By Lauren Vrany
Dog box, bed of truck: “Bahhhwooooouuu”
Driver seat, cab of truck: “Piper! She’s rigging one.”
Is there a better sound in the world? A small bluetick coonhound, trusting her nose and her owner to listen, howling in dog language “stop the truck!”
So I did. And she was right – bear tracks across the sandy road.
The hunt had already started for Piper. She was already thinking through all the possibilities she’d find in the woods. The track could be old, but she was the only dog to “strike” (bark) and she is a cold-nosed dog, she can take the track too old for other dogs to figure out. The only thing for me to do was to dump the box. The best hounds work on instinct and are never far from danger.
“Go get em Piper!”
Off she goes. I keep an eye on the GPS, thinking of nothing but my dog and the hunt.
But if you knew me ten years ago, you might be asking: “Lauren, wow, what? How did you end up in Northern Wisconsin hunting black bear with bluetick coonhounds?”
Well, that’s a great question, let me explain…
I grew up in the suburbs. My family didn’t hunt. They weren’t anti-hunting, we just had other things to worry about, like ice hockey and synchronized swimming. I went to college and after that, worked in the finance industry, heading towards a husband, children, white picket fence, and suburban neighbors.
Then what? I bought a house. For security, I added a firearm and an adopted dog. It was February 2015 and I was in my mid-20s. The gun was a Ruger and the dog’s name was Maggie. She was a stray with a stomach of steel, chewing through candles, bags of onions, and any food within reach. We had a lot to teach each other. Maggie was a pet - we went on walks, cuddled, and worked on commands. But things changed at the dog park.
Maggie became more than a pet. She started doing something strange. She started “treeing” squirrels – chasing them, leaving them no option but to climb the nearest tree, and barking at them. She sounded magical as she spoke to the canopy and the sky. She was a Bluetick Coonhound just shy of a year.
I began researching more about the breed and Youtube took me down some interesting rabbit holes late into the night. I learned so much about the coonhound in general, the culture of hunting, and competition. A girl I met at the dog park invited me to a field trial – a race and test of scenting and treeing. Even though it wasn’t Maggie’s swiftest showing, she made it to the tree at one point and treed! She had interest. A start!
That called for more research. I found a Facebook page for a hunting club an hour west of me. You might not be surprised, but adopted dogs and girls from the city weren’t their specialty. Within a year, Maggie entered her first event. She was a natural. She swam in the water race and treed like she had been at it for years. My jaw was on the floor. It was May 2017. I knew no one there but went out of my way to introduce myself and try to make connections with the country folk who looked at this city girl with a strange glare.
Soon enough, I had found myself a mentor who offered to take Maggie and me hunting and teach me about the lifestyle of being a houndsman. He taught me all the jargon that goes along with running hounds and reminded me that each time you turn a dog loose, you risk tragedy. These dogs were bred, born, and thrive on the chance to run the woods. Maggie and I learned together and each time we went, we progressed. She had finally made her first tree with the aid of a seasoned coonhound. Just like the first time you shoot a deer or turkey, or your bird dog holds steady to shoot while out on a hunt, it was a magical moment that I won’t forget.
I was able to register Maggie and entered her in nite hunt competitions. She earned enough cast wins through the UKC to get her the title of NITE CHAMPION, making her name “NITECH Brew City’s Bawlin’ Maggie Mae”. She was a pleasure to hunt behind, to hear in the woods, to connect with and understand all of her barks. Each dog has a distinctive bark all their own. She learned to communicate what she was doing and thinking and I was learning to listen. Being able to understand your dog in the pitch black from 400 yards away is something that everyone should get to experience.
The connection houndsmen have with their dogs and their entire pack is indescribable. Those dogs mean the world to us. We have spent countless hours, expended unfathomable energy, and contributed our wages to the success and health of these creatures and we follow them blindly into the depths of the wilderness. Maggie was only the beginning for me. It’s been 4 years now of hunting, and I have a team of young dogs to train and follow. Maggie has since retired. She spends her days by the water, dreaming of the next morsel she can grab from the countertop, and she still trees the squirrels in the yard and swims in the lake chasing fish.
Maggie opened the door for me to this wonderful world of hunting, houndsmanship, adventure, competition, breeding, and relationships. Because of her, I got introduced to the lifestyle that is one of a true outdoorsman and that of a houndsman. I now hunt deer, turkey, waterfowl, small game, and more recently, predators. I have met many people along the way and built relationships that allow me to expand on my interests. I am still a coonhunter but I have recently become very obsessed with black bear hunting with hounds.
Bear hunting is my favorite kind of hunting behind hounds, but it’s been a recent obsession. I got really into it 2 years ago and this June will start my third. It’s the only time I’m really excited to get up at 4AM! I have yet to kill a bear and probably won’t for quite a few more years. The DNR carefully manages the bear population and licenses take many years of waiting, sometimes 14 or 15 years in some zones in Wisconsin. There are other states where you can get tags sooner or over the counter, but for me, it’s not about killing the most bears or killing them frequently. I just want to follow my hounds.
