? for those that have turned many new carharts to rags

[slowandeasy]

was wondering how many have had grey fox certain times of the year give that crazy bark to your hounds while they were trailing them? as if to say to them over here dummys here i am. i have my own suspition as for the reason they do this and why the dogs have so much trouble with the track. but before i say my thoughts would like to see how many others have figured it out. or like myself think they have. thanks and have fun!

[henpeck]

I've heard them from time to time, but have never put it together. You have got my attention, I'm all ears.

[Jeff Eberle]

they do it here during mating season, when they are heing & sheing . they tag team your dogs. I've been at a tree before and had the mate blow thur and pull the dog off the tree with a fox in it.

[slowandeasy]

henpeck, and jeff saw that you guys responded. but wanted to wait a little longer to put my two cents in partly out of disapointment, was hoping for more imput from others that i am sure have seen this but just haven't been on. on a side note jeff, if i wasn't saddled with a seven month old female i have hope for. i would jump on that male out of jug and the loose bruce breeding! i like the loose bruce stuff not necesarily directly out of him, and i have talked to john about what the jug dog was putting on the ground. take care!

[007pennpal]

I'm interested in this puzzle because I called in a wild barker to a very loud cat tree last year. I assumed at the time it was a coyote, although it was a shorter higher bark than what I would expect from a yote. And, I did have a grey fox race less than a mile from that cat tree. The other assumption that I made at the time was that it was a territorial challenge that the barker came to defend. Because I thought it was a coyote at the time, I loaded my dogs and left. Had I thought it was a grey I'd have given it a run.

[slowandeasy]

wow! after almost 300 hits i guess it's time for this to dye a slow death. i am saying this with great respect not being disrespectfull. but this is really not as uncomon as the replys to this topic appear. i think many have heard fox and may not have known what they were hearing. if you will google (barking fox in late september) there are three you tube examples of what foxes sound like. as just as noticeable with our hounds you will notice there is a great difference in tones with each individual. some while hunting at night may have writen these noises off possibly as birds, but it wasn't. here are my thoughts on the reason for why they do this. jeff although i have occasionaly heard them during the breeding season. i believe it is at its peak when they have their young. it is at this time i believe females and their young mother nature protects by not leaving much sent, this and being i believe the female is slowly walking, and i still believe the hounds will trail as fast as the animal they are trailing is moving explains the difficulty in trailing. and she barks to keep the hounds following her away from her young. sort of like the bird pretending to have a broken wing to get ya away from the nest. i'm relatively sure this will get torn to hell, but have seen it to many times for me to change my mind. take care and have fun! an sarge thanks for your service!

[Tim Pittman]

Guys I'm guilty of checking this thread 10 times myself.Been curious,due to lack of knowledge and experience with fox.Many of the cathunters of my area are running these now,they sound fun.One of the only other game I've cosidered running.I'm looking forward to reading more of the thread.

[al baldwin]

At my place had a fox that would show up about dusk on some summer evenings. The fox would stand at the tree line in back yard and bark. Wife & I could see the fox a times. The old hound was lying on the back deck one evening, the fox about 100 ft. away barking. The old hound ignored the fox. Not many greys around. Why slowandeasy do you think the fox did that? Al Baldwin

[CRA]

Guys,

Fox hunting is very addictive! I absolutely love a good fox race. Grandpa preferred a fox race over a cat any day of the week. Dad on the other hand was cat crazy and I think that's where I got it from. I prefer cats, but will take a fox anytime. I have got in debates with a few hound hunters that hunted cat and fox as which is tougher to tree consistently cat or fox? I can tell you that everyone that has been a fox hunter for very long will pick Fox almost everytime. I know this statement is going to generate some cat hunters to get growly at me but I believe fox are the toughest tree game to tree consistently in all different types of terrain with the exception of open hardwood rolling hills. I think cats will put up a much tougher race in open country. Fox just pop right up in open terrain with the right track dogs where cats will try and run awhile. A great California fox and cat hunter ( now passed on) in So. California told Grandpa one day that he was seriously considering breaking his dogs off cat. He told Grandpa the cat in his area ( that area had alot of those small little brush cats) couldn't run long enough to even keep his dogs in shape. I will say the hunter I'm talking about in my opinion had some of the best varmint hounds I ever witnessed in the woods.

