Hunting with hounds

Todd Bartlett is the guy Fish and Game calls when a problem mountain lion or a bear shows up in someone’s yard. Bartlett and his five hounds, that is.

“They love to hunt, just like I do,” said Bartlett.

Once he was called to a home where a little girl was crying. Her dog had just been snatched by a lion right before her eyes. Bartlett showed her one of his dog, and the little girl said no and started crying. She didn’t want the big cat to hurt his dog, too. But when his dog treed the lion, she asked her daddy for a dog just like Bartlett’s because, as she said, “He’s not afraid of bad mountain lion.”

Another time, while visiting a friend in the Silver Valley, one of the neighbor kids told Bartlett a mountain lion had just snatched his cat. He didn’t believe the kid at first, thinking he had seen a bobcat. Bartlett took a dog on a leash and followed the trail. He found the mountain lion and a pile of half-buried house cats just 60 yards from the kid’s house.

Bartlett belongs to the North Idaho Tree Hound Association, where he has won many awards, including Big Bear of the Year award in 2003 and the Big Cougar award in 2004.

Hunting bear with dogs is done by using different breeds to pick up the scent. Usually it starts with the hunter cruising the back roads with one experienced hound or a strike dog, on top of the box, on a strike platform, to catch a scent. Once a scent is found, the dogs are released and start trailing the bear.

Bartlett believes it’s harder to hunt bear with dogs than it is to bait them or find them in a berry patch.

“You can walk miles and not know what you’re tracking,” he said. “It could be a cub or sow with cubs, both illegal to shoot.

“At times, the big bears don’t tree, and they fight,” explains Bartlett. “This can be very exciting and intense. You need to slip in, not shoot your dogs, while taking aim at the bear, and if the bear senses you, he normally bolts and you have to start over.”

Bartlett can’t remember how long he’s been hunting. His dad and granddad both taught him how to hunt. Although he always had dogs, he never owned a hound.

Then one day, while working in Alaska, Bartlett saved a stray hound. “I didn’t hunt in Alaska but did a lot of fishing.” When he returned home, he started researching hound hunting and eventually bought his first trained dog and two pups.

“As it turned out, my two pups were better hunters than my trained dog.” Through trial and error he eventually became a very good and a sought-after hunter.

Bartlett is a heavy equipment operator, and his job takes him all over the country. He was one of the first teams to response to Hurricane Katrina.

“I’ve been all over and Idaho is just as pretty as any spot I seen,” he said. “Just being out there is amazing. I see some of the most incredible scenery.

“There is nothing like fresh snow in the morning and looking for fresh tracks,” he said. “I’ve been out in freezing cold nights where my friends have called Search and Rescue.” He survives with a space blanket, a fire starter and some food and first-aid equipment for him but mostly his dogs.

“I will not leave my dogs,” Bartlett said.

This loyalty has been put to the test. On a spring outing, his pack chased a big bear into its den, where all six dogs followed in pursuit.

“I tried to get the dogs out. I grab one and they bite me thinking I was a bear.

“When one of the dogs came out with his face ripped off telling me the bear was in here and then disappeared back into the dark hole, my heart sank,” he recalls. “I knew I had to get into that hole.

“I crawled in the hole. There was a deafening roar. It was hot, sticky and steamy from the dogs barking and the bear snarling. I turned on my flashlight. With all the steam created, it was like using your brights on a foggy night.”

The entrance of the den was small but widened up in the back. To get his dogs out, Bartlett had to lie on his back, reach for a dog and shove him through the hole where his partner pulled the animals to safety.

“I was being bitten and I didn’t know if it was the dogs or the bear,” Bartlett said.

By the time he got the third dog out the bear had had enough. He wanted out, but the only way out was over Bartlett. Now the 250-pound boar was on top of him, on his stomach, trying to get out, then the remaining three dogs pulled the bear off.

“I got out because I couldn’t shoot. I was wiping what I thought were blood and dirt and leaves off my head and ears, but it happened to be hundreds of spiders,” Bartlett said. “I stirred up a nest.

“You get your dogs or they get killed,” Bartlett explains. “They are like my kids.”