While waiting for your tag, there are many things to learn and prepare for. You could spend an entire dog generation getting everything perfect and ready for that special season. The hunter and the pack excel when a dog with a cold nose can start the track. They get the track going and when the houndsman knows it’s getting hotter, they can put more dogs down on the track (usually at a road or trail crossing). Then, they just have to wait. Some dogs might go backwards, some might split off and find something else fun like a raccoon, some might go out a bit and then come back to the truck. It’s all about time and training- months, and years of time and training. This cannot be done in a weekend, a month or a season. If the dogs get lucky and everything pans out, that bear’s track gets hotter and hotter, and soon they get close enough and the bear starts on its own journey- a race to a tree! Houndsmen have to track and manage up to 6 dogs (or more depending on the state) this whole time on a GPS and figure out what roads are the best to be on to intercept dogs if necessary. When the dogs do tree, it could be well over a mile walk to the tree through anything from dense forest, to swamps, to mountains with steep inclines, fields of rock, cliff faces, The options of topography are endless. These animals are so elusive and can be tricky to tree! It takes skilled, smart, athletic, experienced, trained, and determined hounds to take a track from truck to tree. Some days, it just doesn’t happen.
People think hunting anything with hounds is “wrong”, “unfair”, “easy”, “cheating”, “lazy”, and the list of insults continues. In reality, it is actually the most ethical way to hunt since it gives the opportunity for “fair chase”. We’re not always treeing raccoons, bears, cats - we're not always finishing a coyote track, these animals can and will outsmart the dogs. If the hounds are successful on the track, it allows the hunter to get a good, close look at the animal to determine if it is the right animal to harvest based on sex or size (bears and cats especially) that one could not achieve over a spot and stalk or bait sitting hunt. Houndsmen are a crucial tool and partner wildlife biologists use when conducting studies because of the ethics we use to tree our quarry. The American heritage and lifestyle of hunting behind hounds is not a sport. We don’t do it for the thrill of the kill, we do it for the dogs, for the chance to get better as houndsmen and improve our dogs. We don’t force our dogs to do anything, it’s all in their blood. They have such instinct and drive that we just have to give them the time and opportunity and they go out and do what they love. There are seasons dedicated solely to pursuit/training only and the harvest season is only a small fraction of our year. I follow my hounds year round just to see them grow and succeed.
So many other types of hunters have a preconceived idea about the lifestyle of a houndsman that they automatically write us off and do not support us. It is my mission to try to change that. I try to educate people of non-hunting backgrounds and even other hunters about the realities of what I really do with my hounds, how they are trained, and what really goes on in the woods. Sure, there are bad apples in any pastime, even deer hunting, but that does not mean you should be lumping all houndsmen (and women) into a group because of something you heard, something someone told you, something you saw in a movie, or one experience without even trying to understand and give us the chance. Minds are like a parachute, they only function when open. I love what I have the opportunity to do, and that is because my dogs love it even more than I do. I have dedicated my life to it.
Challenging the hounds and myself with new situations and goals is what keeps us going. I drove to New Mexico and lived in an 11 foot camper for 2 months in the winter with the hounds. We hunted in the mountains for mountain lion/bobcat in difficult, dry ground conditions and then in the deserts and farm zones for raccoon and bobcat. The territory was nothing like we’ve ever experienced. I plan on going to Colorado to work on bear depredation affecting the sheep herders. I then plan to challenge myself by running bear during Wisconsin training season (training season = tree and free) with my small team of 3 Blueticks (Piper, Cedar, and Ridge) and a bluetick puppy (River) alone for bear in the overpopulated wolf territory of the northwoods. I will be home this winter since I plan on Piper having her first litter and plan on coonhunting the farmlands close to home pretty often. I hunt and take raccoons only when their fur is prime. Fur is the most eco-friendly and sustainable clothing/home accessory. It is biodegradable and not made from plastic like faux fur or synthetic fibers. I would love to make some hats, scarves, and a blanket that can serve as a family heirloom.
Since changing my path in life, I now live on 80 acres in an ancient farmhouse, alone, in a rural area of Dodge County, Wisconsin. I own 4 dogs with the hopes of adding more to the family. I drive a truck, a tractor, and a 4 wheeler. My favorite pastimes are hunting, shooting sports, training dogs, dog sporting events, photography, hiking, and fishing. Some don’t think it’s socially acceptable for a woman like me to choose this life, but I won’t look back. It has afforded me experiences, friends, adventures, tragedies, and opportunities many can only dream of. I get to live my passion and also help preserve, promote, and protect our lifestyle.
I bring a voice to our community by co-hosting and working on the Houndsman XP Podcast and by working with other important organizations. I get to highlight our lifestyle and passions and work to protect them. I advocate for hunters and houndsmen through organizations like the WBHA, WCHA, and Wisconsin Conservation Congress. I can keep followers up to date with legislation that is aiming to negatively impact our outdoor lifestyle by having lines of communication open with Hunter Nation, and Sportsmen’s Alliance. I believe that everything fell into place in the way it did for a reason, and I have been given the opportunity to do good while still having the time of my life.
Piper ended up on that bear track alone for a while, sniffing every right and left turn it made. This bear could not trick her. She went up a mountain, around to the road, and crossed miles of sections. I could hear her bawl on track and then it suddenly changed and her speed on the GPS increased. She had the bear jumped and they were in a race! Headed for a road, we had hoped she had the pressure to put that bear up a tree before crossing the road. Sure enough, 100 yards from the road, she showed “treed” on the GPS and we could tell by her choppy bark that she was looking right up at the bruin with her paws pressed firmly against the trunk of the tree. Walking in, I was so thrilled that this 2.5 year old hound had made this truck to tree race all on her own. As we stood there in awe of the dog's work, the beautiful bear, and the adventure we had been on, I was reminded of where it all started, with Miss Maggie Mae and a city girl.