|
A
Cold-Nosed Tale In one phase of my
life I was an avid hunter, particularly deer hunting. We used deer hounds to run the deer
because most of the woods and swamps we hunted were nearly impossible for humans to
negotiate. The majority of the
dogs were Walker hounds, a few Redbone hounds, and a few Black and Tan hounds. At one
point in time, I had fourteen Walker hounds of my own. We trained our dogs ourselves and
were very proud of them, arguing constantly about who had the best dog. I had even taught two of my dogs to smile on
command. Nobody would believe this until I showed them. There were dogs we used to put on tracks that were discovered along or across a dirt road for instance. Not knowing exactly how fresh the track was, we would put out a dog that was experienced and would follow the scent, working slowly and methodically until the scent got stronger. If he trailed the scent for a distance and began to bark frantically, we would put out the pack dogs, and gather up the track dog, for he had done his job. Certain track dogs
would gain a reputation for successfully following a track which was known to be several
hours old. The term, "cold-nosed",
was commonly used in describing these dogs. Two dog owners were
overheard arguing about who had the best "cold-nosed" dog. One finally decided
to bring the discussion to a head by saying, "My dog can take a track that is three
years old!!!" They proceeded down the road. "Three
years ago, we ran a deer across, right on this very spot." The other owner couldn't
believe what he was hearing, but decided to humor this rascal. "Prove it", he
said with a grin. Without hesitation the dog owner gets his dog out of the truck and leads
him to the area of the "three year old track". The dog sniffs at everything like
a vacuum cleaner as he works his way into the woods. A few minutes passed. The dog started
"opening up", sounding as if he was being kicked in the ribs. Immediately, the two hunters jumped into their
pickup trucks to follow as best they could without leaving the road. They could hear the
dog barking as it ran through the woods and then out through a field not far from the
road. They watched the dog running and barking his head off at the "three year old
scent". All of a sudden the dog jumped about four foot in the air and continued
chasing the phantom deer. "Convinced yet?", the dog's owner asks. "Yea, I
guess so," says the other guy. "But,
why did that dog jump four feet in the air, in the middle of the field?" "Well, you see, three years ago there
was a split-rail fence that ran across that field!!", the dog owner replied. When I began
playing craps I was more worried about the rules and how to play the game correctly. My standard bet was twenty two inside, no pass
line. I would let it ride until the shooter
(or myself) would seven out. I made money on
occasion in spite of this, but generally only if the shooter had a very long hand. It finally dawned on me why I didn't have much to
show for my time at the table, even when the table wasn't particularly cold. It would take four hits for me to get my money
back from the table, and several more for me to make any appreciable profit on any one
shooter. We all know this
doesn't happen on every shooter. The average
hand only lasts 2.7 to 4 tosses, depending on which book you read. I knew I would have to regress down from twenty
two inside after the first hit, to get part of my money off of the table sooner, but this
would leave a couple of inside numbers uncovered. The
other method might be to raise my bets to forty four inside and then regress to twenty two
inside after a hit. For the first hit, the initial bets will have done their job. After regressing, all I had to do now was wait for
a few hits to make some profit. Eventually, I
learned to press and pull. This method seemed
more sensible. However, to double the bets
that I was used to making would be a shock to my nerves.
It took a while to gain the confidence in my own shooting to use this
method. I still have no confidence in other
shooters until I see them shoot consistently during a session. Only precision shooting and rhythm rolling has given me this confidence, but I will always remember that hurdle or split rail fence I had to overcome every time I step up to a craps table. Color Me Up! JustMikeF |
|