Roy Sparks Hounds - Introduction

R

Roy Sparks Hounds

New member
Hi to all predator hunters,

I live in the Eastern Cape - Republic of South Africa.I have been hunting predators for the bounty since 1987.

I have used mainly hounds for this work which stem from American South Western strains related to hounds previously bred by the Lee brothers in Arizona.

The hounds originally imported were bought from Terrel Shelley and Richard Holcomb.They are still being bred true to type and are magnificent cold trail hounds.

We currently use these hounds to trail leopard,Caracal ( African Lynx )and Black-Backed Jackal, now and again when the opportunity arrises we have applied them to African Lion and Hyena as well.

In our hound teams I use the cold trail dry ground hounds,pressure hounds and lurchers.The latter two being important for maintaining a high kill rate on Jackal.We use terriers for underground work as well.

I am active on the Big Game Houndsmen forum for those interested in viewing my posts there as well as the Africa Hunting forum.

I have also had to resort to predator calling in order to cover my areas of responsiblity but admittedly have a lot to learn in this method.

Our small stock ( wool industry ) looses R3.65 billion annually to predation from mainly lynx and jackal.

I hope to generate some interest in our predator hunting here in South Africa and hopefully members of Predator Masters will consider making visits here to enjoy the hounds at work and indulge in some serious calling action.

Looking forward to your posts.

Kind regards and good hunting,

Roy Sparks - Sparks Hounds.
 
Hi Will.Thanks for the welcome.No I dont know of anyone doing this here.I was in Reno 2 years back at the SCI show and bought a video caled Dogging Coyotes.Well my mouth hung open.Just could not believe what I was seeing, most intriguing,fascinating work and coordination between the hunter and his dogs.

To my knowlege no one has intentionally hunted this way here.I have areas that are way overpopulated by jackal and we run our hounds there on occassion.For those who understand hounds they will know that a team will disintergrate in different directions because of all the fresh trails.Some of the younger hounds find themselves trailing alone.

When a young inexperienced hound lands up in a situation like this, a jackal once the hound catches up will turn in defense.The young dog facing this menace alone turns to flee.When the jackal realises his agression has paid off he becomes bold and will chase the young hound often joined by a second and third jackal.The young hound will bolt running for his master.Thats about the closest we get to your dogging coyotes.

I got some calling to do tonight so I got to run,nice talking.

Catch you later - Roy Sparks.
 
Welcome. Look forward to learning more about how you hunt. Sounds like it can be a blast.

What type of terriers do you use?

Tim
 
welcome to the board roy, i'm also curious who big are black backed jackals? do they go to ground? can your terriers handle a jackal? thanks for the reply in advance.

bob
 
Welcome aboard, feel free to post pics and stories whenever you have a chase.I think alot of us would like to see what its like over there. Duane
 
Hey you guys thanks for the welcome.I wish some of you would make a trip out here, we can go pred - calling day and night.We can run the hounds on lynx and jackal.We can course them with lurchers, there's a whole bunch of stuff we can do this end.

If a jackal goes to ground his got a meeting with the bad bunch I got some really bad attitude terriers. If someone could just tell me how to send photo's I'll do so.

I had difficulty sending to Big Game Houndsmen forum so a fellow sent me his email adress and I sent them via him.I have lots of very interesting pictures I can share with you.You can email me at sparkshounds@isat.co.za then I can forward you plenty of photo's hopefully you can then post them here for me.* NB*Just let me know you responding from predator masters.

I am not to much of a hand at computer stuff, I am either relaoding ammo ,squeezing a trigger , following hounds or getting eaten by mosquitoes while calling preds.

Better still, save a bit of cash and get yourselves over here and come take photo's of your own kills - we are waiting.

Talk again soon - Roy.
 
Roy, if you go to the "photo gallery " here there are good instructions. In the meen time I will post some for ya. I'll send ya an e-mail. But also bear with me, I spend more time hunting, than on the puter, and sometimes it takes me a few days to get stuff done. Duane.
 


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