's full hound English dog and she's a squirrel
tree or, you know, bar none.
Tom Smith, Tom Smith owns her name's a foreign junk Cleo, but she's, she's nice.
And she's an English dog.
Okay.
That's interesting.
Cause like I said, I've just never seen it, but I was like, man, there, there can't be
just walkers out there.
Like there's gotta be somebody doing something with something else.
Yeah.
So, okay.
So you've, you've got a dog, you're going to the hunts.
Like, all right.
And in the coon hound world, we've got PKC and UKC pro sports are your main ones.
That's our main three.
What are the top three registries in the squirrel dog world that you're going to go compete
at?
I would say USDC.
That's kind of like your PKC or pro sport where you go hunt for big, big money.
And then, uh, NSB, which is, uh, it's kind of like your UKC, but they have some big money
hunts and stuff too.
Like they got a side by side they're hunting for, uh, in the next month or so maybe.
So they're kind of getting to where they're having some bigger hunts and they've had some
bigger hunts in the past.
And then I guess OMCBA would be the third one.
I've never hunted an OMCBA hunt before, but I see a lot of guys that do and I know a lot
of guys that do.
So I'd say that probably the third one.
Gotcha.
So all right.
Out of those three and you say you haven't hunted the OMCBA, what's your, what's your
favorite, the NSD or the USDC?
I like, uh, USDC now I've hunted way more of that than I ever have in SD.
Okay.
So and Bastian interject me if I'm getting ahead of the head of myself here, putting
the cart in front of the horse, but let's, let's, let's just roll with it with the, uh,
USDC.
What are the rules of the squirrel dog event?
Like we know that with a coon hound, we've got to strike the dog.
We've got to treat the dog.
We're going in for a hunter and strike, like break it down for the squirrel dog.
And like we know that a coon hunt, you've got to see a coon to be plus you can be circled.
You can be minused.
What is the rules for the squirrel dogs?
Like let's break it down for the beginners.
So first thing would be in a squirrel hunt, there's no strike.
Interesting.
It's strictly tree points in a squirrel hunt.
First tree is 125 seconds, 50 and third is 25.
So there's no 75.
And it's kind of the same after 30 seconds, all you can get is 50 after, uh, you know,
up to a minute.
All you can get is a quarter after a minute.
You can't get nothing.
Okay.
Are you, are you only hunting three dogs then in the cast?
Yep.
Okay.
That's interesting.
That's different from coon hounds for dog cast.
Three dog cast instead of four dog cast.
Then, uh, two minute trees, like hold your tree for two minutes before you advance and
score the dog and stuff like that.
It's actually packed.
Oh, if you've never been to a USDC squirrel hunt, you haven't seen action.
It's a lot more action than a coon hunt could ever be for sure.
We might have to try this out.
It's a good time.
I mean, uh, and there's a lot of similarities and a lot of differences as far as rules,
but when you get to a tree that you're scoring, so well, here's something else that's different.
You know, coon hunting, you've got a tree dog, he shuts up, you run to two.
He don't bark for two minutes.
He's minus.
In squirrel hunting, you run 90 seconds in USDC instead of two minutes.
Yeah.
They got to bark every 90 seconds to be considered tree.
But then, uh, you get into a tree, you know, and before you could ever score the dog, let's
say he's on the ground milling around.
Uh, you started fifth, you start your stopwatch again.
He's got 15 seconds to get back on his tree or 30 feet from where you first saw him.
If he's not treated within 15 seconds or he goes over 30 feet, you're minus whatever you're
treated.
Now, do you have a tape measure?
Absolutely.
If you're a serious squirrel hunter, you got a hundred foot tape with you all the time.
I've heard about this, but I've heard about this, but like, let's, that's going to come
into play here in a minute, right?
Yeah.
The real reason you want that tape.
So you get to your tree, you hound your dog on your tree.
You got 60 feet, a 60 foot circle from the tree you're treed on to find a squirrel.
