EP 283: Gone To The Dogs with Adam Barnhart “Going It Alone”

“The morning Lilly joined us in camp, he had come on foot through the thick woods, followed by his two dogs, and had neither eaten nor drunk for twenty-four hours; for he did not like to drink the swamp water,” said Roosevelt. “It had rained hard throughout the night and he had no shelter, no rubber coat, nothing but the clothes he was wearing and the ground was too wet for him to lie on, so he perched in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much as if he had been a wild turkey.”   - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, describing his first meeting with hound-hunting legend Ben Lilly.

Our guest this week typifies the Ben Lilly persona as much as any modern-day hunter in existence. A single man, a man that hunts his pack of Treeing Walker coonhounds bear and coon on foot in the rugged environs of southwest Virginia, and a man that hunts alone. 

Frequent guest Kesten Jessee introduced Steve to Adam Barnhart and the result is this interesting episode that we’ve sub-titled, Going It Alone.  If you’ve wondered how Lily was able to travel the great southwest on foot, enduring incredible hardship in following his hounds, this episode will provide some insight.   Although armed with modern electronics to aide in following the hounds, which is considerably better than Lily’s method of tying a hound to his belt to provide direction, the mere suggestion of bear hunting alone as does Barnhart, should pique the interest of anyone that has hunted bears with hounds under today’s considerably better conditions. 

We would like to thank those who support this podcast.  Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode.  Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links below

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