New to Cats in MN

[Redbarntrailhounds]

Hello all,

My name is Allen from Sauk Rapids, MN. I am looking for input on my hound hunting strategy.
I own two walker cross blueticks, male 3 plus and female 2 1/2. I have had the female since she was a pup and the male was adopted when Katie was 6 months old. I am as green as they get for cat hunters.
My dogs are finally proving themselves as coon hounds they will consistently tree released coon and wild coon they will tree 1 out of 2 strikes. They have collectively treed 15 coon this fall. We had lots of trees that I couldn't verify because of leaves.
As far as obedience goes they are doing well. I have much more experience with retriever training and have used this knowledge to help me with these two. I have broke them mostly off deer both hot out of the box fresh tracks and crossed scent tracks while they are trailing live coon or cat scent. I also had experiences in the woods with a skunk and a possum. Knock on wood they haven't ran trash in a while.
To start on cats I have been running them twice a week since we first got snow. I have run scent trails with and with out deer scent traps. They have treed all my sets.
I am an instructor at the local technical college so I have the next few weeks off and all I want for Christmas is to finish a bobcat.
Are my dogs ready for a real run? Should I break them off coyote?

Thanks Allen

[david]

Allen, if they are green broke you should be OK. Take your best one. Get out there and find a fresh bobcat track after a recent snow. Put the dog on a leash and walk out the track.

I know of a book called Bobcat Dog that Double U supply has for sale. It has a lot about this written in there. a lot of references of, and photos of MN also. Save yourself a few years and a few thousand dollars: buy the book and read it three times. It was written with you in mind. I'm just sayin'

[mark]

Sure like your style David!...... Have a very Merry Christmas

[david]

I am an instructor at the local technical college so I have the next few weeks off and all I want for Christmas is to finish a bobcat.
Are my dogs ready for a real run? Should I break them off coyote?

Thanks Allen

Always good hearing from you Mark. The Armstrong photos are amazing.

Allen, I kind of missed that you have the time and opportunity to go hunting now, and you might not later. With that in mind, I gave you the wrong advice about the book. You don't have time and you could write your own book after a few weeks of getting out there with your dogs. You need to go find real bobcat tracks and get to hunting. If you don't know bobcat tracks spend some time seriously studying house cat tracks before you go.

I say one dog on a leash because then you will not have trouble with off-game. If you have two un-broke dogs running free together you are asking for trouble. If you want a wrestling match in the brush and tons of frustration, take both dogs on a leash. but they may get each other in trouble on the next faze.

Keep your dog on a leash and walk up the track until it is hot and the dog wants to go like crazy. Then let him go and try your best to keep up, but stay on the bobcat track, not the dog track. When he makes a lose is when he might get in trouble with off game, but get him back on the bobcat track. If it has cooled down, put him back on the leash until you get it hot again.

When ever you cross fresh tracks of off-game with the dog on the leash, and you can tell he can smell it, make your dog think you have lost it. Do a crazy show of how much you hate the smell of this thing. Make him hope you guys don't ever come across a smell like that again because he cant stand to see you act like that. His chain keeps getting jerked around in the hurricane, and there is a frightening sound you make whenever you smell this thing and he would just rather that did not happen to you again. Then get the dog beyond the off-game and back on the cat track and do an encouraging demonstration on how much you LOVE the smell of this thing, and you LOVE dogs who love the smell of this thing and you feel sooo much better now.

If you get a few inches of soft Minnesota snow, you have a chance of finishing a bobcat track, even with a coon dog, if you have the time to get out there and do this every day. The education you get will be better than a book, even if you don't get the track finished.

No more fake tracks, get out there on the real thing.

[Redbarntrailhounds]

Thanks for the tips David. It is supposed to snow a few inches tonight. I hope to find a track tomorrow. Also I am definitely ordering the book I can't wait to read it.
Thanks Allen

[Redbarntrailhounds]

How cold is too cold to run. We are getting fresh snow tonight but the high for tomorrow is 5 above and it will most likely be below zero when we start a track.
Thanks Allen

[shawn cole]

run um !!