If it's, if you got a squirrel within 60 feet of your tree, you're plused up and getting
re-cut.
Now, now question is that, is that, um, treat a tree 60 feet because say you're in two big
oaks, but he's on the limb on the opposite side of that tree.
You're supposed to go two foot up at the base of the tree that you're treed on and pull
directly across to two foot up on the base of the tree that you're squirrels with.
And so any tree within 60 feet, you get that whole tree.
Yes.
Okay.
So that, okay, that makes sense.
A squirrel will timber.
You know what I mean?
Oh yeah.
So I understand the 60 foot rule.
You know, you give a dog, I'm like a firm disbeliever in benefit of the doubt, but in
squirrel hunting, you kind of got to do it a little bit.
Yeah.
That makes sense because you know, I've been squirrel hunting with a guy up here up North,
um, Jayden Lovens.
He's got a little cur dog named Nitro dude.
Sucker is nice.
And he will follow those squirrels as they timber out, you know, like it's, it's interesting
when that squirrel starts running at that dog's following.
Now what are the rules on that?
So if we're walking in to score a dog and we visibly see him timber in the squirrel
and see the squirrel, we plus it.
If we see the squirrel, no matter what, no matter what, if you see the squirrel and see
him timber in the squirrel, you plus it.
Yeah.
I'm just, I'm just throwing devil's advocate because I don't understand it.
You're a hundred yards from this squirrel.
He trees, you train.
And then all of a sudden, just like Coon hunting, man, he moves to the right 30, 40 yards.
Yep.
Is he minused?
Yeah.
If you, if you can tell he moved, you're going to minus him.
Yeah.
Okay.
Even if you hear him, even if he's like you said, a hundred, 200, 300 yards and you hear
him, you know, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo.
And you can tell he's timber in this squirrel, you're still going to minus him because you
didn't, we didn't see this squirrel.
We don't know for sure.
He's got you.
Gotcha.
That can be a rough break.
It's happened to me several times, several times, but you just reach for him and go over
there and score it when you can, you know?
Right.
Okay.
So, um, typical hunt times, what are we looking at?
60 minutes, 90, 120, 90 minutes.
They're all 90 minutes.
90 minute hunt times.
Okay.
So, only weekend hunts?
Yeah.
Well, the JPI will start on a Thursday.
That's the biggest one they have every year in USDC.
It'll start on Thursday, but other than that, that's, and the, uh, the junior world hunt
for USDC starts on Thursday too, which is kind of like their super stakes, but they
call it a junior world.
Okay.
So what about, uh, you get to a tree and I'm assuming I know the answer, but you get to
a tree, big hole, we're circling it up, right?
Yeah.
You're going to, if there's anything that a squirrel could be in within 60 feet, which
there always is, you're going to circle it.
You ain't going to take, I've never seen a dog get minus for treeing a slick tree and
a squirrel hunt.
That is so wild to me.
That's where that dog that makes a few extra trees can help you and not hurt you.
Okay.
I understand it now.
Like I get it.
I get it.
Yeah.
So you don't see a squirrel.
So the most circle wins.
If you don't tree a squirrel.
Yeah.
It's and the tiebreaker is the same as in Kuhn hunt.
The most plus tree points is your first tiebreaker.
So you're still aiming to tree squirrels, but I'll tell you, I went to a nine dog pro
hunt in a date in Tennessee a couple of years ago, hunting a Walker female named, uh, shines
and never treat a squirrel and won 16 or $1,700 that day.
They were treating squirrels.
So it, you know, it's happened.
I won, uh, I won with her like that twice, got the money at two pro hunts without treating
a squirrel.
Damn.
I need to start squirrel hunting.
It ain't always going to be like that, but on the right day you can win like that.
So, okay.
So is it like Kuhn hunting where they're leaving or excuse me, they're having a hunt year round
like, or is there a time where the hunts are going on or how does this work?
So USDC will start having hunts about the 1st of November and have them pretty well
every weekend until the 1st weekend of April is when they have their world hunt and then
they don't have any more hunts the rest of the year.