I have been running these fox in the rim rocks in the desert country and fox use them altogether differently than a cat. Cat normally get in the rock pile a stay tight to the rocks, on the other hand fox will use them just as an obstacle to put a wrench in the track, then leave them and head for some other obstacle. If you think cat's love running roads just wait till you run fox. They are worse than cat's when it comes to running roads. They will run them for half mile to switch areas and head for either what they call home or just looking for the tighter bushier areas.

This really needs its own thread because I'm getting too far off track of your topic. Sorry S-N-E.

The barking sounds that slowandeasy is mentioning I have witnessed a few times but not in the same fashion as he described. I heard them bark at the dogs, but its usually at night while we were in our bedrolls asleep. Fox would come close to the camp (truck with campershell) and just start barking and make the dogs go nuts. You would be woke up by the sounds of their barks BOWOW, BOWOW, BOWOW. We always loaded our dogs for bed in the truck so they would get better sleep. Dogs just feel better (like a person) when they have good rest. The cold ground is just misery on their bones and not comfortable.

Having fox barking at us like they did may have been from our poorly picked campsites. We may have been parked close to where he or she dinned up to sleep. This I have no idea. When we would get tired from hunting, we would just pull off the road where we planned to wake up and restart hunting. We all had camp shells on our rigs and dog boxes with bunks on top of them. When the ground froze and the scenting conditions would worsen, we would crawl in our bed on top of our dog box and get a nap. We would get back up about 2 hours before daylight start hunting.

There is nothing better than a jumped pack of fox dogs in tight brush listening for each dog to fight for the drivers seat on the track. All our fox hunting was done at night. As a good rule of thumb in California, if you have dogs that run fox and cat, if you get a start normally after 8 or 9am it is a cat almost everytime.

Where I live and hunt cats now my normal cat race is 3 or 4 hours of cold trailing with a 5 or 10 minute jumped race then tree. Its way different than running fox in the brush on the coast.

I know people believe that running grey fox will up your coyote problems. I dont believe this. A grey fox is a totally different species as a coyote. Its like saying you cant break a bobcat dog off lions.

Dad went down one time and picked up a trigg bitch from V. Edwards and said they had the longest fox race he had ever witnessed that treed. Dad said it was an 1 hour and 45 minutes by the stop watch of a pure jumped roar with no loses. He said they never moved the truck once. Started a fire in the road and set on a folding chair listening to a fox race as they would announce which dog has taken the lead.

Tim or anyone thinking of running fox I say go for it! You will love the races. Some fox hunters say you cant cold trail up a fox and tree it. I can tell you BS! I have seen it done a bunch. I have seen great fox hounds trail for 30 minutes before they jumped. I would say on average most fox will give you a good hour plus race before treeing. A few have been ran for 8 hours by good fox dogs (not mine) and treed. I have never had that long of a fox race and that ended with a tree. Then there is some fox you just ain't going to tree. They have been dogged so much that they will run until caught on the ground. More fox are caught on the ground than hunters think. When they are caught they very seldom bloody up a hounds ear. It happens in seconds. The jumped race is cut off and dogs start falling into the road.

This thread has brought up some very old memories of mine. Thanks for starting it. Fox hunting just reminds me of my Grandpa because of his love he had for it.

[CRA]

Mr. Baldwin,

I would say yes it was a fox. Now let me ask you this, do you have fruit trees like figs or apples? Fox love fruits but will eat meat also. Is Oregon starting to get Grey Fox?