[david]

We used to kind of avoid anything colder than 10 below, but that rule kind of went by the way side eventually. We hunted when ever we could get out there. If you have a female that has recently nursed, her nipples may freeze, especially if dragging in the snow. I have seen them frozen so hard that we just knew she could never raise another litter, but they came back just fine some how. The male parts can get kind of hard as well. I can remember feeling like an idiot because of some of these things, but some how the dogs returned to normal. I wish I could say the same for my hands. Not so. We have tried coats for the dogs with very unsatisfactory results.

I think Shawn's advice is all you need.

[Dan McDonough]

I have some advice. When it's very cold, open up your dog box and let the dogs cool down for about 15 minutes before they get out and go to work. Their body will put it in gear for the brutal cold. If you don't they can flash freeze parts.

I had six dogs in an Owens dog box with everything shut up except for the opening left at the top of the winter doors. I put a dog down on a track when it was -26 and he flash froze his feet. I put him up and opened the box up to let the dog-generated heat out of the box and put him down about 20 mins. later and he ran and caught the cat on the ground (I think). It was across a river I was unwilling to cross and his breath smelled like cat butt when he got back plus the race sounded like it was a catch. It's a weird lesson to learn and not the thing you might think of doing to remedy a situation like that but it did the trick. Hope this helps.

Another odd reference here is that when terriers are fighting under ground for a while it's best to stuff them right into your coat when they come to the surface otherwise they can freeze their lungs when they come from a relatively warm condition out into -10 and lower air temps. That was the wisdom I was drawing on when I decided to open the box on the hounds and let them adjust before letting them out again in the above story.

[Redbarntrailhounds]

I went out today for the second time and was unsuccessful at locating a cat track. I kind of feel like a quitter but after seeing coyote tracks all over I decided I would find the freshest coyote track near home and attempt to run that. I never broke them off coyotes and they have only been hunted on coon until this point. They did pretty good I think. They circled it twice I saw him once before he went across a field into a huge cat tail swamp that I didn't have permission on. I badly want to hunt cats but we have coyotes lots of them and the permission is easy.
If I run coyotes can I still do coon and maybe cat occasionally. I feel like they will run what ever I put them on when it is hot enough, but I will be sorry next spring when I want to run them on coon again.
Thanks Allen

[david]

Allen, maybe I forgot to mention this, but, "Bobcat Hunting Sucks!" That is the title for my next book I hope you had some fun with that coyote. There are lots of great coyote hunters in MN, and when they get bored with coyote, they will put the same dogs on bobcat if they happen to see a track. They catch em too.

In the early days we knew where some cats were and sometimes might go two days without finding a track. I mean looking day and night round the clock. If you don't know the cats yet, it can be awful.

Some of the Wisconsin bear hunters swear they can run coyote in the snow all winter, and bear in the no snow all summer/fall, and the dogs stay true to task. Ask them about those hard running little bear that they never see and never catch though Once in a while they might see a coyote cross the road to get out of the way of the dogs so they can bring that bear across. Some times the bear doesn't show. Tricky bears.

The main thing Allen is have fun with your dogs. There may be some things you will do differently the next time around. Dont take it so seriously as some of us did. I sure wish I had tried coyote hunting. Never did though. Maybe some day I will. There sure a lot of them around. Maybe you can hunt coyote and cat all winter in the snow, and coon when there is no snow, like the Wisconsin bear men.
Let us know what you find out about that. But dangit, what ever you do, have some fun!