So they're hunting when the leaves are off because it's too hard to find a squirrel and
the leaves are on.
Correct.
Gotcha.
Okay.
That's, that's kind of, I was thinking, I was just sitting here, I was like, man, like
Kuhn hunters, like we hunt year round, but the squirrel dog guys, like, it's kind of
hard to see a squirrel and there's all them leaves in the tree.
Yeah.
They'll ask him, NSD hunts and stuff after like in April and maybe May, I'm not sure
about that and then NSD will start having a few hunts in September and October, but
not, you know, not nothing real big or nothing, just some small hunts.
Yeah.
So, so you're, if you need to get a dog ready for these hunts, like we know we couldn't
hunt year round.
Are you squirrel hunting these dogs?
How are you keeping them in shape?
I think there's some people who swear by hunting them in the summertime.
I never, I wouldn't start hunting in September when I was squirrel hunting hard.
I would start getting my dog ready in September and I never really cared much for hunting
even in September, but I just did it because I wanted my dog to be ready when we come to
New York.
But a lot of guys will lay them up until September, October, start getting them ready and some
will treadmill them over the summer and everybody's kind of got their own idea and their own opinion
on hunting in the summertime.
I kind of like this style bash.
I'm not going to lie.
Like you can.
This is a, I don't know.
Like I don't really squirrel hunt anymore.
I'm pretty much just coon hunting now because I took a different job and I really can't
keep a dog ready through the week and I'm not going to go waste somebody's money at
squirrel hunts when my dog ain't ready.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely.
I had this conversation with the guy the other day.
He messaged me and he's like, Hey, in your opinion, if I could only keep one dog, should
I keep a squirrel dog or a coon dog?
He said, I've got both and I can only do one of them justice.
And my humble opinion, I told him, I said, I would keep the coon dog because the squirrel
dog, you have to keep them ready.
Like in daylight hours, which is hard to do if you've got a job, an actual job, you know,
the coon hound, you can go to work, do your nine to five.
You can come home, take care of what needs to be done at home, put the kids to bed.
And if you're dedicated and you want to hunt, you can go hunt when everybody else is sleeping.
Like you can do that.
The squirrel dog is much harder to do that because you are trying to keep that dog active
and you're trying to keep them hunted up while you should be at your nine to five or whatever
your daily duties are.
Right.
So that I thought that was, I thought that was very interesting.
If I cut out, I'm not just quitting your show here, but my phone's about to die.
No man, you're, you're good.
You're good.
And we can wrap this up here pretty quickly.
But so just a couple more questions that I had on it, like the money hunts, like what
are we talking in the squirrel dog world?
We know the coon hounds are going for crazy money hunting for a hundred thousand dollars
hunting for brand new trucks.
Where are we at in the squirrel dog world?
Pretty much the same, the same, uh, now like coon hunt, you can go hunt for more money
every weekend, you know, but squirrel hunt, you can go hunt for, uh, they have a truck
hunt in USDC every year, give away a brand new truck, they have a side by side hunt,
give away a brand new side by side and brand new trailer.
And then the JPI, it'll pay over a hundred thousand dollars this year.
Wow.
That's crazy.
Do you have to qualify for that?
No, JPI, if you want to spend your thousand dollar entry and go play, you can have at
it.
Gotcha.
Okay, man, that's awesome.
So what about, uh, go ahead.
Probably I want to say this, probably my favorite thing about USDC is, uh, I think it's the
uh, like you can show up and register your poodle in USDC hunting, if you want to pay
the money and do it.
Like you can hunt whatever you want.
People typically hunt curves and hounds and stuff, but you can hunt anything in USDC,
which I like.
I think that's really, you know, the guys with the best dogs, that's where they're playing
at.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Bastion, uh, Ashton said, his phone's getting ready to die on him.
You got anything you want to close up on this?
He's running on like 8%.
Oh, he's got plenty.
