Track direction.

[s_parks]

I want to know what all you bare ground guys do to ensure your dogs take the cat track on the right end. i mostly rig my dogs 99% of the time. a good friend and i have talked and i'm trying to decide if i been takeing alot of em backwards i know it happens to every one once in a while. but with out snow and being green like i am it's hard to tell when they hit a track and blow off the box i just trust they take the good end but i know thats not always the case. lets hear your thoughts on this. jc,dewey,curtj,warner5,tim,dads dog boy,al baldwin,cat dogs,marshall,mark,rouge. i want to hear all your guys thoughts on ensureing they take the good end. or do you just trust em? i know obvious if they dont heat it up bring em back and try the other side but im wanting to eleminate that step.

[Patrick]

In this country, the times you cannot find a track far outweigh those when you can. I road dogs, and will look for a track if conditions are such that I think I may find one. But I bet 90% of the time I don't even bother to look. It is not my job to take the cat end of the track, that is the dogs job and he needs to be able to do it.
Probably the best way to know they are not backtracking is if there is a cat race at the end of the track. If there consistently isn't a cat race on the end of it, for whatever reason (one could be backtracking), it is time to cull and move on to a new a new prospect.
With a couple of dogs that most all of the time do end up with the cat end of the track, if another dog is ending up somewhere else without his own cat even occasionally. time to cull him and get a new prospect.
Pat

[al baldwin]

Shawn wish I had a good solution for you, but, I don/t. I have hunted with cat hunters that I consider more knowledgable than I & they have not found any miracles. Just look for a track , most of the time can/t find one & if I do cannot be positive the cat traveled that direction last. So many variables with scenting conditions trailing bobcats that I find it difficult to believe anyone has a fool proof method. But if they do I congratulate them & sure not meaning to be disrespectable to any one. Just find a hound that proves good at getting correct end, help them when possible & turn others when confident that hound has the correct end. Just my honest opinion. GOOD LUCK THANKS AL BALDWIN

[s_parks]

patrick, like i said i hunt bare ground so its near impossible to find the track. i know that it just happens sometimes and they go on the long end but im not saying thats the case often i am just wanting to see if guys have some way the double check dogs.

al, thats the anwser i expected to hear really i know their is so much that goes in 2 every track i know it just takes lots of time and i got lots to learn i know it will come in time and the dogs and i will start to understand more.

What got the wheels turning for me i was out recently and hit a track weak strike didnt expect em to even get off the road but the got down the bank towards the creek and a couple of em opend a few times and they trailed out of their went over a ridge when i got to the top where i could hear em they were going wide open my pup was even just a singing away. headed back around the ridge where we started it when i got back to that side they were just back to trailing again so im not sure what happend but this was at 4 in the afternoon. so im not sure if it was just bad scenting in spots or they took the wrong end to start with or just made a loose and got beat. but when things like this happen i beat my head aginst the wall trying to figure it out.

[dwalton]

Shawn: I have only owned 4 dogs that were really go at taking the right end on a track or turning themselves around in 46 years of cat hunting. On hot tracks or warm tracks a lot of dogs will. Always look for tracks and with time you can tell if a track is a back track. The dogs are usually easy to turn around if they are backwards. I always take them back and make them go the other way. I have trailed the back for 4 hours in big country where I could not get to them and take them back and catch the cat when I got close enough for them to hear me. Dewey

[Marshall]

Shawn, I think that your dogs are just fine in their abilities so for a guy to say you should cull them because they might be taking the back track is just dumb. Think of it this way, how could they be culls if they have never been corrected for it? If they are backtracking then a guy needs to pay real close attention before they get to far out. I would say walk out a ways on the track to try and see. I dealt with this a lot last year before the snow came and it was tough just for the fact that it is hard to find a track in the hard packed dirt. Most people around your parts try to stay away from the snow and I don't blame them but, when you think you might be having a issue with backtracking or trash ect. Then snow can be a very useful tool and training aid. I would say if you are finding that your tracks are petering out the further they go then grab em up and take them back and try it the other way. I know the calibre of dogs you have buddy and they don't lack in any department, they just might need to be pointed in the right direction for a bit. Good luck buddy.

[mondomuttruner]

s-parks..
One thing to consider is a backtrack leads to a bed. A bed naturally has a lot more scent than the track so a hound may consider that as a jump which usually results in all the hounds barking jumped which doesn't last long when they figure out there isn't a track going out. Just food for thought....

I've been there once or twice, makes you wana pull ur hair out.

[Warner5]

I dont know how many dogs you give starting privlages to. But I start to see more problems with the more dogs I let start. Any more than 3 dogs and I start to see more problems. The season before last I spent alot of time only letting 1 dog start, trying to expose the problem. If you have a problem and you already have a dog that like's to back track off a tree, I would start looking there. Have fun. John.