[Redbarntrailhounds]

I appreciate your advice. I can't wait your book it should be here Friday. I spoke with a game warden and I can run cats back in Wisconsin as long with out a licence as long as someone has licence. So I will try and do that since we go home quite a few times during season. A few of my neighbors said there was a group of guys that run coyote around here I will try to hook up with them it is so open around here I am not sure if I could catch one by my self. After not running a coon for over a month it was sure awesome to watch and listen to my to hounds sounding off in the middle of the section. I just want them to be in as many chases as they can. I won't run them on coon again until after the snow is gone.
I know I can get my retriever to pass a bird that fell close and go on a blind retrieve. So I should be able to get my hounds to run coyote and cat in the snow on tracks that I place them on and any time they are free casting at night with out snow it is for coon only.
Well for now we are running coyote. When the ground dries up and I start chasing coon I might be sorry, but for now I will be running at least.
Thanks Allen

[NorWester]

I have some advice. When it's very cold, open up your dog box and let the dogs cool down for about 15 minutes before they get out and go to work. Their body will put it in gear for the brutal cold. If you don't they can flash freeze parts.

I had six dogs in an Owens dog box with everything shut up except for the opening left at the top of the winter doors. I put a dog down on a track when it was -26 and he flash froze his feet. I put him up and opened the box up to let the dog-generated heat out of the box and put him down about 20 mins. later and he ran and caught the cat on the ground (I think). It was across a river I was unwilling to cross and his breath smelled like cat butt when he got back plus the race sounded like it was a catch. It's a weird lesson to learn and not the thing you might think of doing to remedy a situation like that but it did the trick. Hope this helps.

Another odd reference here is that when terriers are fighting under ground for a while it's best to stuff them right into your coat when they come to the surface otherwise they can freeze their lungs when they come from a relatively warm condition out into -10 and lower air temps. That was the wisdom I was drawing on when I decided to open the box on the hounds and let them adjust before letting them out again in the above story.

Flash freezing feet?? What does that even mean? Freezing their lungs? How do you know this Dan?
I've been running dogs and/or keeping dogs outdoors in a northern climate most of my adult life and never heard of such things?
Last two nights it's been -40 on the stick here....I'm gettin soft I guess cause I waited until it was about -30 celsius (-20 F ) before I turned dogs out today....second day in a row. I'm pretty sure we didn't flash freeze feet ....can't tell about their lungs but the dogs seem fine to me.....you're making me frightened to go outside

[Dan McDonough]

Funny. If a terrier is in a hole baying in what started out to be 45 degrees and gets in tight and the body heat and moisture increases to a fairly high level and the terrier comes out into the sub-zero super dry climate above ground it can flash freeze it's lungs. I've not had it kill any of my dogs but I've been aware of the danger from early on in my terrier career.

As for the feet, it was a similar situation and I took out a dog that had been in a warm (60 degrees or better) moist environment and put him on the ground and that is what I saw. You can check with Pat on that one, he was the only other person there. It was my dog Buddy and Buddy rolled over on his back and laid there in the snow with all four feet in the air. When I finally convinced Buddy to walk back to the truck he came out of the fluffy snow and walked onto the hard pack of the road. When I looked down at his feet they were clinched up tight and he was walking up on the tips of his toenails in order to keep his pads off of the ground. I've talked to two other people now that have seen the same thing.

[NorWester]

I used to do the terrier thing myself....spent some time barn busting coon with them in MN with a very well known terrierman. We never had that issue or even thought of it. Who would have made you aware of such a thing??
I kept a number of my terriers in the house......to the best of my knowledge they never froze their lungs going outside into the cold.....and some of them would shoot out the door like little rockets looking to chase whatever was in the driveway,real or imagined.
Bud from MN used his Buster dog on a 'cat in a culvert.... it was -32 outside Took Buster about 40 minutes to kill that cat stone dead. He rode in the dogbox in the back of the truck on the way home and never had lung damage....dog is alive and well today.

As for your Buddy dog.....I think he was in shock.... I've felt the same way going out into the cold too...but it wasn't cause my feet "flash froze".
IF that dogs feet were frozen....do you really think you'd have been running him 20 minutes later?
Enough with the over dramatized folklore, bro....unless you're just lookin to freak out the southern guys