Yeah, sorry, I wouldn't even think of that.
Oh, he's got plenty.
8%, man, that's a, that's a good another 15, 20 minutes.
So what is your take on as far as you've kind of hunted both.
You've hunted squirrels and you've hunted coon hunting.
Right.
Which one gets the blood pumping?
I was talking to my buddy about this the other day and I don't know exactly what it is.
Like I get, uh, I mean, I get that feeling squirrel hunting where I get fired up.
You're hunting for a lot of money and it's competitive, you know, and you feel like you're
going into a fight or something.
You know, you get that feeling, but coon hunting, just something about it.
Just, I can't really explain what it is, but it's, it's not quite the same in squirrel
hunting.
It's just not the same.
I find that interesting.
I do find that interesting because I do feel like, man, the squirrel hunting would be,
I don't want to say easier, but that might be what it is.
You know, like it's a lot more laid back.
A squirrel hunt cast is a lot more laid back than a coon hunt.
It's not near as a cutthroat.
Yeah.
And like, yeah, I don't know how to say it.
It's not, it's cutthroat.
If you think about it, I can tell you exactly where it stems from in a squirrel.
There's really only one way to draw minus for the biggest majority.
Leave a tree.
Yeah.
There's not in a coon hunt.
How many ways are there?
There's a lot less to argue about in a squirrel hunt.
That would be nice.
Exactly.
My point.
Everybody walks into a tree knowing 99.9% chance it's circled no matter what.
Yeah.
No matter what.
At least in, in coon hunting, that's not the case.
Yeah.
Right.
Are there big events like, uh, I know you said like the JPI is a big one.
The world hunt, like coon hunting, you've got, uh, you know, you've got autumn oaks.
You've got grand American.
You've got winter classic on the UKC side of things.
The PKC, you've got the Lone Star 5,000.
Um, you know, you've got big week long events.
Are there anything like that in the, in the squirrel dog world where people just go and
hang out for a week?
Yeah, they have us.
It's kind of like a mini series inside of USDC.
Uh, it's called the ground floor series with death Island.
He's the president of USDC and he sponsors the, he's the ground floor landscape company.
It's his business.
He sponsors.
I think he donates $2,500 added purse to every one of those ground floor hunts.
And uh, they have a, they call it the king and queen hunt where they take the top nine
points leaders for the year in the ground floor hunts, the truck hunt and the side by
side hunt.
They all count towards the ground floor points.
Then they have a hunt for your king and queen of USDC for that year.
So it's, that's kind of something like that.
People try to run that race and they try to run the dog of the year race and, uh, the
NSD dog of the year race is a big deal.
It's a, they run that pretty hard and they have kind of have events like that, you know,
more so the races and stuff are a little bit more important to people maybe than like an
event, but the ground floor is kind of that way.
So it's kind of like the PKS, how the PKC used to be in the state hunts and the breed
hunts and all that used to actually mean something.
Yeah.
Yep.
Interesting.
All right, man.
Hey, well, I appreciate you coming on here.
I'm good, but Bassem, I think we've, we've covered a lot here in a short amount of time
and I know Ashton's is getting ready to lose that power there.
So brother, I wasn't even thinking I should have charged my phone.
It's all good, man.
This is last minute.
So Bassem, any other final closing thoughts you've got for us?
Nope, nope.
That's about it.
I'm good to go.
Yeah, man.
Man, Ashton, I've had a great time.
Like I know this is short and sweet, man.
I think we can get you back on here another day and pick your brain some more.
Uh, but the, the squirrel dog thing is something that's interesting to me because I do love
going squirrel hunting, but I've only went pleasure hunting.
I've never went on a cast.
So I would like to go on a cast one of these days and just see what that's all about.
So thanks for giving us some perspective.
Yep.
Absolutely.
All right, buddy.
Well, Bassem, if you're good, Ashton, if you're good, I guess we're going to sign this thing
off.
Oh, yeah.
Till next time guys.
All right.
See you guys.
I just had fun.