[Tim Pittman]

I'm not saying allways,but when I'm hunting alone[95+%of the time]usually in a short time and distance my suspicions usually start rising by the way my lead dog sounds and a 1/2 trigg bitch I have seldomly barks on a back track more than a few times before she starts turning it around.A male dog I have I call Bozo seems to be possibly the best I've had for this yet[if I stay out of his way,when I'm not sure].Is my belief that after the dogs go aways[on the ones opening]you can here a difference in their voice[sounds like they have desperity in it]hard to describe.I allways look for a track[hunted the snow this year less than 10% of the season]or I pay attention to the direction of the scratch and scat to see which way it seemes the cat was heading when he deficated.Sometimes it also helps to be observant of the terrain,wind,weather,to see where the prey would be for the cat to make a hunt on.The cat hunts with his nose as well as eyes and ears,just like the dogs.Have you guys ever had a cat tree in a real steep 2 sided draw and have the dogs quite a ways off the tree[ground distance]but treeing hard,grab your lighter out and see for sure where the wind is coming from---sideways,up,down and start looking in that direction and find the cat.I believe the cat winds game this way and this is what dictates his direction of hunt.If you find a fresh kill and the dogs will smell the cat best there but coming into the kill[the cat]is sneaking--less scent,going away should be best even though probably not in a hurry,still stinks better[in my experience,not claiming this as gospel,more like coincidental observation]and the the track should heat up quicker and shorter on this end[due to going to lay up].Considering Slownsteady's theory about trailing the trotting tracks[of acat not being trailed yet]would usuallay indicate a empty belly,hunting cat on the move.I'm not very good about getting all my thoughts into words,so hopefully some of this makes sense.My brain works alot faster than my fingers.See ya for now.

[s_parks]

marshall: we talked on the phone and i thought hard on it and what your saying makes total sense i think the track the other day was backwards i think they just sounded jumped because that area just held the scent better just a guess thou.



mondo: what your saying also makes sesne to me im convienced they had the back track on the race marshall and i are talking about. but i do not hunt snow so its hard to correct em when i cant see a track. but i agree with what your saying.


Warner:i only have 3 dogs or 2 and a pup and a give em all the privleage to start the track i dont chain em up so when they hit a track they are off the box usually before i can even get stopped. but maybe ill tie 2 back and just let 1 start see how that goes. but i have never had any trouble with a dog leaving the tree.


Tim: i get ya i have the same problem and i hunt alone also i only hunt with a select few guys. but i do believe that terrain has a big effect and i look at the scratch or where it shit at and always try to determin its direction. i got a strike today pretty weak but i got out followed the dogs to see if i could find what they hit and about 30 yards off the road found a old pile of shit it was in fir needels so i could tell the way it coverd it and where it was headed. so i just watched the dogs and they tried to take it every direction but could not move it but i was happy they were searching hard for the out track so i could tell the way it went so i took em across the road walked em out for a ways their tails would wag a bit but never got it fresh enough to open.



I thank everyone for the input it helps alot.

[catdogs]

First off, I am by no means a bareground bobcatter!

I think dogs that take the track the right way most of the time, have a knack for it. Kinda like a natural rig dog. I also think that taking the track the right way has a alot to do with experience. The more experienced the dog, the more often they will be right and also, as they age, they get better at it. Dogs all wound up are gonna take it in which ever way they are pointing....one good start dog is my best bet, once lined out, then dump in the others.

[slowandeasy]

be carefull guys, with trying to evaluate track direction based on scratch direction. i know the old timers had good intentions and really put in alot of hard work putting the pieces of this together. and i can't give a percentage of times it is wright or wrong. but with modern tecnology good trail cameras with vidio have proven not only do they often walk off the opposite direction of the scrape. but females also make scrapes. like tim has said see what direction it appears to be going. trust but verify with every sixth sence you have. take care

[al baldwin]

Thanks guys good reading. Tim like you say I have suspicions by amount of barking & etc, but been wrong so many times, sure not something I can trust. Problem I,ve found when hunting area that cats start to move when they hear a dog bark, if I turned dogs too quick on those would really have the dogs confused. Of course there are times I make decesion to turn the dogs & only if produces a jump can I be sure it was the correct decesion. Dewey guess I/VE been lucky had several dogs that were good at getting the correct end. Some of those needed help to catch tough cats, the Bell female was one of them. Recall once trying to turn her on a bear track, track plainly indictated she was backwards. She defied me an took the track as she wanted, no e-collar & was disgusted, until she jumped & treed the bear. Another time recall trailing an old track with my mentor, he sure knew more than I, after a long trail job, he decided dogs were backwards. Called his dogs off, no sooner had his dogs reach us, Bell jumped the bear. Lucky, she ran the bear toward us, got the dogs in & treed the bear. Realize bear & cat are very different, but, believe getting the correct end would be same. Thanks Al Baldwin