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Wanted to hear some opinions about training young dogs for bear. Does anybody out there use coon to get the dogs trailing and treeing then switch them on to bear, i hunt in WI in some big sections so it is hard to get a young dog started and coon are trash and there are alot of them on baits when cold trailing. Is it worth starting on coon and then breaking them?

I m curious about this also interested in some opinions !!!!!!!!!

We start all are young dogs on coons and there are no problem but i have always heard dont start pups on some thing u have to break them from my dogs run all coons and bear.

we start them on coon. Very few coon where we bear hunt so its not a problem.

I've always started pups on coon from about 3 months on teaches them to go to the other dogs and it is a good place to get a handel on them, as far as obedeince before you take them to the big woods.then switch over to bear once you start catching bear its hard to slow them down and run anything else, till you put the slow back in them my opinion

I also live in wisconsin and have always started my pups out coon been doing it for years. I like coon hunting them, it gets them use to the woods and handling before I get them up north. It also gets them treeing on sent not sight. I have seen some dogs that will only tree when they can see the bear in the tree or will start treeing as soon as you get there or they can see you. But, it seems dogs that are treeing on sent will be treeing no matter what. I only run my pups on coon though, till they are running and treeing on their own and then pull them and switch to bear. It seems to work for me. As far as coon being trash, I don't know. It is better than a all day deer run were I can't get to them. Atleast with a coon they are staying put treeing and doing what hounds do.I don't have a problem with older dogs treeing coon while I am bear hunting but, young dogs sometimes bump a coon if I am cold tracking and they get bored and can't pull the bear sent out but, overall it don't seem to be a problem.

I also am a WI Bear Hunter, i to have started my dogs on coon, I wouldnt train my young dogs off a Bear bait, unless you have a good dog for them to follow and I would make sure it would follow, if you tree a coon not the worst thing you just have to walk in. I have trained my whole pack that I have right now, strarted them on coon when they could run around on there own, once they where 8-10 months old then just looked for hot bear tracks and just let them go alone or with a started dog. I now have 5 dogs all rig, this is a huge help in traning other dogs I can find bears fast and they are hot tracks, ever since I trained my dogs to run off of riggs I have not treed a coon or ran any other game besides Bear, but you need to know how to read your dogs.

I start all of my bear hounds on coon. We have a limited season on bear and coon season is opened for 10 months. It gets the dogs trailing and treeing and is just good for their learning process. Now, after I get them running bear they might tree a coon every now and then but not often enough to matter. Then after a couple of years I usually don't have any more problems with them. Plus, if they don't make it as bear hound they are not hard to place with coonhunters. I have also went back to coon hunting them after they got up in age and used them to start my pups. So I think it works well for what I do. Good luck.

Treeing a coon will help teach them a lot and they will be way better off if they can tree a coon, especially by themselves. Some think its easy for a young dog but a lot of time its not. Work the younger dogs by themselves on coons after they get the hang of it and you will have better bear dogs!

I use to start my young dogs on coon and figured it helped them get on to treeing a little faster and also learned that the prey can bite back. But having dogs rig those damn things during bear season always slows a guy down and so I stopped some years back. My young dogs learn to run bear or don't stay........

ike

A coon is just a mini bear...

Watch a bunch of semi stupid hounds fight a big boar coon on the ground, the way they move and fight, just like a bear bay up

It is healthy for pups to get ripped apart by a coon lol, it will teach them that when they get big, to not mess with the even bigger bear

I agree 100% with what ZeluvaRIP69er said or should I say typed...

I try to limit my coon contact with young dogs, but may do it a little bit. I'd prefer that they accidentally found the neighbor's barn cat and ran that around instead.

In WI I've had good luck with starting dogs on coon, but have found that you can't coon hunt them hard. I'm talking knocking 50+ coons out to them in a hide season. If you do some dogs will find a preference and won't seem to want to run the other one. It also seems that if you coon hunt a dog hard, it's tough to trust them as a start dog. Our baits are littered with coon and the dogs can find a coon track to run over a bear track 5 to 1.

I just realized this, but looking back on last year it was the first year that I can remember that I didn't tree a coon. Had a few runs on some other stuff, but not 1 coon. I remember when we coon hunted some of the dogs more we'd see one or more a weekend.

Some guys have good luck with running them on them but I never have. Just my experience.

Ahh nothing better than walking through a mud swamp for a mile to pull your dogs off a coon. most of the time it doesn't happen when the bear is jumped but when they are trailing a bear and all of a sudden pop a coon up it's hard to blame them. these animals use the same game trails so when a dog runs right in to one i can't blame them. if you have a dog leaving a jumped bear for a coon, you have a problem. i start some pups with a coon but mostly let them chase the wifes cat up a tree when they are younger a few times. not too often just enough to let them tip their heads up and tree for a bit. otherwise turn them lose on a bear.

What Nolte said +1. I use them on a limited basis as well. One other thing to add is unless you freecast hunting for bear you don't necesarily want to teach or let some dogs learn to actually coon hunt. Coon hunting will do that if your not careful. I just want mine to learn to take a track whether honoring or alone. Then quit. If they learn to hunt then they'll go hunt when they get loose. Leads to other problems. Like finding their first trash race or not setting an older track because they can go hunt for something hotter. Just training with coons like straight out of truck and to track then tree and back is more than OK. Neighbors ditch cougar will work too.