Bobcats and coons

[Taylor]

i have heard that if u want to consistently catch cats u can't be running coons is this true? And if so why?

[1bludawg]

No,its not true BUT you can catch more cats if you don't run anything else.

[JTG]

Several years ago, I pick up a pup from Buzz Anderson and it made a good coon dog but not much on cats. I crossed it with a hound from Del that was a great natural cat dog.
I bred the two and kept a male, by himself he was a excellent coon dog, and would tree a truck load of squirrels. When I hunted him with a pack, he would only hunt cats. I often thought, if he was like a horse where you had to train both sides of the brain.

[Redbarntrailhounds]

Depending where you live you may not be able to practically run straight cats. I am thank full for the days we get in Minnesota. If my dogs strike on a coon while free casting our roading then we end up skinning a coon. We search for a track if the snow conditions are right.
Allen
Sauk Rapids

[pegleg]

Its similar to straight lion dogs here. Unless you take a friend or guide hunts after a while your just practicing catch n release . however if you run bobcat to you can just keep hunting. But when your after lion and the dogs seem to be swimming in bobcat tracks all of a sudden it can be frustrating.
I still prefer multi species dogs. Most hounds have or develop a preference anyway.

[david]

[Hounder900]

This has always been a big problem where I run my dogs. I live in the preverbal land of bobcat milk and honey. Year long season, great numbers, and not another bobcat hound with in 200 miles. The only problem is coons out number cats here 20 to 1 (don't quote me on those numbers I'm just guessing). Plus, bobcats and coons here share the same habitat. If my dogs start a bobcat there's no doubt that they'll cut several hot coon tracks before they get him caught. It took me awhile to figure this out having started my dogs on a pile bobcat, only to walk into a tree, brush pile, or beaver damn full of coons. So I tried different times of the year and different times of the day but all I did was teach my dogs to cold trail more coons. I was catching more coons in the day light then ever before at night and not even trying to. Before this I though I knew what a good dog was, turns out all I really knew was what a good coon dog was. So I cleaned out my kennel and got some bobcat bread cat only dogs. There young but I'm doing better then ever before. The races are longer and the frustration of off game is no more. Although I do miss walking into some coon trees now and again I prefer the excitement of a good cat race. I guess the perfect dog for me and my area would be a dog that would drop a smoking hot coon track to push a cold cat track. Best of both worlds right? Anyhow, I guess I agree with all the above, depending on the area, coons can make for a real frustrating cat hunt.

Disclaimer: I'm still a cat rookie so take the above with a grain of salt. I have a tun of learning to do yet.

[1bludawg]

Were you treeing any cats at all with those dogs? If you did you could stop shooting the coon and only reward them when they treed a cat.When i decided to stop running coons back in the 80's i never broke my dogs off them .I would just scold them and lead them off the tree.I never considered it a big deal if they treed a coon,i just didn't want to run them anymore .It wasn't long and they were straight on cats .

[Hounder900]

Yeah I caught 3 over the course of about year bluedawg. I treed cub on accident one night in June. Which is what got me started into all this flooishness. Then treed another in September and caught one on the ground in March. So far I haven't caught any during kill season yet but I've killed a lot of bobs calling and trapping so the kill isn't a big deal for me. I just want to catch cats and take in the thrill of the chase and catch. I was hound hunting 3 to 4 days a week all that year. So out of about 180 trips to the woods I caught 3. Haha, sounds bad when I put it that way. But mean while I don't think there was ever a time when we went out and didn't catch at least one coon. I would shoot umm a coon here and there if it was a particularly good looking one and kill season was open. But they would also catch a fair amount of coon on the ground as well. I had a lot fun and some of those races were as exciting as it gets. But my catch rate stunk and almost always ended up with coons.

[al baldwin]

I have known hunters that hunted both cat & coon, sure seen those dogs catch some hard running cats. If your cat are thin it could be tough to make young dogs hunting cat only. As Robin stated you will catch more cat if you don/t run coon. I have also known hunters who had the dogs taught to run hot coon tracks only, that stops the problem of dogs switching from cat tracts to a cold coon track. Have fun & hunt how you desire. Al

[pegleg]

I know multi species hounds can be a challenge. I don't break my dogs from coon but we don't have many. The problem is the surprising areas coon can be found in the desert. But bobcat and lion our where my dogs find out that sometimes things need to be passed up. One saving grace that I do appreciate sometimes . my hounds usually won't switch tracks very easily. I'm not sure why and haven't seen it in other lines much with a few exceptions. They seem to get stronger on this trait as they age.

[Hounder900]

I often wonder about showing my pups coyotes. Giving the numbers around here a guy could learn a lot about his up and coming talent in a real short amount of time. But I feel as though there's something to be said about the correlation between what a dogs started on and what they prefer to run. Because of this I feel like that could cause me real problems down the road cutting from one track type to another mid race. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's something I noticed with my hounds. I'm sticking with straight bobcat dogs for now but I might try fox when there around 2 years and see how that treats me. But the first time they skip a bob to chase a fox I'm goning to put an end to that. Haha

[southern fox]

haven't been on here in awhile how everybody doing , here in the south I haven't seen a straight cat dog, most here run both cat and fox , but if u run more fox than cat they better on fox than cat , and vice versa, we don't have many fox , so run a lot of cat , year round have a lot to get away for some going up a tree , we don't use tree dogs , running dogs only, there is no one here that uses tree dogs for cat , only coons , dog needs a lot of one on one with mr tom , to be right, and some never make it there just followers of a good race, takes a hound to consistently catch bobcats, he has to be used, regularly, my biggest gripe when training hounds is not deer or coyote, its small game mostly coons, seems like theres something close in smell, young dogs, well most all I ever seen will mess with coons , and u got to break them , most of the time off coons , as for dogs leaving a hot cat track to run a fox, have never had it to happen , that I can recall, one or the other, now I have had and seen some turn a deer out of a hot fox race , and a coyote out the race , lots of times, get a lot of young dogs together and something will take place if the cat race goes to pot, I would say pay attention to whats going on very close, cause if a man says he aint having problems he isn't hunting , if u hunting all broke dogs , u will be okay and 4 ayears age and older u wont have many problems , mix the youngesters in look out ! I never get more young dogs trying to start at once than I have broke dogs recipe for disaster,

[dwalton]

It all depends on what you want in a hound bobcat, coon, lion, bear or a coyote dog. I only run bobcat my pups may tree a lion ever other year never run a fox, bear or coon. We are getting a lot of fox here which a lot of the guys run some guys run most tree game here also. From the guys that run off game[ which for me is anything but a bobcat] they just don't seem to be able to find many bobcats. Just not any around? I wonder why? Each to their own. Hunt what you enjoy to hunt but realize if you run everything you are going to find a lot less bobcats. Dewey

[twist]

A lot of good wisdom here. I believe it totally depends on what part of the country you live in. I'm in Montana I no longer run coon haven't for the past 20 yrs not because of it conflicting with running cats just because I don' have the desire any more. In this part of the country it sure doesn't hurt anything for one to run thier dogs on coon then switch to cats. As for the most part coons aren't in same locations as cats and weather also plays a factor as coons and snow and cold don't mix. Andy