By Cora Parker
In our Fall Edition of American Outdoor News Nick Gilliland will share some of his hound hunting experiences with us.
My Name is Nick Gilliland, my wife Katelyn and myself live in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Hunting with hounds has always been a big part of my life in one fashion or another. All the way back to when I was a baby there are pictures of me laying in the floor covered by a litter of beagle puppies that my dad had at the time.
My father Bill Gilliland has always had a pack of Beagles around for rabbit hunting. That is where my preference for a Tri-Colored hounds came from. It was not until later in life that it evolved into hunting Treeing Walkers.
My Grandfather Clint Nichols was a WWII veteran who drove a tank for General Patton. As far back as I could remember he would hold my attention with stories about hunting with his hounds, chasing Raccoon over the western North Carolina mountains. Raccoons were all that he ever hunted. We did not know at the time that he did not sleep well. It was not until later that we realized that he suffered from PTSD. Raccoon hunting was a therapeutic outlet for him that not only served a purpose but did not affect time on the job or with the family!
I had a couple Raccoon hounds when I was in my teens but none that ever seemed to amount to anything. Probably a result of my lack of patience and dedication to training them properly.
Later on, in my early twenties (I'm 36 now) I decided to try again and really dedicate myself to training my hounds properly.
I first purchased a Treeing Walker hound from a breeder in Alabama, his name was Jugg. He was 5 years old when I adopted him. Even though I looking for a puppy at the time, I believe that starting with an older dog, finished hound as we call it, really helped me stay entertained in the woods. This experience ignited a fire in me to commit to training a puppy properly. Over the next several years I trained several puppies that made great pleasure hounds, which was my goal.
Years later I was privileged to meet a man that became my Raccoon hunting mentor, best friend and the best man at my wedding, Kim Bishop. Kim is very well known in my area as an expert houndsman. He is highly respected and has produced some of the best hunting hounds to ever chase ringtails in western North Carolina.
After hunting with Kims hounds I had a firsthand opportunity to see what a Raccoon hound is supposed to preform and how one could be trained on a higher level of obedience. They should obey commands such as coming out from the woods when called no matter the situation, self-loading into their travel box, walking to the truck without a lead, and the list goes on and on.
Seeing how his dogs preformed made me rethink how I was training my own hounds and realize that I had to set some new goals to up the standards even higher in my own kennel. The only problem was that I did not have any young pups at home to train. The time that I had available to train was also limited so I decided to purchase a started hound. This led me to my current hound “Hide”.
Hide is a Treeing Walker off of Hillbilly Deluxe. I bought Hide when he was 14 months old. He just turned 6. My first 2-week trial with him I treed 11 Raccoon which is very impressive for where I hunt. I started to consult with Kim on how to train obedience and manners into Hide. Kim's best advice was " Hounds are predators not retrievers, you do not train a hound, you develop a hound" after a few pointers and a few short months I was able to get Hide from not only a great Raccoon hunter but a superb pleasure to handle and hunt with.
I was so excited about this progress that I wanted to document it. I had watched some videos on YouTube about Raccoon Hunting. I decided that would be a perfect platform to just film a few things with my phone, upload them to enjoy later and maybe share with friends and my mentor. That was the birth of Nite Life Kennel.
Over time, the Youtube channel of Hide and myself started to get several subscribers. Along with those came questions from people that were new to the sport of hound hunting and were asking me a lot of questions about how to train a hound to do this, that or the other. I started to browse YouTube and sure enough, the information was not out there publicly. There were other channels showed Raccoon hunting but nothing about training hounds in the way I was able to develop my hound “Hide”. So that's the mission statement we decided to make for “Nite Life Kennel” on YouTube. If you watch us on YouTube we promise to Entertain, Educate and help you develop into a Houndsman one video at a time.
It is hard to choose my favorite Raccoon hunt. Part of me hopes that I have not had it yet. The best hunts are just a cast of the hounds away. One of my most memorable hunts that comes to mind was with Kim. It was when Hide was about 3 years old. Kim and myself, Hide and Zip (Zip is the name of Kim's dog) Went down to hunt the game land in South Carolina. Kim's dog Zip is by far the best dog that I have ever hunted with. Zip is one hundred percent accurate in every aspect of the hunt. I have watched him find Raccoons where another hound could not. It is very fair to say that Zip is the standard that I strive for Hide to live up too.
When we let the two hounds off the leash, it was only a couple hundred yards before they both struck. It was a dead heat race for a solid mile up the creek bed with us in hot pursuit. Zip was in the lead with Hide hot on his tail. Back and forth, fighting to get there first. Then all at once both hounds fell treed harder than I had ever heard before. The problem was that they did not sound like they were in the same place. We checked the tracking collar and sure enough they were about fifty yards apart from each other. With Zips impeccable track record I started to doubt that Hide had treed a raccoon. In my mind Hide fell short on the track. We walked in about a mile with my head hung low. My self-esteem defeated. It only took a second after we got there to see the Raccoon in Zips tree. I was so proud of Zip but my faith in Hide began to waiver as he hammered on a tree about fifty yards away. As I took my walk of shame over to Hide's tree, Kim was already there with a big smile! It was my proudest hunting moment. Kim stretched out his hand to shake mine, with a firm handshake. "Congratulations buddy your hound did great, he's got the meat too". I was ecstatic! We shot both Raccoons and they were both Boars. Luckily, I was able to film this whole hunt and it is on my YouTube channel.
Raccoon hunting has been such a blessing for me. I have had such a wonderful time following man's best friend thru the timber night after night. Raccoon hunting has opened up so many friendships and opportunities for me. I have met Kim along with countless other friends. I even met my wife Katelyn on a Raccoon hunt. We got engaged at the big Grand American Raccoon hunt in Orangeburg South Carolina. It led me to start my YouTube channel with the most unbelievable followers. Since then I have met Steve Fielder and Brent Reaves. Together we have started the only Podcast dedicated solely to Raccoon hunting, Nite Life Nation Podcast. Raccoon hunting even lead to me starting my online Hound Supply buisness www.nitelifekennel.com
In all Raccoon hunting has been very good to me but honestly, I owe it all to God! God has seen fit to place me in so many situations that I could never have dreamed of possible.
My ultimate goal with my life and Raccoon hunting is just have a good time, help as many people as I can along the way to get started, obtain knowledge on how to train hounds and be entertained by watching our channel when they can't make it out to the timber themselves. If you get a chance take a look at our youtube channel Nite Life Kennel. Be sure to Subscribe to it! Follow Nite Life Kennel on Facebook and Instagram! Listen to our podcast Nite Life Nation on Spotify, iTunes and all the other major podcast platforms. And if you need any hound hunting supplies visit us at www.nitelifekennel.com.
Feel free to message me on social media or at nitelifekennel@outlook.com
In the mean time, Tree One for Me!