[slowandeasy]

Al, honestly i can't give ya a reason for the foxes behavior. i have spent very little time behind them, as they were always trash to me. but i am pretty sure he wasn't trying to get the old dog to go for a run. but i can say that i have been very lucky to have had a dad that followed dogs for sixty five years. this is not a my dad is better than your dad thing, just the cold hard truth. the man has forgotten more than most of the chest beaters. ya see dad never knew a thing about notes in music but could sure hear the different tones in a hound. and i sure am glad that my ears were able to savy the talent. this is the reason i was able to see what this topic was about. i heard with my ears that something wasn't wright and also heard the fox barking. really never thinking there was anything to this. but it caused me to follow the dogs. than the fox barked and i was able to get a light on it. than it was just a waiting game. when the dogs came up on its trail the village idiot could have connected the dots. and it will take seeing also for the almost five hundred that have read this thread. ya see your ears sometimes are the difference between knowing and not knowing. i'll give you another example. three very good friends of mine ran very talented dogs. sometimes different breeds than i and sometimes littermates to the same breed that i had. we were running coon. so all else was trash. they would tree bobcats, bear, and a grey once in a while. we never did, not saying ours never ran them, but when you listen, and put the juice when needed it never gets to advance to the tree. someone on the bobcat section said show me a good dogman that is a good handler and i'll show you a good pack of hounds more true words have never been spoken. take care and good talking!

[Liz ODell]

I have a resident fox pair that lives around the house, they usually bark (well it's kind of a roaring cough out of a tiny animal) alot during Feb/March (breeding) and around August/September (looking for lost/dead babies?)
This year the dog for some reason decided to give the hounds fits, not sure if he is new or maybe his mate was killed shortly before, he started crapping right in front of the dog kennel and barking at the dogs in the kennel. He finally quit a few weeks ago...just about the time I was figuring he needed to ''shuut uup'' as I was very tired of yelling that at him and the dogs every 2:30 am.
Generally they are no problem, cruise through and even bring all their pups to eat apples, I used to run them but haven't in quite a few years now - more fox than cats here and I'd rather catch cats.

[al baldwin]

CRA, SLOWANDEASY, & LIZ thanks, yes Oregon does have some fox in this area. More on the Rogue River than on South Fork Coquille, where I live. Problem running them here they want to run to houses & barns. Also seem to live along the paved road, dangerous for the dogs. CRA no doubt that was a grey fox, we watched him a few time. Yes we do have a few fruit fruit trees, mostly for the deer to eat. Yes the fox was eating the fruit, more than once left evidence on our back deck. Couple times wife spotted the fox looking thru the slideing glass door to our bed room. And yes Liz the fox did at times get the kenneled dogs barking at night, and the fox seemed to bark different & much louder then. One small orchard is very near the kennel. Once something was killing my son/s family chickens. He set a live trap & caught a grey, wife & I found the fox in the trap & said orders were if fox got caught to set it free. Son,s family were sure coon was killing chickens. Have not seen or heard a fox aroud for extended time. Tim my hunting buddy tells me grey fox are more fun to run than most bobcat. Also has told me numerous times SOME of the bobs in my area run alot like greys& if there was any fox sign in those areas if would have believed we were running greys. Thanks Al BALDWIN

[slowandeasy]

well folks was talking to dad about this,he doesn't do the computer deal. but when i told him i was confused that there was not more people that had noticed this. he was quick to remind me although i still think i'm a kid at 56 you have been doing this better than 45 years your self. and in reality probably seen it only half dozen times. so i guess although time seems to fly when your having fun. in reality it probably averages out to once every 5 to 8 years . so if i made some uncomfortable you have my apology. thanks and take care!

[tmalone]

we were running a grey one afternoon after about 40 min. he started to bark at the hounds, i knew it was a grey only because i saw it. it sounded like he would stop and bark at the hounds,run some more then do it again this went on for 5 or 6 times,then i heard a fight, it was a huge male for a grey, we mostly run reds and coyotes but do get on a few grey's!!!