Many come from all over the country to enjoy the dogs, midway food and festival atmosphere at the Hog Dog Trials. The Journal particularly likes watching the people in their enjoyment and interacting with them when possible.
While sitting under the canopy of the Cajun Camp, waiting for the alligator roasting to complete, I heard a young lady talking to adults at the other end of the table about her noodling experiences. This caught my attention for I’d envisioned anyone willing to reach under a sunken log to snatch out an oversized catfish to be some grizzled south Louisiana river dweller or equally battered north Louisiana redneck.
The lithe teen I see defies my preconceptions. By appearance she could be a scholar/cheerleader yet some of the catfish in the cell phone photos she later shows me are nearly as big as she.
I invite Hannah to come sit by me and learn she’s from nearby Saline. Her folks are Randy and Amanda Dingler and she quickly adds with pride, “Randy Dingler Steel & Pipe Fabrication.” Father and daughter are a team and Caney is apparently their lake of choice. Friend Jerry Turner sitting nearby confirms that Hannah is so light that her dad sometimes has to help hold her underwater to make a catch.
Asked their species preference, the young lady replies, “We go for Op, that’s flathead, but sometimes we get Blue. They’re not so good but we don’t waste anything.”
Asked her technique once they’ve located their quarry, Hannah answers, “I stick my left hand in the fish’s mouth then my right hand through the gill and lock my hands together. Then I pull it out of the hole.”
As Hannah displayed photos and videos of noodling, she also showed a video her wrestling with a piney woods hog during a hunt. She says she hunts hogs, squirrel, deer and beams as she describes a trophy buck she shot this season. She’s quite a sportswoman in a small package.
No doubt there are plenty of other stories around the fairgrounds. Just uphill from the arena entrance is a booth where a father/daughter team sit at a table covered with dog horns. Readers may recall one of the early Hog Dog tee shirts depicting Earl K. Long clutching a dog horn that’s handing around his neck.
This is Paul and Amber Greenwood of Tyler, TX, representing the American Dog Horn Association, sponsor of the One-Dog competition. Unlike the other vendors who were eager to sell their wares, Paul who has a museum in Tyler seems more interested in sharing the beauty and history of the dog horns laid out on the table.
One is a longhorn depicting The Great Raft of Shreveport/Red River fame, the log raft he explains that blocked miles of the Red River from 1200 AD until 1835 when Capt. Henry Shreve oversaw its clearing. While Paul does the collecting, Amber Greenwood provides the scrimshaw and etching work on the new pieces. Their longterm project is to create a series of dog horns that will tell the story of how the West was settled. Included with the Great Raft are and will include the Chisholm Trail, Cimarron Trail, Santa Fe Trail, El Camino Real and more.
Area residents who’ve not viewed Uncle Earl’s Hog Dog Trials in the 29 years it’s been here, perhaps thinking it’s nothing but dogs, might discover they’ve been missing out. There are other gems to be found around the fairgrounds.
