Northeastern Washington is home to Steve and Karlene Katich. Their ranch is on the Colville Indian Reservation and they run both bucking and commercial cattle along the fertile shores of the Columbia River. Along with Steve and Karlene, their sons Lex and Sorrell and daughters Nikki, Fawn and Brandy are all involved in the family business in one way or another.

“I rodeoed when I was younger,” commented Steve, “and then when my father-in-law retired, my wife and I wound up taking over his ranch in 1975.” Steve wanted to add some size to his commercial cows, so he bought some red Angus cows and a full blooded Brahma. He bred them and then used the F1s out of them to breed to his Charolais commercial cows. “So I had a three-way cross that put me from 500 pounds a calf to over 680, so that made quite a difference,” Steve explained.

“Ralph McLean (of McLean-Kelsey Rodeo Co.) was short some bulls for a bull riding so he asked to borrow some. I explained to him that they’d never been bucked before but he said that was OK—and it turned out that we bucked everybody off!” From there, Steve’s bucking bull program was born.

Whether programs are large, medium or small, it does sometimes feel like breeders beyond the borders of Texas and Oklahoma can be overlooked. Even though Katich bulls have been making a name for themselves for years, many people are unaware of just how many greats have come out of their breeding program. Unforgiven, Rapid Fire, Dr. Proctor and Dog Face are just four of the champions from their pens.

“We’ve been around for so many years,” said Red Knection’s business mgr., Lex. “A lot of people ask about our young bulls, but a lot of people don’t know about our World Champion bulls. We might be a newer name to PBR fans, but we’ve been supplying great bulls to pro rodeos since 1989.”

Steve added, “I sold a lot of bulls to other stock contractors before I started doing my own PBR thing.”

Dog Face was the BRO (Bull Riders Only) Bull of the Year in 1997. Unforgiven was the 2002 PRCA Bull of the Year, Rapid Fire had the same honor in 1997 and was the BRO Bull of the Finals in 1996. In 2006, Dr. Proctor was runner up for PBR Bull of the Year.

Besides bucking ability, Katich bucking cattle tend to share a red color—hence the name Red Knection.

“We are absolutely against cloning and we try to do things as natural as possible,” stressed Lex.

“We knew we had the genetics in our bulls,” shared Karlene, “but we had to find it in our cows and that was the hard part. But we did get it down to three core Red Angus cow bloodlines. At the last PBR World finals, we had six bulls competing from these bloodlines. We want to produce quality, not quantity."

“On paper, I think we have one of the most genetically-producing bloodlines, period,” continued Lex, “I’ve had other breeders tell me that Rapid Fire is the most genetically-producing sire they’ve ever seen.”

All of the Katiches bulls are all related in a round-about way, but they don’t do any cross breeding. One of Red Knection’s first herd sires was Sierra Pancho aka Big Red. A bull calf out of Sierra, Little Red, became another herd sire.

“The man I originally bought Sierra Pancho from came to me to see if I’d be interested in a bull that he’d sold several times, but that no one could get along with,” explained Steve. He was related to Omega Pancho "Big Red" on his mother's side. So I brought Red Mac home and he sired bulls like PBR bulls K24 Dr. Proctor,-4 Big Mac (Chad Berger), K97 Blind Date, K6 Revamp (Corey and Horst),K31 Bearcat (Flying Diamond Rodeo Company/ Mike Corey). Sierra Pancho "Little Red" sired Major Payne. Apache Leap was sired by a Red Angus bull (related to Rapid Fire’s Dam)." The Katiches also have cows that go “way back” to their foundation bloodline Red Angus cows.

“We don’t line breed real close, but everything is connected somewhere genetically,” confirmed Lex. “Everything we sell is a direct Katich bloodline.” And even though the Katiches do little outcrossing themselves, their genetics have worked well for outcrosses for other people’s programs. Tahonta’s Shadow, for example, is from Tahonta which is out of the Katich bloodline. “You can outcross our bloodline on a lot of things and it (the Katich bloodline) still produces,” affirmed Lex.

“Location has inhibited us some. It costs a lot to travel to events from way up here. I do think if we we were in Oklahoma or Texas that we’d be a bigger name in the industry by now,” reflected Lex. “If we had gotten involved with the PBR earlier on, I think we’d be better off, too.”

There aren’t a lot of venues in which to get their bulls seen in the Northwest, so the Katiches are open to partnering with other breeders across the country in order to get their bulls seen more. The lack of top-notch cowboys in their neck of the woods also mean that it can be a long time before their young bulls really get tried.

“Of course I’m partial to our stuff, but in no way do I think our bulls are inferior to those of the big guys,” stressed Lex, “it just isn’t as easy for us to get the TV time, but I think we can compete against anybody.”

One Katich bull that will be getting some guaranteed TV time is Major Payne, now co-owned by North Carolinian Jeff Robinson. “It is good to get a Red bull on that side of the country. He’ll also be on one of Jeff’s bull teams and that exposure will be good,” said Lex.

Besides increasing their presence on the Built Ford Tough Series, the Katiches also plan on increasing their presence in the ABBI. “We’ve drawn all the blood on the cows and bulls that we need to and got our cards in to the ABBI on time,” confirmed Steve. “Sorrell also wants to get our bulls to some of the ABBI Classics this year.” The Katiches don’t normally buck their bulls until age 3, but the VBBI events are appealing to them, especially since they aren’t close to many competitions.

Red Knection is determined to showcase as many of their bulls as possible in 2009. They believe with hard work, dedication and their amazing red bulls, they’ll be able to convince folks that their Washington bulls should be counted not only among the best of the West Coast, but among the best in the world.